How to promote your website: our top tips for being discovered online

To help with that, we’ve compiled some top tips for giving your website a higher profile among your target audiences – and for ensuring it’s flexible enough to adapt to your business as it grows.

First things first…
Before you begin to promote your website online, you need to make sure the design and content management system (CMS) can withstand a long-term strategy – ie. support you as you keep growing. Your website is one of the most important elements of your brand identity, as it plays a leading role in leaving lasting positive impressions among potential and existing customers. The best way to ensure this is to work with digital experts… like us.

Here are some of the most popular and effective ways we help businesses like yours stand out from the crowd online:

Search engine optimization (SEO)
Done well, SEO can significantly increase your visibility online. Knowing how search engines like Google interpret searches and look for specific words and phrases in website text, you can optimise every page of your site so that yours ranks higher. In short, you stand a much higher chance of being discovered if you use the right search keywords in your website text.

We can help you create professionally optimised copy for your site, so you’re found more easily, and for all the right reasons.

PPC
Online paid advertising is another way to be found quickly online. Pay per click (PPC) services such as those offered by Google AdWords are increasingly popular with businesses looking for a fast and effective way to promote their sites and specific content, as you can target specific audiences and locations with keywords. The only drawback with PPC is that it can be quite expensive to run, and the leads stop coming in as soon as you stop the service.

Social media
Another great way to promote your website is through social media. This gives you an opportunity to engage directly with your target audience, and on a more personal, informal level. Setting up business-focused social media accounts is simple enough, but it takes time – or investment in expertise – to grasp which channels are right for your business and find the best strategic mix. Here’s a quick look at some of the channels that might be a part of that mix:

Facebook
By far the biggest channel, with over 2 billion users, Facebook is where people can browse through your products and photos, share posts, leave comments or questions, and even chat with you online. The key is to keep your ‘page’ updated regularly and keep people entertained and engaged. Done well, this can be a great place to promote your business.

Twitter
This can be really handy for getting the attention of media and PR agencies in particular. Word spreads fast on Twitter, so if you get your campaign and messaging right it can really put your brand or business ‘in the moment’ and raise awareness in a big way.

Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat
For businesses that have more visual or stylistic products or services, these image-based channels are great for ‘trending’ themes, and for spreading the word about new products with well thought-out imagery and captions.

LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the most business-focussed of all the social media channels, and is primarily for building networks and ‘connections’ that can open up new audiences and markets. It’s the go-to channel for business people and professionals, and is more about insights and expertise than the hard sell. It’s also a great way to gauge competition and find potential collaborators.

Email marketing
This is a far more direct and measurable way to promote your business, and is best done using professional email marketing software such as MailChimp. This way you can send out 100s or even 1000s of personalised emails in one go, and schedule mailers to reach specific audiences at strategic times. You can also group recipients for different campaigns, and monitor how many people open your email, click on the specific links within it, and more – so you can work out which approaches are more effective, and why, and keep refining your campaigns.

Strategic partnerships
Another way to extend your reach is by collaborating with partners that sell products or services related to your own. A few emails or phone calls to discuss how you can complement each other’s unique selling points can prove highly effective, and mutually beneficial. Co-promotion is a huge part of today’s business landscape, as it saves customers shopping around for the products

or services that complement yours, and offers them peace of mind that you’ve chosen partners on their merits.

Publish regular content
Another great website tool is the news or blog section. Search engines love to see active websites that release new content regularly, so yours will rank higher if you refresh it frequently. There’s no point in publishing content for the sake of it, though. Keep industry, market and consumer trends front of mind, and engage with your target audience about the things that matter to them. You can even post simple videos about upcoming products, industry insights, and so on, and invite comment as this gives you contact details for future marketing.

If, like an increasing number of savvy businesses, you want your website to be the strategic hub for your online presence, we can help. We’re experts at all things digital, and would be more than happy to show you how we can build a brighter online future for your business.