User-friendly website-builders such as Wix and Weebly have made it easier than ever for anyone to build their own website. You pay the website builder to put you online, drag and drop boxes to add text, photos, links, and videos and then purchase a domain for a dollar or so a month. Within a few hours, you can create a professional-looking website that can be accessed from anywhere in the world on a PC platform or on mobile. But how do you promote your website and drive traffic?
If you are offering something more extensive, such as the chance for visitors to play online casino games, or you would prefer to create a more expansive site design you can use a WordPress template or use the services of a professional designer or builder. These options are a bit more expensive but they’re still within the reach of almost any small business.
Once your site is up, the real work starts. You have to promote your site so that as many people as possible will be drawn to the site when they search for the product or service that you are offering. Websites are sometimes compared to a shop window – it’s your best advertising because the site displays what you have to offer. However, unlike the shop window, it’s not visible to everyone who walks by. You have to take steps to make it visible.
Promoting your site on a search engine is called “Search Engine Optimization”. You want to optimize the tools that the search engine provides to make sure that your site ranks high on the search pages so it will be viewed by as many people as possible Some ways to keep your site in the front of search engine searchers include.
IMAGE: PIXABAY
Mobile Enabled
Today there are more people using mobile devices for search than desktop users. Since 2016 over 50% of all web browsing is done on mobile.
That means that, if your site isn’t mobile-enabled, you are probably losing out on potential clients. These people won’t be able to find your website easily when they conduct their searches on their mobile device. Google, which is the #1 search engine — used by over 77% of search engine users – employs a mobile-first index which uses a site’s mobile version as its primary index.
It’s vital that you prioritize your mobile site and the mobile content. You can use the Google Mobile-Friendly Test to find out if your pages are mobile-friendly. If the website is not mobile friendly, Google will let you know and make suggestions.
Things to watch for include
- Make sure that the text is appropriate for the size of a mobile screen. It shouldn’t be too small but it also shouldn’t be too big. Make sure that the text doesn’t go off the screen when you’re looking at the site on mobile –Google will reduce your ranking if users must scroll side-to-side in order to read the page.
- Spread out your links. If links are too close on a mobile site, it’s hard for the user to swipe the exact link that s/he wants. The links should be big enough to swipe easily with a thumb since most smartphone users hold the phone in one hand while they swipe with their thumb.
- If the desktop site comes up when a visitor lands on your website the page’s width will be too big for the device. Google will penalize you for this by reducing your ranking so it’s a good idea to invest in someone who can create a responsive design that automatically adjusts the viewport based on the size of the screen.
Build Links
If other websites link to your site, Google rewards you with a higher ranking. The better the site that links to you, the higher your ranking climbs. Google notes that incoming links are one of the top three ranking factors for SEO on the Google Search Engine but the content that links to your website must be quality content or else it won’t affect your ranking.
Make sure that the content that links to your site is relevant and well-written. Articles that link to your site – via other sites’ content or through bloggers that link to your site – should be approximately 900 words and should relate to the product or service that you offer.
Meaning, for instance, that if you’re selling vacuum cleaners and a blogger who blogs about social justice issues links to you, it probably won’t give you the positive effect that you want in your SEO.
User Experience
Google rewards sites that optimize for user experience. What that means is that you need to keep your content fresh and crisp and create as much content as possible. Each page of your site should have links to other pages within your site so that users can easily move from one webpage to the other within the site.
Writing daily or weekly blogs is a good way to keep your site among Google’s highest-ranked for your niche market. You can write your own posts or you can ask your employees or guest bloggers to contribute to your blog.,….however you do it, keep your blog active and current.
You should also make sure that site’s back-end includes appropriate long-tailed keywords (2 or more words combined) that make it easy for searchers to find your site. For instance, if you’re promoting a cleaning service in Saskatchewan, your keywords should include “cleaning services in Saskatchewan,” “Saskatchewan cleaners” and similar phrases. Then, make sure that your blog posts and other written content include these phrases.
Using Social Media To Promote Your Website
The relationship between search engine optimization and social media grows from year to year. Effective marketing in today’s marketplace means fusing SEO, social media, and content marketing. The valuable content promotes the website in the search engine rankings while it draws site visitors who promote the site by sharing articles and blogs that appear on that site. When these three elements work in sync they increase website traffic.
The best strategy is to build your social media following organically. Update users on a daily basis and engage them in conversation (ask them for their opinion on various issues (“we’re changing our logo – here are 3 options, please vote on the one that you like”). When you add useful articles and helpful tips to your website, share that through your social media profiles. Your goal should involve building and retaining a sizable, interactive following. This following attracts more followers and encourages your contacts to help build your authority so that you’ll be able to then engage with new followers.
Using the Internet to market is a slow process. If you can optimize the latest web marketing tools and techniques you’ll be able to promote your site effectively and efficiently.
If you are interested in even more marketing-related articles and information from us here at Bit Rebels then we have a lot to choose from.
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