Promoting Your Site

Submit your site to search engines and directories

Alta Vista, Yahoo, Infoseek, GoTo.com, Lycos, Hotbot, Excite and Webcrawler are some of the major search engines you will want to register with.  You’ll also want to register with search engines that are specific to your product and/or service offering, i.e., http://www.searchenginewatch.com/.

Print your URL everywhere

Print your URL on all advertisements, letterhead, envelopes, shipping cartons, labels, invoices, and collateral material: brochures, catalogs, datasheets, white papers, folders, product overviews, testimonials, presentations, etc.  And be sure to leave your URL on your voicemail.

Create a signature file

Create a signature file that appears on the bottom of every email you send.  You want your signature file to contain:  name, title, phone and fax, email address, URL, and a line or two—a hook; a benefit—that will entice people to visit your store.  And remember when creating your hook, what “location” is to real estate, “free” is to online marketing.

Exchange and/or buy links/banners from other sites

You can increase traffic by having links/banners to your site from complementary sites.  Of course, you’ll have to offer ad space on your site to link to the complementary sites.   You can contact the complementary sites directly or you can go through a banner exchange service such as LinkExchange.  If you company has a large budget and you want to keep your site clean from ads, you may want to pay for banner advertising.  LinkExchange also offers you this option, as does ClickTrade

Email marketing

Do not spam—send out unsolicited emails—to prospective customers.   This is a sure fire way to turn off potential clients.

If your customers have visited your site and filled out a form giving their email address requesting notice of future offers, then you’ll want to email them with special offers and discounts.  You need to be careful not to annoy them with constant messages.  But, then again, you don’t want them to forget about you.

Newsgroups

There are pros and cons to newsgroups.  The pro is that it’s possible to get positive results.  You’ll have to cautiously select your newsgroup, though, and only post when you have something of value to add.   You don’t want your posting to be “salesy” and you do want to let your signature file do all your advertising for you.

The con is that newsgroups contain a lot of spam.

Moderated Newsletters

Another option is to post to a moderated newsletter.  The moderator deletes all spams, thus, these newsletters attract a large, qualified audience.  Once again, only post when you have something of value to add and let your signature file do all your advertising for you.  You can also sponsor a newsletter for effective results, which is a cost-effective way of reaching your target audience.
http://www.ecominfocenter.com/

Issue a press release on the launch of your new site

With so many “dot coms” populating the landscape, it has become increasingly difficult to get the news media interested in the launch of a new site.  Yet, it is still to your benefit to issue a press release, especially if your site has something unique to offer. 

Partner with other sites

Let complementary sites sell your products.  You complete all orders and give your partner a commission on the sales they generate.