Marketing your web site is vastly different than marketing your "offline," brick-and-mortar business. Thank goodness! With offline marketing, you're actually pretty restricted to the city you live in at the least and the state you live in at the most (unless you fly a lot or like long drives!). The Internet and it's ways of marketing and selling have opened up a whole new world of opportunities. Not to say that offline marketing promotion is obsolete when it comes to your e-business. Flyers, business cards, word-of-mouth. All vital stuff still. It just doesn't carry as much weight as some of the ways to market your business on the Internet. You need to go where your world-wide customers are now and they are inside your computer. Here are a few ways that you can start building more traffic to your e-business. They are easy, free and make a huge difference.
1.) Email signatures - Use your email signature to your fullest advantage. Tag it with not only your name, of course, but your web site(s) that you are selling from. Be creative. Maybe add a short one or two line ad for a product or affiliate you work with and the link to make the conversion sale. Now, every time you send out an email, BAM! In their face advertising and you needn't have to say a word about it.
2.) Forums and message boards - Find and participate in message boards that have to do with the niche of your web site. You aren't the only one that enjoys what you do and there are a lot of people online talking about it. Get involved and let them get to know you, trust you and value your opinion. And, again, don't forget to add your web site URL to your signature. Not only will you get clicks from other posters and lurkers, but the search engines really eat it up. Chances are very good that if you make just a few posts here and there, you will see those posts listed on the search engines in no time at all.
3.) Web site SEO - SEO = Search engine optimization. This is a big DUH really, but make sure your web site is optimized with content that is filled with your keywords so you can rank well when people search on those keywords. You want people to find you, right? Do research into what keywords are going to be the highest ranking ones for your specific niche.
While we're talking about building traffic via the search engines, you may want to first take a minute and take the Alexa Point traffic test to find out exactly where your present website ranks and what you can do to bring that ranking up.
4.) Exchanging links - A great way of getting traffic is by trading links with other Webmasters that are in some way associated with the subjects on your web site. You put their link on your site and they, in turn, return the favor. The more links to your web site that the search engines find, the more they see it as a very popular place and the higher your rankings will go. Additionally, you're going to be grabbing visitors who visit those other sites that are linked to you.
5.) Newsletters - Offer an opt-in newsletter to your visitors that include tips, tricks, information that they can't get on your site, etc. Include a free e-book or other things as a gift if they sign up. People love getting free things! When you write your newsletters, include advertising and links to some of your affiliate products. Once you have people signed up to your newsletter, you have repeat buyers that have agreed to be solicited to. A word of warning: make it opt-in so that they are asking for the newsletter. Do not send them unsolicited mail. You know how much you hate spam? They do too. But if they have opted-in (they can also opt-out at any time), they basically have opened their front door and invited you in. Building email lists is like finding a pot of gold. Do not skip this very important way of marketing your business. You may as well throw your money into the street if you do.
That should be more than enough to get your business started or continuing on a path to more traffic and more cash flow.
