Ive Got My Site Up, But Where are My Hits?

Its not enough that youve built a great-looking website for your products or services if you arent getting any visitors or hits. Your website will be like a very dressed-up store but with no one coming in to buy, and worse, not one even tries to windowshop. Once you get your site up, dont ever assume that people will stop and flock by the hundreds just to look at your site. With over three million websites on the Internet today, dont expect that youll get noticed right away without doing anything.

The Internet is referred to as the Information Superhighway. How accurate this truly is. Think for a moment about your website and the products and services youre selling there. Youre on this highway, as well as three million other websites.

People are constantly surfing, zipping by. They pass by your website for the simple reason that they dont know your website exists. You dont get hits because people dont know you have a web presence. You may have the page thats the envy of every webmaster on the planet yet after three months, youre still to make a single sale.

Yes, youre there, but is there a sign anywhere on the Internet that says, "Hey, Im here! Heres my product. Come and get it!" or any other attention-grabbing things?

There are several effective things you can do to get your website at the forefront of the Information Superhighway: Using Active Promotional Tools, such as Search Engines.

Here are effective promotional tools you can use depending on what product or service youre promoting. It is always best to keep in mind that while one tool will work for you, it may not be effective for another person. Make use of these tools to select from for the best mix to reach your target audience:

1. YOUR VERY OWN EZINE
Notice how more and more people are starting their own ezine? Ezines or email newsletters make very good promotional tools. By combining content and articles with advertisements and announcements of your products, youll be able to drive traffic to your site. If you are in the business of web design, you can write short articles and tips on effective web designs. If people read that you are an "expert" in your business, they will come to you for your services. If you have limited time, as most business people do, you might consider hiring an e-zine editor.

2. THE POWERFUL SIG FILE
Use your email signature. From now on, attach a four-line description and the URL of your site everytime you send out email. If youre like other people who likes to forward emails to your friends and families, you might as well take advantage of this. Add your signature line at the bottom of each email you send out. Chances are, when they forward your email to people they know, your sig file will still be there. If you are in discussion lists, be talky. Dive in the discussion. Offer good feedback and make sure people on the list see your signature.

3. LINK UP WITH SIMILAR SITES
Research on sites that are similar to yours. If you have products for horses, then look for related sites. Visit those sites and look around to see if they have link pages.

4. WEB RINGS
A web ring is a step further the simple idea of linking with another site. Web rings are like "networks" of related sites. If you join a web ring, you will be added to the ring. You will have to include a small code in your site especially for this. On another persons site, when a visitor clicks on a random link in the web ring, that visitor will be taken to the site that is queued in the ring. By joining a web ring, youll be able to get some hits. Make sure the ring you join is consistent with the image you want to promote.

5. BANNER EXCHANGES
Again, this is another form of linking up. This works by displaying banners of other people in exchange for them displaying your banner on their site. However, banner exchanges such as Link Exchange are like web rings. You will have to paste a code on your page and it will generate random banners of sites who are in the banner exchange. Again, make sure the exchange you join is consistent with the image you want to promote.

6. PLACE ADS ON NEWSLETTER
Write attention-grabbing and interesting ads and submit these to newsletters. If you already publish an ezine, it is a good idea to look for ezines that are related to yours. Once you do, write to the owners and ask if they do adswaps -- youll advertise their ezine on your newsletter if they advertise yours on theirs. There are also sites that let you submit your ads for free. Be wary of these Free For Alls (FFAs) and Classifieds. The only people who go to these things are people posting sites and people looking for e-mail addresses to spam.

7. JOIN ANNOUNCEMENT LISTS
There are numerous announcement lists you can sign up and announce your web site for free. Do a search on Onelist or Topica on announcement lists. By joining these lists, youll not be accused of spamming and you can promote your site to your hearts content -- of course, based on the rules of the announcement list you joined.

8. OFFER SOMETHING FREE AND PROMOTE IT
People just love anything that is free. Offer free stuff on your web site. Or offer them an incentive such as a gift if they sign up to your newsletter or visit your site.

9. SEARCH ENGINES
Simply submitting to search engines will not bring you that much-desired traffic, unless youre a search engine expert or you hire one. Most people who submit their sites to search engines end up on page fifteen of the search engine results. Very few people are going to find your site that way. Even if you hire a web marketer to help you with your search rankings, this alone will not bring you your hits potential. You have to do more than just announce your site to search engines.

One thing you can do to improve your search engine ranking is to design your site around search engine indexing techniques. However, DO NOT make your site look like it was made for search engines. There are many good resources on the Internet on what search engines look for when they index your page.

Also, your search engine results are only as good as the keywords potential customers will use to find you. And having your own domain name brings you higher search engine rankings, not to mention more prestige.

You can also hire a specialist to give you advice or propose slight changes in your page that will bring the people youre looking for to your page through search engines.

WebMarketingSpecialists.com specializes in search engine ranking, Web consumer targetting, and promotional campaign consulting. By hiring a marketing specialist, youre assured that all of your promotions form a consistent campaign and will give people the image of your business or company that you want them to have. Dont waste a lot of money promoting your site to people who are not your target audience. By using the services of WebMarketingSpecialists.com, youll be able to develop the right campaign and company image that you can promote to your target audience using the best channels to reach them.

These are only some of the ways you can promote your web site, your products and your services. Always remember, "No promotion, no traffic!"

And, when in doubt, get advice from experienced people in your field and marketing specialists.

This article is brought to you by courtesy and reprint permission of http://www.promotenewz as published by http://www.ientry.com

About the Author

Shery Ma Belle Arrieta is a writer and poet based in the Philippines. She holds a degree in development communication and wrote radio script, news, features and documentaries; news and features for several community newspapers; semi-technical articles and content for web sites.

She writes for, edits and self-publishes two online magazines and newsletters, WIRED! Philippines http://www.msc.edu.ph/wired and Sites, Biz and Zines! http://sbz.4mg.com and is editor for Cotworld, an online literary/creative zine. You can contact her at iamshery@msc.net.ph

http://www.cotworld.com
iamshery@msc.net.ph