Website Marketing
Having a great looking and functioning website is very important, but not enough by itself. Your website needs to be found by your potential clients in the first place.
There are two basic mediums you can use to advertise your website:
Offline Advertising
Offline advertising includes such advertising medias as the TV, radio or business flyers.
These forms of advertising tend to be very expensive and often not an affordable solution.
Other forms of offline advertisng include adding your website address to your business cards and spreading knowledge of your website by word of mouth.
These things are all very important, but remember there is a huge other world out there that you could be cashing in on, and its called the World Wide Web.
Online Advertising
Online advertising encompasses many things. These include:
- Website search engine optimisation
- Paid advertising on other websites
- Google AdSense
- Email newsletters
- Link building
- Other forms
Website Search Engine Optimisation
Having your website search engine optimised for the main search engines such as Google and Yahoo!Xtra is very important. This is perhaps one of the cheaper and easier forms of website marketing, and yet one of the most missed methods in the website world.
If you have a great website, and you feel it just isn't reaching its full potential it could be that your website just isn't getting found on any search engines. Determine what search phrases you think your client may be searching for and type them into one of the main search engines, such as Google or Yahoo!Xtra. If your website comes up in the first half dozen sites, then you've done very well. If you're on the first page, that's good. If your site doesn't feature on the first page then you've already lost a lot of your chances of being seen.
If you aren't returning good results, contact me and I will give you a free no-obligation quote to bring your website up to speed.
Paid Advertising on other Websites
Many websites offer paid options for advertising on them. Advertising on another website can be anything from banner image, a simple text link or a full advertising feature about your business and the services you offer.
New Zealand Tourism Online is an example of an online directory for tourism businesses. The primary focus of this website is to advertise your business and push potential clients to your own website where they can find further details and booking options.
Paid advertising can also be in the form of banner advertising. Most websites have some form of paid advertising options available on them. See for example www.stuff.co.nz (banner ad at the bottom of the website) and the MSN Auto Trader (banner ad at the top of the page).
Google AdSense
With Google AdSense you pay per click to have your website advertised on other websites.
Alternatively you can have other sites advertise on your website, and you earn revenue per click.
An example of Google Adsense ads are shown to the right.
For further information about Google Adsense website marketing, click here.
Email Newsletters
You can spread the word about your website by emailing newsletters. However you need to be careful you don't violate anti-spamming laws in New Zealand. You cannot send unsolicited advertising emails to people. You must first obtain their consent to send them the newsletters.
Link Building
Link building is a good way to build the page rank of your website. The more reputable sites you can manage to have linked to your site, and vise versa the better. Reciprocal links are a very good way to build your sites ranking, but be careful of which sites you link to. Linking to irreputable websites can potentially be more damaging than beneficial.
Other Advertising Forms
Other forms of online advertising include such simple things as including your website url in your email signatures. Basically, any chance you get to promote your website you should take.
Testimonial
Since Kiwi Web Works took over the web search maintenance function of our website, we have consistently attained the top first or second positions for our keyword searches on Google and other search engines...Our website hits have increased markedly since (Kiwi Web Works') involvement with us."
Margie Sorensen, Managing Director, ITTI
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