Online Ways to Promote Your Online Business
There are many different ways to promote your online business. With a little energy and
creativity, you can market your business widely and without a great deal of expense. Using
paid ads, social media and listing sites can greatly increase your presence and help drive
traffic towards your site. An effective and clear online marketing strategy should take into
account all the various ways in which you can engage with your customers online.
Using Online Advertising
Consider pay-per-click advertising
One way to quickly increase your web presence is by using pay-per-click advertising to
have your business appear prominently in search engine results. This is probably the
quickest way to promote your business, but is also probably the most expensive. You will
need to budget carefully and ensure you make the most of any paid ads.
Pay-per-click ads are sold by auction so they can get very expensive very quickly.
If you do get one, create a strong landing page for people who click through.
Ensure you have the systems in place to analyse the amount of traffic and customers you
receive through your ad. You need this information to evaluate whether it was worth the investment.
Join listing sites
Listing sites are essentially online databases which make large numbers of companies easily
accessible and searchable. There are a number of major listing sites which are likely to appear
higher up in search engine results than your own site. For this reason it's important to
maximise your presence on these heavily frequented sites. Many listing sites are free to join
and can direct a lot of traffic your way so you should take advantage of this.
You may already have been added to listings and review sites by a customer, but by taking
charge of your presence you can control how your business is presented. See which listings
sites are most prominent in your field of business simply by searching online and writing down
which ones come high in the results.
Connect with web affiliates
You can join up with other businesses and develop mutually beneficial relationships. Web
affiliates will typically provide links to each other's stores on their web pages to help
direct traffic to your affiliates. This can be particularly effective when the online stores
have something in common or sell complementary goods.
For example if you sell hair care products you could share links with a store that sells
skin care products, and recommend each other's goods. Only do this with a company you like
and trust who share a similar ethos to you.
You can expand these relationships into shared offers and deals if they prove effective
and bring in traffic. As well as sharing links, affiliates can agree a deal to sell each
other's products on their site.
Optimising Your Store for Search Engines
Understand search engine optimisation (SEO)
SEO is a collection of techniques which increase the chances of your site being high up
in search results on search engines. Rather than paying for a more prominent position, the
practice of SEO can drastically help increase the profile and presence of your online store.
It's free and effective, but it does take a little time to understand the principles of SEO
and apply them to your website. Major search engines provide guides to how they work for
those wishing to optimise their results.
SEO is necessary primarily because of the ubiquity of search engines. Think about how
you search for something online. Ask yourself how often you click through past the first
couple of pages of results.
Find out the popular key words for your area of business
You probably think you already have a decent idea of the key words that bring traffic to
your website, but it's best not to leave any stone unturned when doing SEO. Use online tools
to determine which words bring traffic to your store. There are a few different ways to
measure key words.
Key word frequency refers to how often a word appears in the title or description of
a website. Be aware though, if you have stuffed your site full of key words it may be judged
spam. The key word weight is the number of key words in comparison to the total number of
words. By having less text on a page, you can achieve a heavier key word weight.
The positioning of words in relation to each other is known as key word proximity.
For example, if you are selling "black socks", you will outrank someone selling "black cotton
socks" if the search term is "black socks".
Having your key words high up on a page and prominent in headings and the first paragraph
of text gives you a good key word prominence score. Similarly, having the words in titles or
links can equal good key word placement.
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