You’ve created a website but suddenly you realize it’s not very helpful if can’t get anyone to visit it. To be successful online having a website is not enough. After all, there are literally hundreds of millions of websites on the Internet. So what things can do to make sure yours gets found? Here are five things you must do to market a website.
1. Get listed on Google.
Recent studies show over 90% of all online searches happen on Google or one of Google’s partners. If you’re not on Google it’s practically like you don’t exist on the web. Unfortunately getting your site listed in Google’s organic search results isn’t easy. If you manually submit your website to Google it could take up to six weeks for your site to be listed and even then you probably won’t show up on the first page of search results for the keywords you’re hoping to target.
If you don’t want to wait several weeks you can pay for a service like Listing Express to get submitted to Google immediately. Services like Listing Express will usually cut the wait time down from the four to six weeks to a few hours.
2. Google Adwords.
Another way you can immediately start showing up on Google is paying for their pay per click advertising program called Adwords. Adwords only charges you when someone clicks on one of your sponsored listings. The more you’re willing to pay for each click the higher you’ll show up in the search results. Ads that show up near the top of the page garner the majority of clicks and have been proven to establish legitimacy in the mind of consumers.
Adwords has become such a successful form of advertising for so many businesses because the results are very measurable. Unlike a traditional display ad an Adwords campaign let’s you see exactly how many people came to your website and of those how many turned into real customers.
3. Retargeting Ads.
Another form of advertising Google offers on a PPC basis is called retargeting. Retargeting is when someone comes to your website and then later, while they’re surfing the web see’s one of your display banners. In this way retargeting ads can make a small company look like they have a huge advertising budget because it gives the impression to the consumer you have a large enough ad budget to show up all over the web. In turn this adds to the perception of legitimacy and increase the confidence of prospective customers in your business.
4. Write a blog.
If you’re in business chances are you have some specialized knowledge or skill. Every minute people flock to the Internet about information from product reviews for their favorite gadgets to “how to” articles to help them acquire a new skill. This wave of people searching the Internet provide you with the perfect opportunity to market your website through a blog. A blog will give you the opportunity to share your specialized knowledge or skill with the rest of the world. In turn the people who read your blog will recognize you as an expert in your field and will be more likely to buy your products or services.
Well written blogs often times get favorable ranking on Google. So they’re often times more likely to get found than your homepage. Be sure to include links back to your website from your blog so you can convert as many of those readers into customers.
5. Create YouTube videos.
If YouTube was its own search engine it would capture about 20% of all the online searches. That would make it the second biggest search engine next to Google. What’s great about YouTube is the fact there is less competition. That means it’s easier to get found on YouTube than it is on Google. It turns out just about everyone is savvy enough to write some sort of content but fewer are savvy enough to create and upload videos.
Once again, if you have a specialized knowledge or skill YouTube is the perfect place to show that off and establish yourself as an expert in your field. Some of the keys to getting your videos viewed on YouTube are to write a complete keyword rich description and always include a link back to your website.
—-
This guest post is courtesy of Adam Barger, founder of WebStarts. Adam has more than a decade of experience with Internet marketing and entrepreneurship. In 2006, he founded WebStarts, a free website builder that has built and hosted more than three million websites. It offers its customers several online features, including domain names, customizable designs, search engine optimization and technical support. The newest feature of WebStarts is the Designer Platform, which helps other entrepreneurs start their own design and hosting businesses.