AdOnion

After you have thoughtfully planned and created your website, the next step is to bring in the visitors. So where do you start? I’ve included a few different things you can do to help promote your website and bring in visitors.

Directory Submission

The first place to start is including your websites in relevant directories. Submitting your website will create more links to your website which will help with your website ranking in search engine. There are many software which will help you achieve this but the benefits of manual submission will allow you with better results.

Press Release

You should also write a press release about the launch of your websites, or any updates about your website and post it on press release sites. Press release can help promote your the name of your business, and your strengths so that others will know about it and when they are looking for the product/service they will remember your PR and come to you.

Social Networks and Bookmarking

At this moment the best way to promote your website is through social networks like Facebook, and bookmarking tools such as Del.icio.us. Most often on these sites you are able to provide a brief description of your product and service and include tags or keywords that are targeted to what you provide. Most often users of these social networks and bookmarking sites will search by keywords or tags to look for the product/service they are looking for and thus your site can be easily found.

For a list of other bookmarking site you can check here.

Blogs

Blogs are another good way in leading visitors to your site. Blogs are often used by company as a communication tool to it’s current user base or potential clients, in which provides valuable information to users and encourage them to return to your site. You can also easily market to relevant site to bring in targeted visitors by commenting on similar blogs which will often provide you with a link guiding users back to your website.  Your blog can also be linked to relevant blogs by Blogroll when your blog has established a good reputation for the blog owner.

Forum Postings

Forums are always a good way to gain traffic as there are tons of users online in a day. You can market your website in posting if you are knowledgeable in a certain area via a footer where you can list your website. Forums are a good way to go if you have any questions, you will get answers and different point of views.

Advertising

Finally, the one that you would need to spend a little money on. Advertising your site via text banners, graphical banners, popunders, interstitials etc. as the list goes on. The most cost effective way is to advertise on a performance based such as per sale basis or per lead basis, so you are paying only when a sales or lead is made. Then you can look into advertising on a cost per click basis, so only when the user click on your ad and go to your website you will then pay for that click. Then there are CPM advertising, which mean you are paying for 1,000 display of your banners, popunders or interstitials.

When considering advertising as you are spending money you should so your own research. It is often good to test a few networks, as different campaigns may convert different for different people and therefore you should test the networks before jumping into conclusions. In the next blog post I’ll expand on my thoughts in the different types of advertising and the things to look for when you are looking for an advertising company.