CREATING AN ONLINE PRESENCE: HOW TO PROMOTE YOUR WEBSITE AND HELP GROW YOUR BUSINESS
Now that you have built your website, an important phase begins - that of promoting your website so that you can help get more visitors to your website.
The Internet is increasingly being used by people to search for solutions to match their personal and business needs. Internet users have limitless choices in a crowded online market. A simple keyword search for "handicrafts" for example, can result in over 10,000 matching categories on popular search engines. The key challenge therefore is to attract visitors to your website.
In order to reach more people who may be interested in your business, you will need to actively promote your website. There are a number of ways in which you can do this. Listed here are techniques that can help.
A .com domain name can help spell success online. An important first step to conducting business on the Internet is to select and register a domain name. To help boost your company’s visibility on the Web and to establish your brand online, choose a meaningful domain name and register it as soon as possible.
Just as location in the offline world can be important for the growth of your business, a .com domain name can be the cornerstone of your online success. A .com domain name offers you one of the best options as it helps provide instant recognition, visibility and credibility for your brand online. A .com is appropriate for businesses of all sizes and it is currently the most widely used domain name extension around the world1.
Include your domain name on all company literature. You should promote your domain name at every opportunity, from the business card, to office supplies to print advertising that you may still undertake. This helps introduce your company to businesses who may not be familiar with what you do but have a need for your services and products.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO helps your website respond better to search engines which are a primary method of navigation for almost all Internet users. In order to promote your website effectively through search engines, you need to know your target audience and how they might search for the items or services you sell. With this knowledge, you can effectively build in those search terms into the content of your website. SEO requires technical adjustments to your website which makes your website content available to search engines so that it can rank higher in search results.
Request reciprocal links. You can also agree with other website owners of similar or related interests to display each other’s website links. To do so, identity companies with websites that make a good match to your own and contact the owner to ask if they will link to your website in exchange for you linking to theirs. If you sell accessories on your website, for example, you can set up a link exchange with another website that sells apparel or shoes.
Register your domain name on search engines. Registering your domain name on search websites can help boost visibility, since many Internet users utilize these websites to search for companies and services.
In today’s economic environment, businesses will be well-served to look at their company’s website as an effective promotional tool that helps to maintain consistent brand exposure, especially with limited resources.
Welcome to the Internet World.
1 During the fourth quarter of 2010, the overall base of .com and .net domain names grew to reach a combined total of 105.2 million names, according to the Verisign Domain Name Industry Brief (Volume 8, Issue 1, February 2011)