So you have finally decided to join the internet marketing revolution and shell out your own website to promote your online business to millions of potential customers. Online surfers and potential customers will flock to your site and throw money at you. The phone will start to jump and you will be able to withdraw earlier, right!? Well, it’s possible, anything is possible on the internet, but unless you have a niche product with a very large potential market and some lucky bit of viral promotion, it’s highly unlikely. Chances are, your website will be lost in a tidal wave of sites, many of which will sell exactly what you sell and for longer, perhaps with an established and loyal customer base.

So how do you get into this new marketing environment and keep your site from falling like a stone in the search results? Assuming you don’t have unlimited funds to invest in online advertising like Google AdWords etc. then you can try some or all of the following:

SEO

First, you need to make sure that your site has the best chance of getting good results in web searches. That means having your web designer build it right from scratch, paying attention to things like domain name, semantics, web-safe URLs, keywords, header tags, image descriptions, etc. It won’t guarantee a good search engine placement, but it will give you a good foundation to work from.

Updating

One of the best things you can do these days is to keep your site regularly updated with new content, whether that be by regularly adding relevant news, pages, or a blog. Blogging is probably best as it is very popular these days and you can write relevant articles that others can comment on, which creates dialogue and interaction with your customers, never a bad thing.

Communication

Too many website owners publish a website complete with contact details, inquiry forms and email addresses only to then ignore any communication sent through these channels. Too often I have sent a company an email inquiry through their site only to be ignored or have to wait weeks for a response. N.B – Every unanswered email not only loses you that customer, but anyone else that customer might talk to about you. Remember, the entire purpose of a site at least is to generate sales leads and if you ignore these leads, why bother having a site?

Promotion and Networking

Websites need to promote themselves, and luckily there are many great and free ways to do it these days. The general idea is to talk about or mention your website and business in as many places online as possible, including online press releases, online social networking sites, Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, etc. Your goal is to build a network of people who know what you do and how well you do it so that they or their friends may one day become your customers. You should also engage in online discussions on relevant forums and other people’s blogs and network with others in your industry as often as possible.

Don’t forget to promote your new site both online and offline by putting your web address on your business cards, flyers, vans, etc.

All of this takes time and effort, but if you love your job and care about being successful, it should come naturally. Good luck.