Posts Tagged ‘email’

So you have your own website. Congratulations. Now, what exactly are you doing to get people to visit your site? Just like a brick and mortar storefront or an office suite in the commerce park, your website isnt just going to become a popular hangout spot for clients and prospective customers. Youve got to tell everyone about it!

When you open a restaurant, you put up signs, you take out a newspaper ad, you buy space in the yellow pages, you turn on the lights, you open the door, you tell everyone you meet about your new business. Your website deserves the same treatment. If you fail to promote your site, youve basically just spent a thousand dollars or more on a standard lot in cyberspace with no roads in and no roads out. You need to get the word out on your new company website, and heres the best part it doesnt have to cost anything at all, if youre willing to take the time and make the effort to do it yourself.

Sohow does a small business owner jumpstart his or her website? You may consider hiring a professional to do it for you. Your web design and development firm built your site for visitors, but probably did not include promotion along with it. A good ad agency will raise the topic when quoting on your site. An experienced marketer knows its always best to group your promotions and cross-sell at every opportunity and should have suggested handling your web traffic. But in case they missed the boat, you can still contact a full-service ad agency to help. Of course, thats not the FREE methods mentioned in the title of this piece, so for those whod like to take a shot at handling it themselves, this article tells you 5 FREE steps to jumpstarting your web traffic:

1. Connect the Cables

2. Start the Engine

3. Get it Running

4. Give it Some Gas

5. Put it in Drive

Everyone whos ever owned a car long enough to pay off the loan knows that an indispensable part of the trunk contents is a set of jumper cables (the other is a gallon of water). You never know when youll be stuck somewhere with a car that just wont get going. Same with your website. Its there, but its going nowhere unless you first get it connected to something thats already running or capable of running. Whether you already have established business or not, youve got to connect your website to every promotional piece you create. This means adding your web address to:

- company stationery (business cards, letterhead, envelopes, invoices, quote sheets, receipts)

- business signage (windows, counter displays, and company vehicles)

- ads (yellow pages, newspapers, and local magazines)

- everything else (boxes, bags, cartons, promotional pieces and more)

Everything that gets your name and phone number, gets your URL (web address). This shouldnt cost you anything if you wait until its time to reprint. But, if you want to get started today, youll need to redesign and reprint new promotional pieces to add your site. Since jumpstarting requires the cables be connected, its a great way to get your site visited sooner rather than later.

Its important not to lose track of one key point, there are 2 sets of clamps on a set of jumper cables. You must make sure your website is sending the right message back to visitors. It must look and feel like your existing promotional pieces. Your brand identity is dependent upon it. And your website must clearly identify who you are, where you are and what you do. Your contact information is as critical online as it is on your business cards. Make sure the electrical current is flowing freely between both vehicles if youre ever going to get rolling!

Okay. So your cables are connected, and now its time to start the other engine. The most important engine on the internet is the search engine. You want to become very friendly with Mr. Search Engine because he knows lots and lots of people. You want his friends to be your friends. Search engines, and their brothers, Directories are the traffic cops of the internet. They basically tell people where to find the files and pages theyre looking for out of billions of documents on the world wide web. Soyou cant have them over for dinner, butyou can get them to know about you by sending them an invitation to visit your site.

Search engines use robots and spiders to crawl all over the web and take inventory of the files and their content, its a computerized process. You can wait weeks to be crawled, or you can help the process along by submitting your URL to the search engines directly. Well over 80% of internet users take their first step via a search engine like Google, AltaVista, or HotBot.

Directories like Yahoo, employ humans to compile lists of websites and web pages from the millions available online at any given time. You can also help the directories find you by submitting your site to the proper subdirectory inside these engines. Directories will consider your site on a free submission. If you want a guarantee, youll have to pay for it.

So, as soon as your website is complete and live, SUBMIT. List your site on as many FREE (there it is again) engines as you can find. Check out www.directoryguide.com for a list. You should resubmit your site every few months especially if you have had content changes, page additions or other major changes to your website. Make sure you submit to the local yellow pages and white pages online too. Most offer free listings for businesses.

If you havent already done so, confirm that your web developer added page titles and keywords to your website. If you arent using metadata like this, you need to. Search engines utilize the keywords and compare them to your content. They return your title and page descriptions in search results. Dont expect the best ranking without metadata, so call on a pro to get your pages optimized. Consider your keywords carefully. They will be ones that are basic to your business or industry. Put the most important words and phrases first in the list.

Search engines like the popular sites. So, another way to make your site attractive to the search engines is to have lots of friends. The way to gain popularity is to have lots of good websites linking to your website. When a search engine returns results, they rank the pages based on relevancy and popularity. Your goal is to always be in the top five or ten listings returned on a search. Popularity pays off in ranking your site higher than other less noticeable sites (thousands of them!).

Getting popular doesnt have to mean spending money. Sure you could spend thousands and thousands on ads to get onto the first page of search results (basically buying your friends), but why? If you can get your site linked up, youll get the engines fired up about you. Youll find more info in steps 4 and 5 below.

Step 3 Get it Running. Once the engine starts up, you need to let it run for a while to get the power flowing to your site. While its idling out in cyberspace, run off with promote your site via email. There are two email tactics you need to think about. The first is your email signature, the second is email marketing.

Your signature is unique, and your unique web address is as important as your name and phone number in the closing of every email you send out (business and personal). You and your employees must include your companys digital signature. It should include a clickable link to your URL. This form of viral marketing is both FREE, and easy. Your email software will have a place to format your digital signature. Find it and use it.

Email marketing is one of the most effective tools to market your website and to showcase products and services. Permission-based email can be extremely targeted by including only those people whove expressed an interest in your business, product or industry. By building and maintaining your own house list, you ensure youre compliance with anti-spam laws. There are also reputable list brokers who can help you choose a list of email addresses to prospect to with an offer, coupon, or other introductory special. Of course, list rental isnt free, but you can certainly start building a list of your own with friends, family and current customers. You can ask for email addresses and permission to send on every inquiry your company receives both online and off. Build your list, keep it clean and offer an easy way for people to unsubscribe or opt out. Most important, send relevant and targeted content, a clear call to action, and pay close attention to your subject line. You want your mail to be opened, read, and acted upon. Armed with this info, you can easily create simple text emails for FREE!

Done correctly, email marketing will become an extremely powerful tool for sales and customer service. When youre ready to make your email campaigns even more diverse, in-depth and creative, call on a professional marketer. But whether you keep it simple by doing it yourself, or hire someone for the task, dont let this one get by you.

Pushing down the pedal helps boost the power. Step 4 of our FREE Steps to Jumpstarting your Web Traffic involves content. Quality content makes the difference between visited and forgotten. Hopefully, when you created your website, you included the kind of useful information web surfers are looking for. Your content is what makes your website important, its what keeps people coming back, and its what helps you rank in the search engines. Keep your content relevant, current, and easy to navigate. Some examples of content that you should include on your site, and keep updated, include:

- instructions for assembling and using your products

- technical specifications

- maintenance schedules

- warranty and upgrade information

- frequently asked questions (FAQs)

- articles/information bits on your industry, products, or services

Youre already an expert in your field, so show it off online! Write hints and tips, articles (like this one!) and more. Post this information on your website, but also, submit it to article and press release websites. These types of directories house hundreds of articles on all different topics. If you cant write, then visit an article site and download some relevant content to use on your website. Heres the bonus: if you write and submit, your bio and website link go with your article. Anyone who wishes to use your content must keep your bio and links intact. BAM! You just added links throughout the world wide web, back to YOUR site! Watch those FREE rankings go up in the search results! Giving your website some gas by filling it up with quality content is step number four in our 5 FREE Steps to Jumpstarting Your Website.

When steps 1-4 are complete, youre ready to turn the key and shift into drive. Youre marketing your website on all your promotional material (for free), your site is ranking with the search engines (for free), youre sending regular email messages to customers and growing your list (also for free), and youre keeping your content relevant to both customers and potential customers (againfor free!). So now its time to take off! Once your site is doing things to help grow your business, its time to turnover it over with step 5 — new ideas. If youve started your website for Ecommerce, its time to enhance customer service. If youve begun as info only, its time to sell or take orders online. If your restaurant started a site just to add its menu, then its time to take customers in the kitchen, show them what their meal takes, what its made of, what youre made of. Whatever you do, dont just jumpstart your traffic, then sit back and watch everyone drive past you.

The final step to jumpstarting traffic is really not the end of the road. The internet is different daily. Search engines change their algorithms, new technology is available almost by the minute, consumer tastes and preferences are in a constant state of flux. In this environment, you need to keep your website and marketing tools up to date if you want to stay competitive. Subscribe to free E-zines, newsletters and other information sources that will keep you current on whats new and whats hot. Keep your marketing efforts tuned up and it will always be rush hour on your website.

Linda Lullie
http://www.articlesbase.com/advertising-articles/5-free-ways-to-jumpstart-your-web-traffic-112658.html

Technorati Tags: brick and mortar, Don, email, full service ad agency, hangout spot, jumper cables, list, Search, site, small business owner, website

I have started a non-profit group to help the poorest of the poor in Tanzania, E. Africa. I have a website and would like to drive more people to it. This has the potential of getting more people involved in helping me and more donations? Any help is appreciated.
www.throughourhands.org

Well, posting your link on here is one way, but you may get violated for advertising. Other ways would be to print your website and some information about it on flyers and then send those out to national, state, and local charity organizations to post on their bulletin boards.
Another way would be to join some discussion boards and forums and post your link there.
You can also send out an email to all your friends with the link and some information and ask them to forward that email on to their friends.
You can also try community centers and coffee shops in your area that has free to post bulletin boards where you can post a flyer about your site.
You can also write to or email or call local radio stations and tv stations with your information and website.

Hope these help, I’m going to head over to your site and visit it now, thanks!

EDIT- I like your site and I am going to post a blog entry about it with a link and a picture from your site. That’s another way to get the word out! I’m also interested in making a donation with cell phones and money, please email me, God bless!

Technorati Tags: bulletin boards, charity organizations, coffee shops, E. Africa, email, God, information, Link, local radio stations, profit group, site, Tanzania, website

I’m trying to increase traffic to my website but to not much avail. Right now is the slow season and I’m worried I won’t be making many chocolate sales. Does anyone have any suggestions on some strategies I may use to help create awareness for my site?

Send out an email promotion to your customer list. In the email, offer a discount, or free sample to people who refer friends to your site.

Technorati Tags: avail, chocolate sales, email, email promotion, free sample, site, traffic, website

I want to know the website link for nude photos of Agnes Lum, please tell me the website…..If you have them please email them.

dude, you are a pervert. I know u interested in her. So just dream about it.

Technorati Tags: Agnes Lum, Dude, email, Link, nude photos, pervert, website

I am trying to send my website to friends in the form of a link in a email. How can I send it so they can click on it. When I send the website, there is no way to click on it so the website can open up from the email. Please help.

When you visit any website, the url is displayed in your browser window. Click into it, thereby marking it. Copy the url, now you can insert it in mails as a clickable link. Just make sure you have a blank space before and after the url, otherwise it won’t work…

Technorati Tags: blank space, browser window, Click, email, Link, URL, website