How do you spread the word that you now doing business online and have your own website Look no further than below for 8 easy and everyday ways you can use to make your website known!
1. Word of mouth! Dont be shy about telling others that you are now doing business online! Find opportunities to spread the word about your website. Inform your family members, neighbours and friends. Make your URL (website address) prominent on every outgoing piece of business stationery such as letterhead, envelope, fax cover and name card.
2. Include a catchy email signature with every outgoing email of yours! Be sure to include your name, company name, phone number and URL and one or two sentences describing what you offer. Dont make it too long or tedious to read. To set up an email signature in Outlook Express, just go to Tools, then Options and click on the Signature tab. Type in your signature text, click Apply. Now each time you send an outgoing email, your signature will be appended.
3. Voicemail can also double as an advertising tool! Specifically mention your URL when you record your voicemail on your mobile phone or answering machine. Whenever anyone calls and leaves a message, they will hear: Thank you for calling (your business/your name). I am not available right now, but if you leave me a message, Ill be sure to get back to you. If you need more information, do remember to log on to (your website address). Heres where it gets crucial: say your URL slowly so your caller wont miss it.
4. Dont forget marketing materials such as brochures, flyers and ads. Include your website on all these. Important tip: Give would-be customers a reason to check your website out. Include offers of free information to hook your target customers. For instance, how about including a teaser like this - Find out how you can save your business more than RM1,000 each month with our free and exclusive report! Limited stock only so hurry and get it by visiting us at (www.yourwebsite.com)!
5. Let others find you easily on the web! Ensure your business is visible on the world wide web whenever anyone does a search related to your business and industry by submitting your website to major search engines. To enhance your search engine rankings, remember to keep the information on your website constantly updated and useful. If you dont know how to submit your website to major search engines, try reading it up on www.selfpromotion.com I highly recommend this site!
6. Try adding a blog to your business website. Blogs are online journals which make it easy for anyone to spread their ideas and thoughts. More and more businesses are using blogs to increase their visibility because business blogs are an informal way to position oneself as an expert on their business. Web visitors can come by easily to comment on the articles that one has added to ones blog thus increasing interactivity. By the way, blogs which allow pings also invite search engine spiders and increases your chances of being read and found online too!
7. Dont forget offline advertising! Use offline methods to complement your online marketing and promotion. But when I say advertise, pick your target market well. If you are offer services meant for home businesses, it makes good sense to advertise in websites or magazines that have readers who have their own home businesses or thinking of setting one up. This way, you are sure that your message is going directly to the people who are going to buy from you!
8. Organise a lucky draw or an online contest. Donate generous prizes to attract participants. Better still, combine both offline and online marketing for this purpose. Advertise the contest offline but ensure the participants log on to your website to join. This ensures they get to know your business, what it does and where to find you, when they need you.
Nic Sim is the owner and founder of a web design firm dedicated to helping solo professionals and small businesses go online affordably and successfully with its easy to use, no-fuss Redbox DIY Website. Visit for more details.
This great, free tool called the Overture Keyword Selector Tool. Then, Yahoo purchased Overture. You can find this tool one of several different ways. You can go to Google and type in Overture Search Tool or Yahoo keyword selector and then click on Keyword Selector Tool. Or you can type in http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/ in the URL box of your browser.
The page that opens has a short paragraph of text, two bulleted items and a box to type in your search term. Type in a term such as satellite radio.
Heres where the magic happens. This tool will almost instantly return a list that includes the number of times that people searched on the term satellite radio the previous month (85,206 as of this writing)), along with a list of related terms and the number of times they were searched.
In this example, you will see that the term sirius satellite radio was searched 31,213 times, portable satellite radio 2,352 times, and xm portable satellite radio just 491 times.
What does this mean in terms of Internet marketingp
What this means to an Internet marketer selling electronics is that the huge keyword for this category is simply satellite radio, and that the brand of radio is much less important. It also suggests that, for some reason, when people do search for a specific brand, Sirius outpulls XM nearly 65 to 1.
So, if you were selling both brands online, which adword would you buy on Google
And theres even more to be learned
This nifty, free tool can help you yet another way. Go back to Google and type in Sirius satellite radio. Youll get back at least 10 pages related to this search term most of which are populated by merchants who want to sell you a Sirius unit.
Boy! Do you really want to fight for this Google adword vs. online merchants such as Sirius itself, Crutchfield and Amazon.com
If you dont, theres an alternative. Go back to the keyword selector tool. You will see that portable satellite radio was searched only 2352 times but this might represent a better niche. Click on it and the term will be automatically pasted into the search box and the results displayed.
You will see a new list with terms like sirius portable satellite radio with 693 searches and xm portable satellite radio with 491 searches. Now 693 and 491 may not seem as impressive as 31,213 but then the competition for these terms will not be as cut-throat.
In fact, if youre selling satellite radios, you might be able to buy these Google adwords for a fraction of the price youd pay for sirius satellite radio. In fact, it doesnt matter what youre selling. If you use these tools, you will find Google adwords you might not have thought of but that you can buy cheaper.
The keyword selector tool is a great, little tool and, best of all, its free.
Heres something else thats great and free. Its a new technology called HD Radio that enables AM and FM radio stations to broadcast their programs digitally. This is a tremendous technological leap from todays familiar analog broadcasts. These digital broadcasts provide listeners with radically improved audio quality, more radio channels through multicasting, and new data services. To learn more about this amazing new technology, just go my Web site, , to get all the buzz.
Douglas Hanna is a retired marketing executive and the author of numerous articles on HD radio, old time radio and family finances.