21 Ways to Promote Your Site Online and Off

21 Ways To Promote Your Website - Part One by Neil Stafford

Offline Promotions

1. Always put your URL on letterhead, business cards and in
e-mail signatures--wherever potential visitors are likely to
see it.

2. If your employees wear uniforms, put your URL on them so
every one of your customers sees a walking advertisement of
your website.

3. Include your URL on all promotional items you give
away--coffee mugs, T-shirts, keychains and so on. A daily
reminder is a good way to get people to visit your site.

Content Continues Below

4. Be sure to include your webaddress in all press releases
you send out to members of the media. By having it at their
fingertips, they may be more likely to include it in articles
they write about your company.

5. Don't forget to put your webaddress in your Yellow Pages
ad. That's one place people see it every day.

6. Do you own any company vehicles? Be sure to put your
URL on the side of any car or truck that's out there delivering
your products.

7. In addition to listing your toll-free number, put your
webaddress on the bottom of every page of your catalog so
customers have easy access to your online store.

Online Promotions

8.Hone your search engine submission processso you can get
the best exposure possible.

9. If you're still itching for more exposure, you can explore
search engine marketing, wherein you pay to have a text ad
appear when visitors search for certain keywords.

10. Launch a sweepstakesthat offers anyone who registers
on your site or subscribes to e-newsletters within a certain
time frame the chance to win a free gift.

11. Send out a weekly e-mail newsletterto registered site
members that offers tips and news related to your company
or industry with links back to your site.

12. Offer free contentto other sites. It's a win-win situation:
The other site gets free articles to beef up their offerings and
you get a link back to your site and the cachet of being an
expert.

13. Send a well-planned, customer-focused e-mail
promotionto a targeted list of potential visitors and offer a
credit toward the purchase of anything from your site. Spend
time on your e-mail's look and content: You want to offer
value to customers and not have it appear to be spam.

14. Create your own link exchangeby asking sites
complementary to yours (but that don't compete) to put your
link on their pages and you'll do likewise.

15. Hook up with webaffiliates--hundreds of sites that all link
their traffic to yours--and get visitors from sites with related
content.

16. Get active in online discussion groups and chats and
always include your URL in your signature. (Don't do any
hard selling, though. Most groups frown on such behavior and
will think you're spamming the group.)

17. Any time someone orders a product from your site,
include a catalog with their order to get them coming back for
more.

18. Inspire your visitors to spread the word for you with viral
marketing techniques, from the aforementioned newsgroup
participation to including an "e-mail this link" on every page
of your site.

19. Not sure what your customers want? Try creating an
online surveyto get their crucial opinions on how well your
site is selling to them.

20. When creating your own ads, make sure you understand
who you're targeting, the goal of your campaign, and how to
creatively use the ad confines to get viewers to click on your
ad, not away from it.

21. Use other selling venues like online classified advertising
or online auction sites to increase exposure to your site and
products

21 Ways to Promote Your Site
Online and Off