3 Ways to Promote Your Website Without Dropping a Dime
If you build it, they will come—right? Not necessarily. Since websites don’t have the obvious presence of a storefront or the word-of-mouth spread of a new local business, it requires more effort to take your website where the users are. Fortunately, there are several ways to draw visitors that don’t cost a penny—just some planning, diligent work, and time. What follows are three solid strategies that help expand your website’s reach without the overhead of an ad campaign:
Blog
If your website includes a blog, give it plenty of attention. If a blog isn’t part of your website yet, consider adding one. Provided that it is well-maintained with quality content, a blog could be a visitor-magnet for your website. Here are a few ways blogs attract new website users:
Search engines love fresh content, and blogs are the perfect platform to get the job done. Update your blog regularly with fresh, useful content (including a sprinkling of relevant keywords and links), and your blog should help buoy your site’s search rankings, as well as bring in additional search traffic through your posts.
Establish authority. Anyone can put up a website, but it takes more expertise to regularly provide information that is truly helpful to readers. Through informative articles and helpful comment replies, you can position yourself as an industry expert that readers trust for advice—and in turn, products and services.
Guest blog on other industry websites to further promote your “expert” status, while getting traffic and links to your website in the author byline.
Get it at WordPress, an open-source blogging platform, has dozens of pre-built themes that can be installed on your website and customized to suit your needs.
e-Newsletter
If the idea of adding another piece of spam mail to a user’s inbox makes you queasy, you’re already on the right track; the most successful e-Newsletters are the furthest thing from cheesy promotions. Properly done, e-Newsletters can drive traffic and even boost ad clicks (if your site is monetized), so you should consider adding email marketing to your strategy:
- Capture email addresses through an opt-in form on your website or blog. If the idea of receiving more tips doesn’t get readers to bite, offer an incentive for signing up; guides and e-books are popular offers.
- Focus on content, not just promotions. Deliver value to your readers—tips, news, and other content that shows there’s something in it for them. Every so often, integrate a special members-only coupon or other discount deal that only subscribers get.
- Thoughtful timing lets your subscribers know that you respect their space. By flooding their inboxes, you’re just asking readers to jump ship. If you offer frequent emails, provide an option for subscribers to receive weekly or monthly conglomerate emails instead.
- Get it at MailChimp; they offer free email marketing for up to 12,000 subscribers. You can (and should) customize the emails to match your brand style and follow analytics to see what works and what doesn’t.
Social Media
It’s not just for staying in touch with rogue classmates you never talked to (although it can do that). If you’re still stubbornly avoiding the social media bandwagon, you’re missing out on a world of rewarding opportunities. Social media can be integrated into email marketing, blogging, and your website itself, providing far-reaching benefits for your efforts. For the price of free, you can’t beat the visitor-attracting potential of these social media platforms:
- Facebook tops the social media list with over 800 million active users (at the time of this writing). If you only have time for one social media platform, Facebook would be a wise choice. Post links to your blog posts, interact with other users, and keep a top-of-mind presence with fellow Facebookers who may be considering your product or service.
- Twitter can be a fast and effective way to spread a message, if you play it right. Since users’ feeds update so rapidly, you’ll usually have to Tweet several times a day to be heard. Join in conversations with others in your industry, and post links to your blog posts. Consider adding a widget to your site or blog with a live feed of your most recent Tweets.
- Google+ may be the new kid on the block, but it’s also powered by one of the most successful web companies of all time. They recently unveiled a business/brand page to rival that of Facebook’s, with unique features like face-to-face customer chat and the ability to segment one’s audience into circles for more specific targeting.
Remember: blogging, email marketing, and social media marketing can be free of cost, but they do require a dedication of time to be successful. Test out these marketing methods for yourself, and watch your stats rise!
Category: Webmaster
About the Author (Author Profile)
Mandy Barrington is a lead web designer and writer at RYP Marketing, a website marketing agency. For more online marketing tips and advice, check out the RYP Marketing Blog.Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
Twitter: priya25m
says:
Yes more than anything it is the fresh content that helps to keep the blogger stand in this competitive blogging world.
priya recently posted..Bullish Intraday Stocks and Shares for December 19th 2011 (19/12/2011)
Twitter: rypmarketing
says:
So true! It’s not always the first thing on the to-do-list while working to meet the needs of clients, but it is so important to keep our own content updated as well! Thanks for adding your two cents!
Twitter: bitingsoft
says:
Yes
Blog becomes vital part to drive visitors to site.
No question about social media sites, they are simply great to promote new websites and are must.
Pradosh recently posted..Chrome Add-on To View Website With Different Resolution
Twitter: rypmarketing
says:
Agreed! What social media sites do you use most? I’m a fan of Facebook, myself.
Twitter: techmunchies
says:
Social media is one of the best way to promote your site other then fresh content.If used wisely social media is capable of getting your site a huge no of readers.
Abhishek recently posted..Get Inspired To Make A Change Through Your Personal Blog
Guest blogging is definitively the way to go. If you do this well, you get new followers, new subscribers (whether it’s your feed or your email newsletter), Google love and more authority in your niche. Add list building to your efforts with proper email marketing and monetization, and guest blogging can be one of the best traffic generation methods out there. I didn’t even mention the buzz you can get if the post goes viral on social media.
Franck
Franck Silvestre recently posted..How To Build A List of 2000 Subscribers For Free In 3 Easy Steps!
Twitter: rypmarketing
says:
Guest posting does have a great link-in with social media, I always promote my guest posts on Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, and our LinkedIn Page—it benefits both blogger and blog!
I’m really impressed with Mailchimp’s features. I’d say, use every marketing platform wisely. Invest in quality and hard work. Happy Holidays!
Twitter: rypmarketing
says:
Thanks for dropping in! Do you use MailChimp yourself?
Thanks for this informative information This is very fast way to promote over sit and improving search engine ranking once again thanks
Twitter: rypmarketing
says:
You’re welcome, glad you found it helpful!
Twitter: rypmarketing
says:
Great point—discussion forums are a very helpful way to both learn and share your knowledge as an expert. Thanks for the great additions!
Twitter: _robinsonc
says:
Fresh Contents and Social Media, are two important ways that beginner bloggers should give more focus initially right ? then side by side they can build up the subscribers and so on.
Robin.
Robin recently posted..Microsoft SOCL Preview and First Look [Video]
This is an excellent post, I am thinking about launching a new website soon and to be honest I am short on cash so I cannot afford fancy marketing strategies. I was thinking mostly about guest posting and social media. I certainly agree with what the others have said regarding quality content, if you cannot write good web content, outsource it to those who have the time and skills to write for you.
Scott Jones recently posted..Warning: Car Tax For A Cars’ First Registration Can Be More Expensive
Thanks Mandy,
some useful information there. Its a hard job to maintain a website in this age of Google ! though i will also try and keep my blog up to date.
and thanks for the heads up on mailchimp too ! will be looking into that !
you’re welcome to guest blog with me any time.
Hi Mandy Barrington, Great tips! It’s a very big help for blogging beginners like me. I agree with your points which you have mentioned above. Great job, keep it up.
Mohd Akbar recently posted..iTwin – Identical USB Device For Transferring Files Safely and Easily
I am developing a website. I have already created the forms and homepage for the site however, I am not familiar with mySQL and other advanced programs. I am shopping around for prices to get my site off the ground. How do I explain my site and ideas to designers without them taking these ideas and beating me to the punch?
Blogging is the fastest way to get more traffic. This along with social media marketing, can go a long way to build and sustain a profitable venture.
i agree with your post….its very useful information for those who are looking to promote their site.I too find these tech ticks very helpful and follow them .They have really helped me in promoting my site.
Twitter: wowastro
says:
Hi Mandy,
I agree with all things but I think we should also invite some guest posts at our blog as well as to write guest posts for other websites since it offer a good piece of information for reader plus it gives a generous look to the blog. I don’t know, if it is right please suggest your comments.
Regards,
Sunil