Search Engine promotion & marketing - ways to promote your web site
Make your Web site impossible to ignore
Give great advice and helpful information on your website, this will encourage people to comeback and visit the site again and again, this builds up trust and establishes you as an expert in your chosen field.
Make sure ALL your staff know the web site address – the people in your office should be giving the website address to everyone they come into contact with, the site can be added to and kept up to date with things such as directions to the office, opening times and news about the company.
Make sure they know the relevant email addresses as well as this can save hours on unnecessary phone calls.
Company Stationery
Print your website address on every piece of stationery or written communication that leaves your business, these would include
- Letterheads
- Business Cards
- Compliment Slips
- Leaflets
- Brochures
- Christmas Cards
- Accounting correspondence - invoices, statements and payment slips
- Cheques
- Payslips
Publicise your web address
You should also include your web address on:-
- Your shop front(s)
- A sandwich board outside
- Till receipts
- Price labels
- Carrier bags
- Car window and bumper stickers
- LED display sign
- Uniforms (embroidered or printed on fluorescent overjackets)
Print it on:-
- Calendars
- Pay and display car park tickets
- Theatre and cinema tickets – these can be a good way of targeting local people quickly
- Buy a self inking rubber stamp and use it on everything you can
Outside the office you should use the web address on the following
- Signwrite company vehicles - cars, vans, lorries, motorbikes
- Put a sign in a field (with the landowner’s agreement!)
- Advertising lorry
Liven up the landscape with…
- Flags / bunting
- Banners
- Large posters
- Tourist info signs, e.g. the Fovant Badges board
With the website you need to consider the following
- Identify your market - know who you’re aiming at
- Look at competitor / similar websites - what are they doing? Is it effective?
- Focused appeal – getting targeted traffic from the serarch engines is much better than a scatter gun approach
- ‘Introduce a friend’ voucher - with an offer – this a great way of getting word of mouth recommendations
- Directions to your office – ensure people can find you
- Update your website regularly to keep it fresh
- Special offers – use special offers to get new customers and attract old ones back to buy from you again.
- Co-ordinate with the season, with events (Valentine's Day, Christmas, holidays)
- Exclusive areas - people like feeling ‘special’, e.g. members area, journalists / media area
- On-line feedback form - keep it simple
If you have new products you should consider some of these promotion ideas
- Give-aways - free samples, allow people to use it and they will be more likely to buy it.
- Show off its features
- Produce a leaflet introducing the website - distribute it widely
- Tell people
- Telephone hold message, instead of playing music why not tell people about your new website and how great it is.
- In conversation, tell people you meet this can be social or at formal networking events.
- Business networking clubs, a great way of connecting with business people near you.
- Software / hardware / product user groups
Use seminars to promote the website
- Put your web address on PowerPoint or overhead slides
- Give talks to local clubs and charities
- Training courses
- Sales seminars
- Domain name on Lecterns and name badges
- Send it to your customers
- Direct Mail - send a mail shot to selected target audience
Send cards
- Send birthday cards if you store a customers date of birth
- Ensure your web address is on the front of card if possible but at least inside
- Send anniversary cards (anniversary of the year they first did business with you)
Deliver your address
- On delivery packaging - perhaps on the sticky tape used to seal the box
- Franking machine message
- On receipt notes
- On the product itself (possibly a sticky label)
- Enclose an info sheet about the website with goods
- Newspaper inserts
- Door-to-door drops (Royal Mail can do targeted / wide area drops)
Use advertising off line to promote your website
- On billboard adverts
- On bus shelter posters
- Back/side of local buses
- Put a card in the window of your local newsagent – great for businesses with a local market
Local / specialist / trade newspapers
- Produce ‘fun’ give-aways. This could include keyrings, badges, caps, pens, T-shirts, umbrellas, dog leads / dog jackets, coasters, mouse mats, mugs
- Hold a launch day / evening / open day. Invite journalists and special guests within your field of interest in conjunction with local advertising. Hire a hall, set up a few Internet computers and invite the public in to see your site! Give them free gifts - and don't forget to let the papers know!
- Use a PR company
Press releases. Send updates of recent events (including launch days) to:-
- Local and national newspapers
- Specialist and trade publications
- On-line magazines (e-zine’s)
You should consider exhibitions
- Take a stand at a trade fair
- Visit fetes and festivals - sponsor tickets / programmes/ stalls / prizes
Things to avoid
- Paid for links
- International advertising for a local service - American / Russian surfers are possibly not your market.
- Cheap search engine submissions - you get what you pay for; automatic software-based submissions (a) Don't work, and (b) Can get you permanently banned from leading search engines.
Magazines
- Get your product or service reviewed by specialist publications
- Advertise in selected specialist magazines
Sponsorship
- Donate money or goods in return for advertising - sponsor a ... sports team, charity, special event, school sports or sports equipment
Domain Names – Some options to consider
- Register misspellings
- Register variations
- Use generic domain names
- Register dot-com and dot-co.uk, with and without hyphens
- New sub-domains - biz, info, others
- Use different domains for different campaigns to measure response
- Form links with related websites
- Use directories to promote your website in the search engines and you should also consider using pay per click (PPC) to help with this you should use a specialist such as Cravenplan
Cravenplan computers
Chris Stanbury
Cravenplan Computers Ltd
Wilbury Barn
Swallowcliffe
SALISBURY
WILTS
SP3 5QH
Tel: 01747 858000
Web: cravenplan.co.uk
Email: mail@cravenplan.co.uk
Marketing
- Spread it about with viral marketing
- Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message's exposure and influence. Classic example is Hotmail - free email address publicised at the bottom of every mail sent by its users.
- Create a campaign for e-mail marketing with a gift incentive for the users, Buy a TARGETED e-mail list NOT ‘150 million e-mail addresses for $150’ you must be very careful with this and take advice from a professional before doing this, it is also a great idea to start your own email list from visitors to your site.
- Encourage people to join your site or mailing list by offering a prize draw for registrants
- Put contact details and a short sales message on all outgoing e-mail signatures
Use the Internet to promote your website
- On-line bulletin boards / newsgroups (remember ‘netiquette’ - no spamming)
- Word of mouth should not be underestimated.
SMS (Simple Message Service)
- Get an SMS list from a specialist marketing company, mail the list with a message and prize incentive
