Promoting Your Website

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Here are some clever and free ways to promote your website without having to spend money. Done right it will help you do well in the search engines.

Add yourself to free web directories

There are a lot of web directories that allow you to put your details on for free. There are the general web directories and there are also ones that will list sites of a specific type, for example (wine websites, health websites, educational websites). Below is a list of some general Irish web directories that allow you to submit your site for a listing free of charge. When you go to these sites just look for “add site” “add link” or “add url”.

Message boards are websites where people go to chat, they normally chat about a single subject. There are message boards out there on everything from puppies to politics. Posting on message boards is a great way to pick up some extra visitors. Most message boards allow you to add your website address to your signature. Never post messages advertising your website or services, this just annoys people. Instead you can join message boards that interest you or relate to your website in some way. Don’t be controversial just be helpful and people in return will visit your website out of interest.

A great way to get people to visit your site is to write articles, (write them about something closely related to your website) you can then submit them to an article marketing service like www.articlesbase.com, www.articlemarketer.com, www.submityourarticle.com, www.ideamarketers.com, www.urarticles.com, . By doing this you can put a link to your site in your biography. Other sites can then publish your article, so you could get dozens or even hundreds of incoming links to your site, this will boost your Google ranking and bring traffic to your site. When writing articles remember the key to a successful article is a great title and headings. People are much more likely to read your article called “Free ways to promote your website” than “Website Marketing”.

Link exchanges wont really help your google ranking, as google is to smart for this, but you will pick up some extra visitors who click on the link. So ask other websites to put a link to you on their website in exchange for a link to them on yours.

You can pay Google to promote your website using Google Adwords.

When you do a search using Google, you will see some links on the right-hand side of the screen. These are sponsored links which have been paid for by advertisers.

Just like Google’s normal search results, sponsored links will match the keywords you searched for. However, with Adwords you get to choose which keywords your ad should appear for.

As well as appearing on Google’s search results page, Adwords ads also appear on relevant websites and blogs.

The good thing about Adwords is that you can set your own budget. You pay a certain amount of money every time somebody clicks on one of your ads. The amount you pay can range from a few cents to several euros.

Adwords advertisers bid against each other, so the more you pay, the higher up you’ll come in the sponsored results.

The trick with Adwords is to choose the right keywords. It would cost you several euros a visitor to come top for a competitive keyword like “Life Coach”. However, you might be able to get on the first page of “Life Coach Dublin” for as little as a few cents.

***Tip***

This is by far the easiest way to integrate your online and offline marketing, and it is usually the most overlooked. Your website address needs to appear on absolutely everything – there is no point having one if you aren’t telling people about it. Put it on your business cards, letterheads, invoices, brochures, uniforms, outdoor and car signage and in every single advertisement you create. This will increase your website traffic and your sales leads.

If you would like help with your website contact us