According to a survey carried out by Netcraft, as of December 2009 there were approximately 233.8 million websites available on the world wide web. I know what you’re thinking… that’s a lot of sites. And indeed it is.
If you have just created a site, you will probably want to know what you can do to get it noticed. The answer lies in promoting your website. Below are 10 good tips which will help you get started.
Word-of-mouth
This is one of the easiest methods of promote your website. Word-of-mouth promotion can really help in getting the traffic flowing. You should start with your close friends and family, and ask them to tell other people about your website. Maybe send out a few emails to people in your address book. You may be shocked at the results!
Forum signatures
Forum signatures are a great way to get a free link back to your site and promote it at the same time. Sign up to a forum about a topic related to your site, and spend some time being an ‘active’ poster, for example post answers to questions. Most modern forums/discussion boards give an option to insert a custom signature.
Put a link back to your site here. This way, every time you post a new message, your link will appear at the bottom of your post. This will help your site get a better search engine position!
Reciprocal links
Links back to your website are important and search engines such as Google love them. Look for websites about a topic related to yours. Email the webmasters of the websites asking them if they would like to participate in a link exchange.
If they agree, place a link to their site from yours and ensure that they have done the same. Beware that some may play dirty and remove the link back to your website, so keep checking that they still link back to you often!
Use social bookmarking sites
Social bookmarking websites such as Digg or Reddit allow you to recommend a site to other people all over the world. If used correctly, social bookmarking can be a really good source of traffic. I would highly recommend StumbleUpon, a social bookmarking service which will get you targeted visitors in any niche.
By submitting your main website and blog posts to StumbleUpon, you can easily get more than 100 visitors to your website/blog each day! Submit your site to search engines – Most of the search engines now have a submission page where you can submit the url of your site to their index.
You must be patient though, sometimes it can take a few months for you to be included in their listings. Make sure you’ve covered all of the main ones – Google, Yahoo and Bing, as well as some of the lesser known ones as they can give quite good traffic too. Needless to say, your site should have a good SEO score.
Start a PPC advertising campaign
PPC, or pay-per-click advertising is a great way for a new site to gain traffic. With PPC, your website is advertised to people who search using specific keywords and you only pay when someone clicks through to your website. Google Ads is probably the best PPC service out there, and lets you set a budget that you are comfortable with.
Submit your blog to web directories
Last, but by no means least, you should always submit your site to web directories. These are websites which list your site either for free or for a small cost. They can be a great source of traffic and the backlink will help your DA score.
Promoting your site is neither an easy nor a quick task. Persistence is crucial. Don’t be afraid to be creative and come up with your own strategies to advertise your website. I hope these tips have been helpful and wish you every success in promoting your website!
Thanks for this post, I have just looked into stumble upon and I’m also going to see about other social bookmarking with Google etc