Small Businesses - Web Site Promotion Ideas

You've already figured out that your small business needs a web site to compete with the big boys and maintain every aspect of your relationship with your customers. But once you have your web site up and running, you'll need web site promotion ideas so that people know about your web site. After all, no one will visit your web site if they don't know it exists. The first of your web site promotion ideas is submitting your web site to all the major search engines. Search engine traffic is a major draw to web sites and most web masters will tell you that the vast majority of their traffic is coming from search engine clicks. Most of the major search engines have a specific page you can use to submit your site. Once it's submitted, it will usually take a few days to a week before it starts showing up in keyword searches.

Other web site promotion ideas include advertising your web site on internet message boards and discussion forums centered on subjects related in some way to your business. For example, if you run a small business selling pet supplies, you could go to message boards and discussion forums frequented by pet lovers. Other tried and true web site promotion ideas are banner exchanges. You can contact other web sites involved with the same target market and ask to exchange banners on each other's web sites or you can sign up at a banner exchange portal that will automatically generate banners for other sites on your site and banners for your site on other participating sites. Some other ways of promoting your new web site however, going the route of affiliation. This is a good method of not only promoting your new site but an easy fashion of making some quick money as well.

How this works is you sign up for an affiliation to a site, generally you will want to find a site that has some relevance to the site you are trying to promote. When ever someone goes to the site you are affiliated with and they link on to your site by pay per click method it takes them to your site and right into the thick of your content. The the unfortunate part of this method is that whenever someone clicks onto your site from your affiliate, you end up paying the affiliate for the transfer of sites. Although this could easily be a very small fee to the affiliate, the point to remember is if they click and you pay the affiliate, there is no guarantee that they will make a purchase from you. For even more web site promotion ideas, there are many online resources dedicated solely to teaching people how best to create awareness of their web site through the internet at large and strategies for attracting more visitors to their web site. There are other resources for web site promotion but then start with these basic ideas and when you're ready, explore for more! To Your Success.



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Free Google Promotional Opportunities For Small Businesses

When some people see the Maps tab at Google.com they assume that it is just Google's version of Mapquest or some other similar website.  But nothing could be further than the truth. True, Google displays maps and driving directions but it also does so much more.  

Google Maps was previously called Google Local Search which more accurately describes Google Map functionality.  Google Maps has a listing of every established business. Obviously it shows the location of the business on the map and offers driving directions.  But it also offers tremendous promotional opportunities.   Business owners can include both photos and videos in their map listing. Being able to include up to 10 photos and 5 videos makes the Google Map listing a bonanza for the business owner and provides rich information to potential customers. A picture can be extremely useful showing critical information to a potential customer. If somebody was looking for a daycare center think how valuable it would be to have pictures of the facility both inside and outside.  This is almost better than a full page advertisement in the Yellow pages except the Google map listing is free. Compare that to a full page ad in other media.  

Google also offers a business owner an opportunity to post up to 5 videos. This is almost like getting a free TV commercial except that the information is directed at a potential customers who are already interested in the business owner's product or services. With today's inexpensive video equipment a business owner could shoot their own video of the business and post it to their Google Map listing via YouTube.   With shrinking advertising budgets businesses should fully utilize this opportunity from Google. The only caveat is that for the business listing to be completely effective the business listing should be on the first page of Google search results.  Fortunately it is rather easy to optimize Google Map listings.



Is your Google Map Listing in the top ten search results? It could be. We can help.

Al Remetch

http://www.MyMapInfo.com




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Web Promotion for Newly Start Up Low Budget Online Businesses

Ok, you have your website up and running 4 weeks ago. You have done the following thus far to promote your site...

a. Submission to Search Engines

b. Submission to directories

c. FFA (Free For All)

d. Free Banner Ads

For all that promotion, you are only getting 20 visitors a day. Now you ask the one million dollar question. How can I get more visitors to my site? You have a low budget and you want to know how and where you can promote your website to get more visitors?

Welcome to the real world of Internet marketing. To have 20 visitors per day is not bad for a few weeks old online business. Promoting your website is an ongoing process to improve search engine visibility and increase web traffic.

Search Engines

For a start, it takes months to rank well at the major search engines for competitive keywords. Google, Yahoo and MSN are currently the 'big three'. You may rank well for MSN in a matter of three months but it may take up to a year to rank

well for Google and Yahoo. You may not receive traffic from the major search engines for quite a while.

There was a time where webmasters could employ html tricks, meta tag spamming, special doorway pages to rank high at the search engines. The scenario has changed. The major search engines have tightened their algorithms to prevent exploitation and their Search Engine Result Page (SERP) from being spammed by webmasters.

So, beware of any SEO company that promises high ranking in a matter of days or weeks. There is a difference between having your web pages indexed and ranking well. Your web pages may be indexed within 24 hours but it may months before they rank well for your keywords. Ranking well at the major search engines can turn out to a long, drawn process without guidance.

This does not mean that you give up SEO altogether. Learn about SEO and subscribe to excellent SEO newsletters to keep up with the latest SEO news and developments.

Make adjustments to your web pages but don't fall into the trap of SEO rat race that saps up all your time and energy. There are other aspects of web promotion that needs your attention if you aspire to grow your business.

Directories, FFAs and Free Banner Ads

What about directories and FFAs? You are fortunate if you have a few click-throughs from free directory listings. The alternative is to get your website listed in Yahoo! Business Directory. The cost of listing is a tidy sum of USD299 a year.

FFAs are hopeless. Free banner ads are not effective.

Pay per Click (PPC)

Pay per click (PPC) or Cost per Click (CPC) are text ads placed on websites, advertising networks or search engines. Google Adwords and Overture are the two popular PPC advertising on the Net.

Every time someone clicks on an ad, the advertiser is charged a specific amount. The amount does not exceed the highest bid the advertiser is willing to pay for his or her ad keywords. This kind of advertising drives targeted traffic to your site.

A word of caution here though, unless you know the ins and outs, do's and don'ts of PPC, steer clear or else you may blow your budget.

Content Distribution and Ezine Advertising

For a budget conscious online business the best ways of web promotion are distributing content and ezine advertising. Write articles that are specific to your business and distribute them through article directories.

No sales pitch and affiliate links at this stage please. Just include what is called a 'resource box' with your website address, email link and a short description (3 to 5 lines) about yourself and your business.

Article directories readily make available your articles for others to use in their ezines. This becomes free publicity for your business.

Better still if your articles address the situations of your readers and provide solutions to their problems. This will established you as a credible source of information. In turn, you will have people who are predisposed to do business with you coming to your website via your articles' resource box link.

Ezine advertising is another cost effective way of promoting a newly start up low budget online business. It puts your ads into contact with targeted, potential customers for your product or service. Conversion rates tend to be higher, because

the people who clicked on the ad link are interested in what you have to offer.

Do the necessary - search engines and directories submission, gather inbound links, but spend the greater part of your time to researching, writing quality content, and developing a quality ezine to promote your site. Without systematic planning

and clear directions, you will go in circles and ultimately give up altogether.

Making good money on the Internet may not be easy nowadays, but not impossible.



Gerrick W
mailto:gw@1stinternetmarketingsolution.com
Information and Software Tools You Need to Effectively Promote Your Online Business

Visit =>http://www.1stinternetmarketingsolution.com




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