Article written by: Simon Ackland | SMI Digital CEO (the Digital Marketing Agency division of SMI Business Impact)
So you have put your web pages on the internet and you expect people to know of your presence, but without a well thought out promotion and marketing effort... this will not happen...
Let’s face it – NOBODY KNOWS YOU YET!
Finishing creating pages for your web site is not the end. In fact, it is only the beginning. Just as completing your schooling is not the end but the beginning of your journey in the world beyond the walls of your classroom.
Unfortunately, a big number of you seem to think that the main battle has to do with the difficulties of understanding HTML or the masses of jargon (some good examples follow) or for the SMI Digital clients using a content management system (CMS) for creating your web pages.
People seems to rejoice too early...as soon as their pages are live on the web. "Now, where are all those new business leads?"
Why, that is a big W-R-O-N-G!
Since indirectly you are operating an Internet Business promoting your products and services, like any other business, you need to communicate. You need to interact. You need to let people know you are around and open for business.
I am sure you get my point by now. If you have not been making much progress in the early stages of your Internet Business, this may very well be the reason.
To get yourself started quickly and let people know you are in business, you can do the following easily for no fees or of course you can use professional services. While you do not necessarily need money to make money on the Internet, the life and death of your business depends heavily on your sweat equity and wisdom.
Remember, you did make an investment of money and time in building your website (or you are about to) so you need to get a decent return on that investment...which is SMI Digital's mantra; every $ invested in your website and digital marketing (or any marketing for that matter) should pay for itself over and over again.
Here are 6 basics to make you known at no or very little cost online, remember, these are only basics and many experts can provide you with the support you need to become more visible on the web.
1 - If you use a content management system (CMS) make sure you have prepared your Meta Tags inside every page of your website.
If you don’t have a CMS, then prepare a spreadsheet and give it to your web designer.
The Title Tag - The HTML title tag isn't really a meta tag, but it's worth discussing in relation to them. Whatever text you place in the title tag (between the TITLE and /TITLE portions) will appear in the reverse bar of someone's browser when they view the web page.
The Meta Description Tag - The meta description tag allows you to influence the description of your page in the crawlers that support the tag. The first meta tag is the one that says "name=description"? That's the meta description tag. The text you want to be shown as your description goes between the quotation marks after the "content=" portion of the tag (generally, 200 to 250 characters may be indexed, though only a smaller portion of this amount may be displayed).
The Meta Keywords Tag - The meta keywords tag allows you to provide additional text for crawler-based search engines to index along with your body copy.
The meta keywords tag is sometimes useful as a way to reinforce the terms you think a page is important for.
TIP: to see the meta tags of a page, right click on a web page and select view source. - at the top of the NotePad page that opens, you will see the meta tags.
How was that for some jargon! The language is becoming more common and we need to ensure our businesses have access to skilled understanding of these matter to ensure we get that ROI on the website and other digital marketing investment.
2 - Submit your site to major search engines (Yahoo!, Google, MSN, etc.). In internet jargon, it is called search engine submission.
This should always be the first thing to do as soon as you have your web site up and all your pages including meta tags. It might not be as important today as it once was, but you might as well get every advantage that you can, no matter how small.
3 - Submit your website link to other web sites with high Page Rank in search engines like Google.
Having your website link submitted to directories, forums or related sites with high Page Rank value will also result in increasing your site Page Rank when Google "bots" crawl on the pages in your web site.
4 - Participate in discussion boards.
Join one or two discussion boards where your prospects are gathering. You can interact, submit articles and this gives you the chance to leave your website URL on the board for people interested in what you have to offer. Do not join too many as it is actually unethical and disturbing if people view your profile to find that you post only once or twice on the board. If you have to leave the board, make sure you leave for a good reason.
5 – Join some online social networking sites and start promoting your profile and your business.
Be creative and create some activities and groups around your professional activity or your personal liking.
6 - Submit your articles to other websites and write a Blog.
There are many sites online that specialise in listing directories of articles. If you include a link to your website in your author’s resource box, publishing your articles on these sites is a great way to establish some links back to your website.
Furthermore, other sites and e-zines publishers might even want to publish your article in their publication!
With 6 easy ways to start, you can promote your website at no cost but if you value your time and it is all too hard, then talk to us.
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