The day finally comes, and you have published your first website to the Internet. It is at this moment you wonder how people will find your site, and this is a good question to ask yourself. The Internet is actually much different from what you may have heard from friends and relatives or even on television. They would have you believe that once something is on the Internet, it is there forever. They usually mean to say that you can never take it down. This is said to scare people from putting up things that they will later regret. This may be true with certain social media sites, but not with a website. If you publish a website, it may be there forever or at least until you take it down, but it is also true that none one will see it forever. No one stumbles upon a person’s website. Even a local retail store may be spotted by someone who happens to be driving by, but there is no equivalent to this on the Internet.
Getting the word out
You may get a few people to visit your website if you tell them about it. This, of course, will not result in a lot of traffic, but you will get a few visits. You can, however, increase the concept of word of mouth by using other techniques. The first thing you need to do is make sure your website address is included in the link in every email that you send out. Naturally, this website address should be linked, so anyone receiving the email need only click on it to go directly to your website. You should also make sure that all physical letters sent out on your business letterhead contains your website address. You should also include your website on your business cards as well as your contact information such as your phone number and email. All of the ideas listed above are a part of word of mouth promotion to drive traffic to your site.
Forum promotion
You need to take a look at forums that exist on the web that pertain to what you are selling and sign up for them, so you can post information to these sites. Most of them will allow you to have a link in your signature. You can place a link to your website in this signature. Popular forums will have many members, so your website link will get lots of eyes looking at it. The secret to this technique being effective is to choose your forums carefully, so that they relate to what you are selling. Equally important is to make sure that when you post, you are making important contributions to the forum by providing good information. Otherwise, you are only spamming the site. You can be removed from the forum for doing this, but you will also be hurting your brand.
Optimization of your website for search engines
This is critical for bringing traffic to your site. The process of search engine optimization consists of several techniques. All of them are geared so that your website will appear high in search engine results when certain key words are entered in a search engine. The first thing that you need to do is make sure that your website does not contain any red flags to a search engine. One example of this is spamming keywords. That is to say, you are using keywords haphazardly throughout your site or on numerous places simply to attract search engine crawlers. When you do this, search engines will penalize you, and you are not likely to appear in any search engine result. This type of optimization is difficult to do without knowing exactly what format is preferred by a search engine, and how best to use keywords in the structure of your website. Often your best bet is to use a professional SEO firm to help you with this work.
Adding content to your site
This is something you may be able to do yourself. You can post articles relating to what you are selling as well as reviews about products. Search engines love this type of thing, but you must make sure that the content is of high quality and offers value to the reader. Also try to include keywords in this content to help a search engine when it crawls your site.
Getting traffic to your new website is not easy. Try and work at it a little each day, and be patient. If you need help, and at some point your likely will, you should consult with a professional SEO company.
