Step 5. Promoting your website

How can I promote my website to everyone once
I have launched it LIVE to the world?

This is the area most often neglected by website owners. Many people invest a great deal of time, money and effort getting their website up and running only to let it float aimlessly in cyberspace. In 2009 there were in excess of 100 million websites on the internet. So how are you going to be found?

 

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) ...

Most of us have now heard of SEO and have a rough idea what it is. SEO considers how search engines operate and what people are searching for. Optimising a website involves editing its content and HTML code to both increase its relevance for specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing processes of search engines.

 

SEO has become a highly specialised field and SEO companies are a growing industry. If you are serious about improving the visibility of your website on the internet, or you lie in a very competitve field you might consider further investment in a specialist SEO service provider, especially if your web design company is unable to provide this for you.

 

Social networking ...

There has been an explosion of social networking sites on the internet within the past few years (Facebook, Twitter and MySpace to name a few) and they are becoming and increasingly important promotional avenue for website owners to get their message out to the masses. You should definitely consider becoming a part of these networks and researching the benefits they offer when trying to raise the profile of your website and the products and services you offer.

 

Other methods ...

You should take every opportunity to promote your website by including your web address on all stationery items, vehicle and building signage, advertising and marketing material, email campaigns etc. Every little bit helps!

 

It is highly recommended you utilise some form of website traffic monitoring software to register the activity within your website. Who is coming to your site, where have they come from, what they are looking at and how long they are staying on your site. Without any form of accurate measurement you are simply running blind and will have no idea on how to improve the performance and quality of your site.