This week we are continuing to discuss how to promote your website as it goes live. Attracting visitors to your new website requires a commitment on your part. Developing and publishing the site is just the first step. As you publish the site you are exposing the website to a global audience. You must also promote your site locally through social media and by blogging consistently.
But a global audience is not what you need to increase your ROI (return on investment.) You need to attract the specific crowd interested in your product or service and converting them to visitors who will actually make a purchase. These buyers count towards your website conversion rate (converting site visits into actual sales).
Building roads that lead to your new website:
You must do more than give the URL of your website to others. Your goal is to build your site to the level where those searching on Google and other top search engines will find you by using keywords to search for your unique product or service. In part one we discussed the importance of adding quality links to your site. The more links the better and over time your site will be known as an “authority site.” In part two we will now discuss promoting your website through other SEO techniques.
Linking your website to your company Facebook page:
Social media is becoming more and more important. This year we are encouraging our clients to develop a company Facebook page, and programming the Facebook page to sync with the website. First, log into Facebook and add a “new company page.” After you develop the company page, add your header company logo. Now please get with your web developer and ask them to sync the website with your new company Facebook page. Note: This does require special programming.
Once the Facebook is connected to the website, all future posts will automatically be published to the Facebook page as you add them to the site. Now you can share your post articles with your social media circle of friends and visitors. This will get your latest information in front of your social circle consistently. It will also educate visitors on your unique business model.
Other methods to build interest:
Using the Google Search Console is suggested today for all sites, as a tool to increase traffic. This method is favored over many other techniques of the past. When you use this method, it allows you to identify the most popular pages driving your search results. Once you have determined the best keywords that work for you, you can use those keywords in other pages of the website.
Moving forward, as you add blog posts to the site, you can re-use these words in your article copy as needed. It is also suggested you use these most popular words in your meta language. After you have completed the steps required, you can now re-submit your site to Google Search Console and you will see an increase in traffic over time. Please keep in mind that adding too many keywords is detrimental to your overall goal. Use them only as they will organically appear and avoid any keyword stuffing.
Consider allowing a guest blogger occasionally to post articles of interest. A new perspective from another person adds interest to any article. Or, you could add periodic newsletters to the website and press releases which advertise sales offers. Everything you do is to build the trust factor with Google and top search engines. To make money online you must generate the right traffic. No website can survive without generating traffic.
Newsletters on the email promoting products … good or bad?
I know all of you from time to time have been flooded with newsletters and other email advertisements. It sounds easy and most of us can quickly put together an advertisement offering a special savings. Our clients use Campaign Monitor, Constant Contact or other email blast software to do this. However, please proceed here with caution.
We have found through experience that nothing good comes easy and the last thing you want to do is to aggravate your qualified buyers. You know yourself how irritating it is to have hundreds of these emails. We suggest to our clients (and this is our own opinion) that they should advertise through email only on holidays. This will keep them away from sending too many sales ads which could be unwanted.
How about pop-up sales tactics?
Pop-ups are out of date and can be very irritating to your target audience. Buyers get sick of this very quickly so avoid these completely. Another reason to avoid this technique is because there are search engines that penalize websites using these pop-up scripts. Be careful because using this technique may hurt your website ranking.
Should you use automatic search engine submission services?
No you should not. Search engines today require manual submission only. They go further by implementing a script to prevent automatic submissions. In the past, it was the normal method for site owners to submit sites monthly to automatic submission software. There were many of these software companies online advertising automatic search engine submission for a price. Times have changed. It is not longer valid to use this method.
Another reason to avoid using automatic search engine submission is because you have no idea which search engines your site will be posted to. These search engine submission companies normally use the word “blast.” They are suggesting you can blast your site to thousands of search engine data bases at one time. This is not a good idea. Your site could end up on unwanted porn sites or international sites of low quality which are nothing more than spam links. Some of these data bases are no more than a link which may contain bad or non-descriptive content.
Once Google and top search engines find out you are linking to these low quality places, your site will receive a lower score in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). It is much better to learn to submit your site manually to relevant search engines. These are the appropriate ones which will drive your own unique market audience your way.
Why not put keywords in the html source code (meta language)?
When you submit your site today, the search engines visit your site and scan only your title and description. Since keywords are now a normal part of the page content and the blog entries, there is no longer any reason to add keywords to the meta language. Use organic keywords as you build new blog entries and build phrases containing key words which are called “long tail” keywords. This is the best method being used today.
Manual search engine submission instructions:
Follow this link for instructions to manually submit your site to major search engines.
Hurry back for more next time from the Design Wizards at Inside Design Orlando.
Jean Holland-Rose, Creative officer and SEO Professional.
