Get Your Web Site Noticed!

The three responses:

#1: If I put a web site out there it will be one of millions!

So it's useless for me to have a website!

Usually when I get this response I reply that like everything else your web

site has to be marketed. Would you start a business and never advertise?

It's like signing a death warrant. Even though a web site is used as

advertisement for your business in some cases it (the web site) still has to be

marketed as well. I usually don't spend to much time with these people and

let them get on with their lives.

#2: If I put up a web site I can sell out all of my inventory

that's taking up space!

I just came across this one today, and had to let the customer know that just

putting up a web site is not going to magically help him get rid of all of his

excess inventory. He had to know the finer points of how to get a web site

noticed. One thing about these type of customers I noticed is that they

don't realize it takes money to make money. Below I will give numerous

examples that are very cost effective for getting your web site noticed.

But to do the job fully and correctly, you'll have to expect to spend some

money. In the end it is always worth it. (Except if you are trying

to sell ice cubes in Antarctica. Then I would highly suggest hiring an

excellent salesperson.)

#3: Great! I can have a web site up to display my items

24/7! Can you point me in the right direction on how to market a web site?

These are the kind of responses I like! Someone with good business

sense and knows a little bit on how to succeed in business. These kinds of

customers I can speak freely to and give them the different kind of options that

they can take. And this article will touch base on some of the details on

what to do. It would pay to do research on marketing from the internet,

marketing books, advisors, etc. There are many sources out there if you

look.

Not all web traffic is equal!

One thing that you have to remember is that not all

web traffic is equal! I added many pages detailing how to set up a SSL

certificate on different control panels. Plus a FAQ page on SSL

certificates and the details of the options you have for picking a SSL

certificate. (SSL certificates are the things that give you a padlocked

secure site for shopping carts and what not.) As a result of this I get

MUCH traffic from people using the search engines looking for information on SSL

certificates. At least a few hundred per month. This type of traffic

generally already have a web site and are looking for instructions on how to

install a SSL certificate they already have. I generally only sell SSL

certificates to people that I designed their web pages for. It just makes

it simpler for me. Although anyone is welcome to visit my site and

purchase one for a web site somewhere else.

So you can see how this type of traffic is not very

beneficial for making me money, but I am glad that I can help the public out in

some way. I also get a fair amount of traffic from software that can be

downloaded from my site. And again this does not generate much business.

But one thing to remember is that this type of traffic does make your site more

known and remembered, and someone may remember your site when someone talks to

them about needing this or that.

How do you get web traffic that counts?

To get web traffic that counts and to make your web

site known to the public you have to market your site to let people know that it

is there. After people know that your web site is there you will have a

portal to your business where people can visit 24/7. It's like having a

salesperson at your beck and call 24 hours a day, and having someone to sell

your merchandise online 24 hours a day. In the long run with the right

marketing plan this can really pay off, and here are some tips on how to do it.

PPC Advertising!

You can set up a pay per click advertising campaign to however much you want

to spend per month. A great deal of keyword research should be done on

this and there are some courses on the web that will help you learn how to get

the most benefit from this. Pay per click campaigns are the results of the

sponsored listings in the search engines. The search engines have to make

money some how to stay up and running! Don't they? This is why you

see meta search engines slowly dying out. Here is Wikipedia's definition

of PPC:

Pay per click, or PPC, is an advertising technique used on websites,

especially search engines. Pay per click advertisements are usually text ads

placed near search results; when a site visitor clicks on the advertisement, the

advertiser is charged a small amount. Variants include pay for placement and pay

for ranking. Pay per click is also sometimes known as Cost Per Click or CPC.

The most popular pay-per-click search engines are Google AdWords and Yahoo!

Overture, followed by Findwhat, Shopping.com, NexTag, Bizrate and Pricegrabber.

Depending on the search engine, minimum prices per click start at US$0.01 (up to

US$0.50). Very popular search terms can cost much more on popular engines. Abuse

of the pay per click model can result in click fraud.

PPC engines can be categorized in "Keyword" engines and "Product" engines.

SEO or Organic Listings!

SEO (search engine optimization) is more costly at first, but pays off in the

long run. Organic searches are used 80% of the time, while the sponsored

searches are used 20% of the time. As an example of what SEO can do for

your site. If you typed in 'web development contractor' into MSN or Google

you'll see my site,

www.theinternetpresence.com, at the #1 position. And it is

currently #18 in Yahoo! These stats were taken on 6/9/05. Some of the

things that I am going to list below will both help get your site noticed and

help your web site rankings in the search engine. Be looking for

www.highwebrankings.com coming soon

to help you achieve these results.

SEO is achieved by careful research of your keywords (which you may already

have if you did this for your PPC campaign), careful placement of keywords in

your content, proper web design structure, submitting your site to search

engines and directories, and building a good linking strategy.

Get Valuable Links Pointing to your Site!

This method can both be free and cost you money. There are numerous

directories and search engines that you can submit to that do not cost a dime.

THE most important directory to submit to still doesn't cost a dime! It is

DMOZ found at www.dmoz.org.

Although it is free it is slow in getting listed there. It can take months

to get listed there. The 2nd most popular (and most valuable) directory to

submit to is Yahoo! It's cost is currently $299 per year. These two

directories help your search engine rankings the best and are also helpful to

getting your web site known. Do a search on the internet for more

directories to submit to. Especially directories that are specific to your

web site theme. For example if you sell shoes you could type in 'shoe

directory' into the search engine.

You can also write articles like this one and put your web site address on

the bottom, do reciprocal linking (but there are dangers with this if you do it

with the wrong people), and many other ways to get links pointing to your site.

For more information on how to do this visit



http://www.theinternetpresence.com/business-article-30.htm. It has an

article there entitled, "How and Why to Build a Linking Strategy."

Offline Promotion!

Have your web site address printed on your invoices, receipts, business

cards, flyers, newspaper ads, radio ads, and television ads. The

possibilities are endless. Let all of your customers know that you have a

web site now. Set up a press release pointing out the conveniences for

your customers if they use your web site. Word of mouth goes a long way.

Another idea is to have your web site address plastered on bill boards or on the

side of company vehicles. Giving away promotional items such as pens that

have your web site address on it can help too. Just be sure that the pens

work well or else they can end up giving you a bad name. I've thrown away

quite a few crappy pens in my day and thought that the businesses had the same

quality.

On Site Promotion!

While people are at your site you can set up a 'Refer a Friend' link, 'Email

this Page to a Friend' link, or a 'Print This Page' link to help gain

popularity. Also you could offer discount coupons that are only available

from your web site. This will help you track where your customers are

coming from.

If you do a little hunting and searching you'll find

many ways to promote your web site, and soon your web site will become so

popular that it will be promoting your business very well. If you would

like more informational articles on how to promote your business and web site

read our archive of articles at

www.theinternetpresence.com and coming soon

www.highwebrankings.com.

Highwebrankings.com is going to be a division of Internet Presence that will

show you how to optimize your site, provide you with the reports you need to SEO

your site, offer services such as keyword research, etc. And if you don't

want to attempt to do it yourself we can do it for you. So be looking for

this site to show up in the coming months.

Until the next article, have a great day!

Copyright © Michael Rock







This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.










(You have permission to copy this article as long as it remains intact with the

author's byline)




Web development contractor (Web Design and Hosting)


Internet Presence


www.TheInternetPresence.com

The owner of this registered company

has over twenty years experience with DOS, windows business applications, numerous

programming languages, artistic development, and web design. Other areas of

interest include web marketing, web promoting, and business marketing and

development. After the persuasion of those praising his work, he decided to go

into business himself and highly suggests everyone else to do the same.

Internet Presence was founded in 2003

from a desire to become independent. Less than 1 year later Internet Presence

has had accounts in three different states ranging from a locally owned auto

collision repair shop to a glass packaging industry that sells its product

worldwide.