We have all seen the explosion of websites on the internet.

Success stories of web millionaires are painfully read – why can’t we all achieve these dizzy profits. What many don’t realise is that these people more often than not spend most of their days OPTIMISING AND MARKETING THEIR SITE – NOT THEIR PRODUCT.

Building your website is just the first part of marketing your business on the web, designing and programming your site to your satisfaction and then publishing to the internet puts you into the arena with countless millions of other sites.

You need to have it there but will anyone see it, when we build a site for a client we put the basic search words into it, these keywords, metatags and descriptions lie within the hidden layers of the site. The actual visible text can also be optimized and depending on client requirements we will do this. However at this point you are simply ‘out there’ with a working site.

Imagine that you are advertising in the Yellow Pages, the first half of the book is structured and ads can be found with ease, but imagine your ad is in a separate section without any indexing, simply thrown into the book in the order they came in … Boat Sales next to Yoga Classes etc. Would you want to advertise is this section, you wouldn’t pay to in a million years, but this is what it is like if you don’t optimise your site.

This process is as you will see, is an ongoing and expansive process, it takes time and therefore money, not all clients want to pay for this process, some try to do it themselves, some don’t want it done at all, it depends on the reason the site exists. Consequently we don’t include this option in the ‘site build’ part of our estimate to clients, I am sure that as you read on you will understand why.

Website Promotion

Success on the Internet doesn't happen by accident and it most often doesn't only come from traditional search engines. For merchants to succeed they MUST have a well-rounded marketing approach using MOST OR ALL of the Internet promotional techniques available, of which only a small part is search engines. However, if you rely on search engines for your success, you will likely fail! A high listing in search engines is not what it once was due to the encroachment of paid listings that displace the free relevancy listings at the top of all major search engines. Furthermore, relevancy search engines cannot be precisely controlled. It logically follows therefore, that a good approach to website promotion is to use any and all available tools, including of course relevancy search engine positioning.

One important thing to keep in mind: Building traffic to your website is a process and not a single event. It takes time. Most websites can easily generate 1000’s of unique visitors in their first month with the appropriate amount of promotion. It should only get better from there.

When it comes to promoting a website, one of the most invaluable tools you can have is a proper perspective. Consider the big picture of website promotion. Here are the cold hard facts:

• Fact: Most normal commercial websites on the Internet get less than 100 unique visitors per day coming to their site.
• Fact: Conversion rates for commercial websites on the Internet average about 2%. This means that if you are the average website owner, it takes 100 unique visitors to your site to generate two orders. The best commercial sites on the Internet boast conversion rates in the order of 5%.

Now, let's put that together. A website that gets 100 visitors a day to the site, or about 3000 visitors a month, can look forward to about 60 orders a month. Furthermore, a website that gets 60 orders a month on a consistent basis is easily in the top 5% of commercial websites on the Web.
Pretty bleak picture. The big question is ... can you do better?

The answer is yes, and here is how. Consider the simple elements necessary for success in Internet Marketing:

Product or Service: Sell something that is in demand. If people don't want to buy it (be it product, service, or information), we don't recommend trying to sell it. Your product or service needs to be something that a reasonable number of people will want to buy.

• Product or Service: Sell something that is in demand. If people don't want to buy it (be it product, service, or information), we don't recommend trying to sell it. Your product or service needs to be something that a reasonable number of people
  will want to buy.
• Price: The price of your product or service needs to be considered as both reasonable and fair. It doesn't have to be the cheapest price on the Internet, but it does have to be in a price range that your customers consider to be fair.
  
• Website: You need to have a well designed, functional e-commerce website with modern merchandizing capabilities.
  
• Traffic: You need plenty of qualified traffic. The amount of unique visitors you can bring to your site every day depends largely on the relative popularity of your subject matter. However, even websites with the most obscure and unpopular topics should have no difficulty putting 100 visitors a day on the site. Most sites should have little or no trouble putting several hundred or even over a thousand visitors a day on the site, with a reasonable amount of time and effort.
  

Here is the summary equation:

Good Product or Service + Fair Price + Good Website + Plenty of Qualified Traffic = A Successful Website.


Here is the key question: Of the four elements for a successful site, which part of the equation is the one that gives most website owners fits?

Right. Getting qualified traffic.

A sufficient amount of qualified traffic seems to elude most website owners. WHY? There are lots of reasons. The vast majority of website owners simply don't know how to properly promote a website. Among those that do, many of them are unwilling to spend the amount of time and effort required to actually promote it.

Summary overview of the major website promotion tools available:

If you are not using most or all of these tools, you simply are not doing the things that generate traffic to your site, and are probably relying too much on search engines for your success. Remember, it is not logical to build a business that relies on a single marketing tool (like traditional search engines) over which you have little if any control. So here is an overview of 15 things we can do to optimise a website.

Search engines are still important and deserve effort and attention because they can generate good qualified traffic for some sites. The good news is, even if your site gets ZERO traffic from search engines, (which is highly unlikely if properly optimized for submission to search engines) that should be little cause for concern, because there are dozens of other resources available to promote a site and generate hundreds or maybe thousands of visitors a day. Most sites should expect at least some visitors each day from traditional search engines, unless they have improperly done the optimisation of their websites.

It is important to check the site position in the major search engines at least quarterly, and if the site has been dropped by one of those search engines – we resubmit your site to that search engine.

Including search mechanisms for traditional search engines is vitally important and is included in a site after designing and building it – a fundamental part of the site.

However - ‘Obsession With Search Engines’ afflicts most website owners by occupying all of their time and effort on traditional search engines, causing them to ignore the dozens of other great promotional tools available.

Relevancy Search Engine Strategy (Free/Fee): Relevancy search engine positioning entails designing titles, descriptions and page text that are keyword rich, making sure to focus on the best keywords as indicated by the reverse search tool. We need to avoid tricks or gimmicks to try to cheat the search engines, as they will ban a URL if caught. We optimise every single page of your website, as most search engines will index every page on your website. We then submit to the relevancy search engines manually, and then check back about quarterly to make sure you are listed in each engine.

Web Directories (Free/Fee): Web Directories are hierarchical directories on the Internet that are maintained by people (as opposed to robot spiders of the relevancy search engines). The web directories are Yahoo (which now gets second billing to relevancy results provided by Google) Looksmart, Open Directory Project, and half a dozen other smaller directories. We recommend you research your keywords and submit manually to all of the web directories. It takes about two hours to submit to all the live directories, and some of them charge a fee for the submission.

Bid Ranked Search Engines (Fee): Bid ranked search engines are different than traditional relevancy search engines, because unlike traditional search engines you can precisely control the bid ranked engines. There are currently about 400 (and growing weekly) bid ranked engines on the Internet. Bid ranked search engines are pay-per-click advertising tools where you pay exactly what you want to pay for traffic. If used properly, bid ranked search engines can be one of your best sources of super-qualified, low cost traffic.

Link Trading (Free/Fee): Trading reciprocal links with other websites that share your market demographic is absolutely crucial to your success. Not only does link trading increase direct traffic to your site, but it also helps your link popularity which can positively influence your search engine position in some search engines. Link trading can take a lot of time and effort, and typically involves either searching for suitable links, using links supplied by our clients or using a Link Trading Service if applicable.

The items up to this point are what we consider to be a normal basic level of optimisation and depending on your requirements will be covered to a reasonable degree in our standard optimisation package –

But we can take it further !

Online Auctions (Free/Fee): Online auction sites like eBay, Yahoo Auctions, and dozens of others are a fantastic way to directly promote your products to one of the best online communities of shoppers on the Web.

Webrings (Free): Joining Webrings is a great way to tap into the community that is interested in your subject matter. Webrings are generally free and easy to join; require no maintenance; and, depending on the site, can send dozens of qualified visitors to your site each week.
Free Classifieds (Free): Free classifieds take only time and effort, but are great. There are submission services which, for a small fee, will automatically submit and resubmit your classified advertising, complete with a link to your website, to the giant network of free classified ad listings on the Web.

Free Classifieds (Free): Free classifieds take only time and effort, but are great. There are submission services which, for a small fee, will automatically submit and resubmit your classified advertising, complete with a link to your website, to the giant network of free classified ad listings on the Web.

Permission Marketing (Free): You should be using a well-crafted permission marketing effort. Gather the email addresses of the visitors to your website (with their express permission), send them your periodic newsletter, product updates, and special offers, etc... If you do not have a permission marketing strategy currently running on your site, you are missing a valuable tool and another way to help generate sales, additional traffic, and improve conversion rates.

Vertical Portals (Free/Fee): Virtually every possible vertical market segment is represented on the Internet by at least one, usually several, vertical portals. These vertical portals represent a fantastic resource for super-targeted advertising for your site. Most vertical portals are free, and some offer paid advertising, but more importantly, they almost always have some great free resources to promote your website, like listings on their directory of industry resources, or in their vertical search engine, etc

Per-Impression (CPI) Campaigns (Fee): Only site owners that have a bit of experience with other promotional tools should consider this resource. Impression ads like banners, skyscrapers, buttons, pop-ups and pop-unders, are a good method of online-branding, because there is no better way to put your name in front of huge amounts of eyeballs fast. While they do cost money, and the click-through rate is not as high as it used to be (or as high as other methods), they are another way to generate traffic to your site.

Banner Exchanges (Free): You can get free banner advertising by joining a free banner exchange like linkexchange.com, virtuads.com, or dozens of others. By giving up some advertising space on your site, you can get free banner advertising on someone else's sites.
Newsletter Campaigns (Fee): There are literally thousands and thousands of permission based email newsletters on the Internet. Most of these sell commercial ad space. There are some unbelievable bargains to be had on these resources, and click-through rates are much higher than banners. They are great tools and should not be neglected.

Newsletter Campaigns (Fee): There are literally thousands and thousands of permission based email newsletters on the Internet. Most of these sell commercial ad space. There are some unbelievable bargains to be had on these resources, and click-through rates are much higher than banners. They are great tools and should not be neglected.

Newsletter Ad Swaps Trades (Free): Once your permission marketing email list is built up to a reasonable level, you can easily trade ads with other newsletters that share your target audience, but who are not necessarily your direct competitors. This can give you a massive reach to your target audience on the Internet.

Affiliate Programs (Fee): Affiliate programs are the "Queen Mother" of Internet Marketing. Many of the most successful websites on the Internet get the majority of their traffic and sales from affiliate programs. In short, you can quickly and easily recruit hundreds or even thousands of websites that will promote your product or service, and link to you in return for a small percentage of every sale they send your way. In other words, you use an affiliate program to recruit a huge commissioned sales force of websites. Affiliate programs are no longer the exclusive domain of the e-commerce giants. You can and should be running an affiliate program on your sites.

Comparison Shopping Portals (Fee): One of the best sources for super-qualified traffic is the comparison-shopping portal, of which there are literally hundreds. You pay only for the traffic you get, and the traffic from these portals usually generates a higher conversion rate than your other traffic.

Viral Marketing (Free/Fee): There are various forms Viral Marketing can take. There are probably several options that will work for your site, and it is a great leverage technique. Essentially, one potential lead generates another, and another, and another, without additional effort.

Leverage Marketing (Free): Many of the strategies when used in combination with each other, make each other dramatically more powerful. For example, using a classified ad blast to promote your affiliate program. There are literally hundreds of possible combinations of these effective marketing tools that can really ratchet up your marketing.

Traditional Media (Fee): You should always remember to include your URL in any and every form of traditional media that you would buy anyway. Your business cards and brochures, telephone book ads, direct mail, TV, radio, etc...
Geo-Targeting Strategies (Free/Fee): Most people see little or no application for a local or regional business to have a website to promote their business. After all the Internet is a global thing right? Wrong. There are over a dozen ways to promote a website locally or regionally so that it brings in a disproportionate volume of local traffic. Any business owner not using a website to promote a local or regional business is making a huge mistake, and ultimately leaving money on the table.

Geo-Targeting Strategies (Free/Fee): Most people see little or no application for a local or regional business to have a website to promote their business. After all the Internet is a global thing right? Wrong. There are over a dozen ways to promote a website locally or regionally so that it brings in a disproportionate volume of local traffic. Any business owner not using a website to promote a local or regional business is making a huge mistake, and ultimately leaving money on the table.

In summary

The good news is there are many different ways to generate quality traffic to one's website, but given the dynamic nature of the Internet the "how to" is constantly changing. For example, significant changes took place in the search engine world and within a six-month period, techniques, which used to work to achieve high listings were almost totally redundant.

In addition, new traffic-generating methods and techniques become available regularly which are frequently more effective than older ones.
So now you see why this is something we add as an extra …… how long is a piece of string?

Now you have read some of the ways we can help you optimise your site and improve your traffic, some of these methods you may be able to work out yourself and put into action. If you can’t or you realise that we can do this better for you, then give me a call and we can discuss the best options for you.

Call Simon Grain on 03 9568 3666

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