Where Should You Promote Your Website?

WHERE SHOULD YOU PROMOTE YOUR WEBSITE

Even if your business has the greatest website ever built, it’s not doing any good unless people are looking at it. So web design is only half the battle. The other half is web promotion.

 

In order to attract the most visitors, your website should be promoted in both the virtual world and in the real world.

 

Where Should You Promote Your Website? Online Marketing

 

By this point, there have been volumes written about how to promote your website online. These types of online marketing can include search engine optimization, keywords, and both free and paid online ads.

 

The benefit to online marketing is that a little work or a small investment can go global. For example, promoting your website on a friend’s Facebook account or cross-marketing on your social media platforms can provide

exponential exposure.

 

Where Should You Promote Your Website? Real World Marketing

 

But marketing in the virtual world isn’t enough. In order to maximize the number of visitors to your web pages, it’s important that you promote it in the real world as well.

 

This can include such simple things as including your website address on all of your correspondence, including emails and direct mail marketing. But you also should be creative in looking for every opportunity to get your web address out in front of the public, such as putting it on banners, signs, or even balloons or t-shirts.

 

In fact, anything tangible that you can give to somebody has more value than simply posting your website somewhere. It’s practically impossible for people to remember all the web addresses they see every day. But if you can give them something they can take with them and refer back to later, they are going to be more likely to actually visit your web page.

 

Getting the most visitors to your Website requires both virtual and real-world marketing efforts.

Does SEO Even Matter Anymore?

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When the internet first became popular, the name of the game for small businesses was search engine optimization or SEO for short. These are the techniques web builders can use to improve the odds of their websites being ranked high on Google, Bing!, Yahoo and other popular search engines.

 

Beginning in the late ’90s and continuing until just a few years ago, most people used these search engines for school, work, and social purposes. But most importantly for businesses, they also used Google and the others to find the products and services they wanted.

 

So using SEO to get your business ranked at the top of the search engine results pages for the keywords that best describe your business was critical to your online success.

 

The Rise of the Mega Monsters

 

Flash forward to today, when a handful of big online retailers have essentially taken over the marketplace. Amazon, Wal-Mart, eBay, and a handful of others are the go-to websites for the majority of consumers who want to buy products. And apps like Uber, StubHub, Tinder, and other big players have taken over specialized online services.

 

So where does that leave your business and SEO? Does it even matter anymore?

 

The answer is: Yes! While most small businesses are never going to be able to compete with the scale or variety of products offered on sites like Amazon, they can still use SEO to attract local customers looking for specialized products and services that are specific to their business.

 

SEO in the past few years

 

For example, a consumer seeking to buy a new winter coat, might simply use Amazon or Wal-Mart. But if your business offers a specific brand of coat or coats that serve a certain audience such as long-distance runners, or customers in your specific geographic region, you can still use the web to capture that core customer using SEO techniques.

 

Mega online retailers may have exploited the internet to attract the lion’s share of web customers, but your business can use the same SEO techniques Amazon and others use to find the prospective customers and clients who are seeking the specific products and services you offer.

Use Separate Websites For Specific Audiences

Use Separate Websites For Specific Audiences

If your business uses a website to promote your brand, sell products or services, or simply generate new customer leads, you already are ahead of the game. An increasing number of people worldwide are choosing the web over every other media to find the companies, products, and services they want.

 

But what if you are doing business in one country and want to attract a more global customer base. For example, you have a business based in the US but want to be able to attract customers from Canada, the UK, or Australia. How can you do it?

 

The Money Problem

 

If you are simply offering information and not products or services that need to be paid for, you may be able to get away with just one website. But if you are doing actual business in other countries, you probably will want to consider a separate website for each country that you have paying customers.

 

The problem is with the money. While it is technically possible to accept multiple types of currencies on the same website, it can be really complicated. And you can’t expect customers to pay in your local currency. You wouldn’t want to buy a product online from China and have to pay in yen, would you? Of course not!

 

Canadian customers need to be able to pay in Canadian dollars. UK customers need to use the English pound for currency. Mexican customers want to be able to pay in pesos. If you require them all to pay in US dollars, you’re probably going to lose the sale.

 

Use Separate Websites For Specific Audiences – Focused Content

 

Another benefit of having separate websites for each country where you do business is that it gives you the ability to fine-tune your content to your specific audience. You can even use a different language.

 

When you globalize your company, you generally need to use a different website for each specific set of international customers.

Monetizing Personal Data with Your Website

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People will return to businesses if they feel as if they have a personal relationship with them.

 

Think about your own experience: When employees at your favorite coffee shop know your regular order or your local bookstore calls you when your favorite author has a new book out, aren’t you more likely to go back there?

 

Capturing and storing personal information about your customers can help build trust relationships with them and keep them returning to your online business again and again.

 

 The Value of Birthdays

One of the easiest types of personal data to capture and store is birthdays. When you ask your customer for their birthday, you can use this data to create special offers, discounts, and other personalized birthday celebrations.

 

Most people like to have their birthdays recognized and celebrated. Storing a customer’s birthday as a data string in their digital personal information file allows your business to make your customers feel special and strengthen your trust relationship with them.

 

Monetizing Personal Data with Your Website – Other Personal Data

 

Birthdays aren’t the only personal information you can collect and store about your customers. Information such the name of the city where they live, whether or not they are married or have children, and where they went to school can be invaluable in building trust bonds.

 

Product preferences are another great way to let your customers feel as if you know them personally. If they always buy the same products or brands from you, your business can create a personalized marketing plan that will ensure they come back to your website to purchase those products every time.

 

People like to be recognized and appreciated, even by the businesses they deal with only online. By learning and storing personal information such as birthdays and product preferences, you can build customer loyalty and increase retention.

 

Blogging Keeps Customers and Clients Engaged with Your Business

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Blogs are short, informative articles that usually are distributed through social media to a targeted audience, such as to a mailing list of customers.

 

Blogging is a relatively new and highly effective marketing platform that helps build loyalty bonds between businesses and their customers. It both informs and engages people simultaneously by providing value to the business-customer relationship.

 

Creating Relevant Content

 

There are essentially two types of blogs. The first is original content that is either created by somebody within the business itself or by somebody hired by the business to provide informative articles for their clients.

 

The second is blogs that are composed of articles, links, and other content that originally was created elsewhere, such as on another website, in a magazine or newspaper, or a video that was posted online.

 

Generally, the content of these “secondary blogs” is somehow related to what the company does or the types of products it offers. For example, customers of a local car showroom might receive both original blogs as well as blogs that contain promotional videos from the major car makers.

 

Business – Why Customers Want Blogs

 

People are typically highly open to receiving and reading your business’s blog posts because they perceive it as receiving something of high value for nothing. Customers don’t pay for blogs. They are simply something they receive if they opt-in by giving their email address, cell phone number, or other contact information.

 

While the customer’s investment is minimal, the return from the business is high. Blog postings can often provide helpful and useful information they can use immediately in their everyday lives.

 

Business – Low-Cost, High Value

 

And the benefit to businesses also is high. Blogs not only make customers more loyal to the business, but they also can occasionally include promotional offers and information that can lead to short-term future sales and a longer term relationship with the customer.

 

If your business doesn’t already provide its customers with regular blog postings, it’s something you absolutely should consider.

Cross-Marketing on Your Website Can Boost Sales, Reputation

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The objective of most business websites is to promote the product and services that the company offers, as well as reinforcing the brand the organization wants to establish.

 

But should you consider promoting other people’s businesses or other organizations on your website? Maybe.

 

Cross-Marketing on Your Website Can Boost Sales – Reciprocal Marketing

 

Reciprocal marketing is when you promote another person’s business or products on your website in exchange for their promoting yours on their web pages.

 

It simply requires entering into an agreement with another business in order to promote both businesses for the benefit of each other.

 

Obviously, you probably wouldn’t enter into an agreement with a direct competitor. But there may be products or services that complement yours that could be a perfect fit for reciprocal marketing.

 

For example, if you own a health spa you might enter a reciprocal agreement with a company that offers relaxing lotions or aromatic candles. That company would then promote your spa on their website.

 

Both businesses benefit because consumers who are interested in one type of product probably also would be interested in the other.

 

Cross-Marketing on Your Website Can Boost Sales – Community Outreach

 

Another related type of cross promotion on your website is community outreach. This is when you use your website to pledge your support for a local charity or cause you are passionate about.

 

For example, if your website promotes your local business, you might include a badge that supports a local charity such as the Ronald McDonald House. Or you could include a pink ribbon that signifies breast cancer awareness.

 

Community outreach has the dual benefit of supporting an important cause or charity while affiliating your business with doing good in your community.

 

Both cross promotion and community outreach don’t cost you anything more to do, but can bring additional sales and more customers to your business, as well as enhancing its reputation within the community.

Customer Recognition Programs Pay Huge Dividends

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Have you ever had the experience of walking into a local store and having the proprietor come out and greet you by name? If so, it’s probably something you haven’t forgotten.

 

It’s also a huge motivator for you to return to that business again and again. Why? Because people have a natural desire to be recognized. It makes people feel special and is one of the simplest, fastest, and most affordable ways to build loyalty bond between your customers and your business, brand, and products.

 

Digitally Recognizing Your Customers

 

Every online business is constantly seeking new and innovative ways to capture a larger and larger market share. One of the best ways for your business to do this is to launch recognition programs for your existing customers.

 

While you may not be able to physically replicate the experience you had when you were recognized by the owner of a local business, there are many steps you can take to build those same kinds of positive emotions within your online customers.

 

For example, one simple way to do this is to remember the preferences of your customers who visited your business online. With just a few lines of code, you can capture your website visitor’s preferences and remind them of what they looked at the last time they visited your online store.

 

Customer Recognition Programs Pay Huge Dividends – we recommend customizations

 

Another effective way to interact with customers so that they feel recognized by your online business is to make personalized recommendations of products you think they might want.

 

Streaming video services such as Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Hulu already provide this service this for their subscribers, recommending TV shows and movies they think they might like based on what they watched in the past.

 

This type of affordable software is widely available for online businesses as well. By making recommendations to your customers about products or services you think they might enjoy, you can reinforce the loyalty bonds that are the key to repeat business.

Use the Web to Attract Customers to Your Florida Business

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While the internet connects people worldwide, many local businesses are still very much dependent on local customers.

 

Attracting people in your area to your local business requires a technique called “Local SEO”. Basically, local SEO involves using specific geographically specific keywords to send traffic to your business website.

 

How to Use Local SEO on Your Website

 

Basically, local SEO works like this: If somebody goes online searching for a business like yours, they probably are going to use specific keywords.

 

 

For example, let’s say you own a dry cleaning business in Tampa. People looking for a local dry cleaning business who type in the keywords “dry cleaners” into their search engine probably would get results that include dry cleaning businesses all over the US, or even the world..

 

But if these same prospective customers type in the keywords “dry cleaners in Tampa”, they will get results that include only local dry cleaning businesses in Tampa, Florida.

 

Optimizing with Local SEO

 

How does that happen? Google, Bing, and the other big search engines scan and rank websites for specific keywords. When they find a web page for a local Tampa dry cleaners, they will include this in their rankings for those specific keywords.

 

But search engines will rank near the top of the search results those sites with the exact keywords “Tampa dry cleaners” in their headlines, subheads, first 100 words of the text, last 100 words of the text, photo descriptions, and other places.

 

That’s what local SEO means. By including geographically specific keywords in specific places in your web pages, you can get your web page ranked at or near the top of the list anybody gets when they type those keywords into the most popular search engines.

 

And given the fact that most people use their mobile devices to search for local businesses, local SEO is only going to become more important as time goes on.

Think Locally But Market Globally

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The transition from traditional marketing to digital marketing isn’t just a shift from newspapers, TV, and radio to the internet and social media. It’s also a shift from local to global.

 

When you promote your business online, people from anywhere in the world can view your web pages, social media posts, digital advertising, and other online marketing. And that literally opens up a whole new world for your business.

 

Think Locally But Market Globally – Unintended Consequences

Owners who don’t think their business appeals to prospective customers outside their local market are often mistaken. With the internet, you never know who is going to land on your website, view your social media posts, or come across your advertisements.

 

For example, let’s say you own a cupcake shop on South Beach. You might think your only customers are those in your immediate area, most of whom are probably walking by and coming into your store on impulse.

 

But if you have an optimized website, your business is likely to be found by cupcake enthusiasts worldwide — especially those who are planning to visit Miami in the near future and who may make it a point to put a visit to your business on their trip’s itinerary.

 

Think Locally But Market Globally – Thinking Big

 

That’s why it’s always a good idea to think globally when designing your online marketing and promotions. The likelihood that people from other states — and other countries — are going to find your business using specific search keywords (“South Beach cupcake shops”, for example) is high.

 

Even if you don’t do mail order, the global reach of the internet allows your business to be found by people anywhere, and at anytime.

 

So don’t limit your business’s potential by playing by the old-fashioned rules that applied to outdated traditional marketing. Today’s business owners need to act locally, but think globally when it comes to their digital marketing.

SEO Tips and Techniques for Increasing Organic Traffic

SEO  is not to be overlooked if you want to increase the online presence of your business. Organic traffic should be a major portion of your regular website traffic. This is traffic that you do not need to pay for. Organic traffic refers to internet users that come across your website through search engine queries. These users already know what they are looking for and this traffic tends to have higher conversion rates. By focusing some of your marketing budget on SEO services, you can increase the amount of organic traffic that you receive and in turn increase your sales.

 

By focusing some of your marketing budget on SEO services, you can increase the amount of organic traffic that you receive and in turn increase your sales. Here are two of the most fundamental aspects of using SEO to increase organic traffic.

 

Use Proper Keyword Research

 

Search engines have begun placing more value on the content of web pages than the actual use of keywords. Though, keywords are still an integral part of search engine algorithms. You should regularly perform proper keyword research. Use online tools, such as the Keyword Planner available through Google Google Ads. Search for keywords related to your industry. Look through the suggestions that the Keyword Planner provides and try to find keyword phrases with low to medium competition and a high monthly search volume.

 

Create Original and Informative Content

 

Perhaps the greatest way to begin improving your SEO  results is to create original and informative content. Your users should get real value from visiting your website. Posting informative content, such as tutorials, tips, and useful information to your website gives visitors a reason to continue coming back to your site. You are also more likely to build backlinks and get users to share your content on social media.

 

These are two starting points to effective SEO. If you need help with any of these steps, you should think about contacting a local SEO and web design firm.