While you may think the hardest part of getting your online business up and running is the planning and development of your Web site, the battle is not over. You still have to get people to visit your site, and as if ­that weren’t enough — you also have to get them to buy something once they get there (assuming your site’s purpose is to sell something).

You can hire a firm to promote your website for you but sometimes in order to understand your own business it’s a good idea to get your hands dirty. Here are some of the ways you can promote your website and increase your traffic.

Search engines

Google is ranked as the most popular and well-known search engine on the Internet and often the only search engine used by many people. It is not necessary to submit every page in your site, however, to accelerate how quickly the Google bots find your site submit your main page sign up for Google’s Webmaster Tools account and submit your site. You can also take advantage of Google Analytics to see how well your site is doing.

Yahoo (now part of Microsoft Bing) is another well visited and known search engine that you should submit your site to. To add your website  to Yahoo sign into your Yahoo account, and submit your URL.

Directories

Directories are human-edited maps of the internet. The best directories on the web get a lot of traffic and carry a lot of authority. Find reputable directories and add your site information. Having your site listed in several business directories can help boost your profile on the web. For free website promotion we recommend you start with Allthewebsites.org. The service is free and easy to use.

Social media

Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn are all social networking sites that you should consider. Facebook allows you to create a business page but make sure you read the rules for businesses first. Maintaining a Facebook page can be quite involved. Twitter on the other hand is as simple to use as sending a text message. You can link your Twitter and Facebook pages so that when you post to Twitter, your message appears on Facebook or vice verse.

Promote offline

Offline promotion is just as important as any other tool. Spreading your URL around in the real world will add another point of entry to your site. Companies should add their site address to all stationary, newsletters and business cards. Just making it known that you have a website is good enough to get many people typing in addresses and trying to find it.

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Banner designs are popular mainly on portals and advertisement websites. Even though there are a lot of people who think that they are old-fashioned and don’t hold as much weight as other marketing methods, but when we visit big portals and sites, we notice that they still exist. Then when we search for banner designers, we also discover that there is a huge market of designers ready to create banners for their clients. Well, if they were outdated than designers wouldn’t be promoting their services. So, this shows that they are still in demand and people do use them a lot either to promote their business or make money by placing the banners of others on their portals.

Website owners use banners to promote their business. For example, if you own a cell phone business, then you can easily promote your business on blogs and portals related to technology. There are so many blogs related to technology and cell phones online that you literally can’t count them. There are so many portals too that where buyers and sellers gather to see the latest updates and new arrivals. If you manage to promote your business there, then you can definitely bring targeted traffic to your website.

The best way of promoting your business on such portals is through your banner. Your highly creatively designed banner will help you look elegant and professional. However, remember that even though the design is an important factor of making it successful, your copy plays an equally important role. It highlights that why you stand-out as a cell phone supplier. It also tells your market that you offer high quality phones with risk free warranty. So, it’s the combination of quality design as well as quality copy that will make your banner a success and make people click it and visit your website.

Affiliates use banners a lot. I have come across several websites that accept affiliates. Upon acceptance, they provide them with all kinds of banners. So, let’s say you are interested in becoming their affiliate. After your application gets approved, you will be able to log in to your account. After logging in, you will see a section dedicated to all kinds of banner designs only. You will see different types of banners for different types of deals. Plus, they will also be available in different sizes. This is a clear indication that banners are still hot, especially in the affiliate world.

There are lots of high PR portals that pay ad slots. If you buy one, you will be allowed to place your banner there. This way those portals can generate revenue to run their processes smoothly. They are especially hot in the B2B environment. Businesses tend to create relevant banners with catchy graphics and attractive copy to promote their products and services. So, this shows that there are businesses who are interested in promoting their products and services through banners and there are big and famous portals that sell space for banners to help businesses attract targeted traffic.

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An ecommerce website is the most effective and convenient way of buying/selling products online.

New technological advancements seem to appear every week. The world is becoming more tech savvy. The internet is being used on a large scale and by an enormous number of people and computers have become an integral part of almost all households and offices.

Computers have dominated all spheres and fields, it has outpaced manpower. Trade has been influenced the most by the web and its services. Promotion and buying & selling of products are conducted on the Internet with the help of :

1. Ecommerce Websites
2. Banner advertisement
3. Social networking sites
4. Blogging, etc

Be it a brick and mortar business, a consultant agency, a travel agency, an institute, a sports academy, etc. all have their all could benefit with from an ecommerce solution.

What is an ecommerce website?

Any website that is meant for the purpose of business is an ecommerce website. It is mainly related to buying and selling of services and products on the internet. The website carries:

• Business details- type, infrastructural details
• Products images and their description
• Shopping basket
• Payment gateway
• Contact information

Benefits of an ecommerce website?

A Business cannot be successful unless it is promoted in a systematic manner.

• Global Reach. Your online store is open 24×7. There are no time constraints, no holidays, etc. Visitors can purchase the required products or services at any hour of the day. This adds to the convenience of the customers.
• Products are properly categorised on the websites saving time for the customer.
• The direct cost-of-sale for an order taken from a web site is lower than through traditional means (retail, paper based), as there is no human interaction during the on-line electronic purchase order process. Also, electronic selling virtually eliminates processing errors, as well as being faster and more convenient for the visitor.
• Ecommerce is ideal for niche products. Customers for such products are usually few. But in the vast market place i.e. the Internet, even niche products could generate viable volumes.
• Another important benefit of Ecommerce is that it is the cheapest means of doing business.

Having E-commerce website is one of the fastest ways of giving your business that global audience it deserves and the return on investments that you have always dreamt of.

It is very important to advertise your website using various online marketing strategies in order to reap the benefits of the ecommerce business. Thus a well-designed and well promoted ecommerce website can be a key to a successful and prosperous business.

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With over 15 billion searches being made each month (comScore research) you already know that your small business should own a piece of virtual real estate so it can take advantage of this enormous market place called the internet. But before you race off and slap up a website, take a moment and think about just what it is you want to accomplish.

Think about it for a minute. If you want to sell directly to a visitor your site is going to look different and function differently than a small local business website that wants to drive traffic to its brick and mortar shop or office. Your website is an extension of your marketing efforts and you should seriously consider just what you want it to do before you start building it.

Here are a few steps to help you out with your website planning.

Website Purpose

As mentioned above, you have to understand why you’re creating the site. Take the time to reduce what you want from the website to writing. Brainstorm with your partners or friends, or even better, with your customers and find out what they would like to see. If you do a good job with this task you’ll end up with an impossibly long list of objectives ranging from lead generation to providing online customer service.

Take that list and prioritise it by importance. Once you’ve done that, look at the top three or four objectives. These will be your primary goals. You’re new at this; don’t try to create the perfect website on your first time out. As you gain experience the website will evolve and at some point you will have covered every item on your prioritised list. The important thing is to get started and if you wait until you have what you think is the perfect design you will have missed out on significant opportunities.

Website Appearance

There is an incredible number of design options that are limited only by your imagination and budget. One way to make choosing a design plan a bit easier is by doing a little comparison shopping. Visit your competitors’ sites and write down what you like and what you don’t. Go through the same exercise with sites that come up on the first page of a search engine after you enter a query that’s relevant to your business. Pay particular attention to the ease of navigation, number of panels in the layout, color schemes used and the type and placement of graphics, videos and photographs.

Review your list and then sketch out what you would like your home page to look like. Once you’re satisfied with the rough design it’s time to think about building.

Discuss your requirements with your web designer and scan and email them your sketch. A designer can also help you with planning your website but, the more thought you put into what you want to achieve the easier it is for your web designer to bring your ideas to the web.

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Social media has established a prominent presence as form of marketing utilised by companies in countless industries worldwide. There are a variety of essential factors that can prove to greatly increase a company’s brand equity and visibility, or possibly victimise a company’s reputation.

The way in which a social media strategy is implemented and monitored can go a long way in determining its overall effectiveness. Today’s market features a wide array of consumers who have certain expectations of brands, products, and services. Discontented and social media savvy consumers are simply waiting for an opportunity to voice their opinions via Twitter, Facebook, and associated social channels. This makes it even more vital for a company to thoroughly research and consider what methods of social media are most appropriate and beneficial to their needs.

There are a number of steps that can be taken in order to avoid the aforementioned social media disasters that occur frequently in today’s online marketplace. The first involves being realistic and properly understanding the relationship between conversations on social networks and other types of customer interactions. The next step includes utilising a multi-channel strategy for customer sales and service.

While social media is quite effective, interactions taking place at brick and mortar locations, on Freephone lines, and during online customer service chats are also very important in providing a comprehensive view of consumers’ opinions.

The following step focuses on viewing your data and evaluating the technology that is currently in place in order to understand consumer behaviour and the voice of the customer. The final measure that can be taken to avoid social media disaster is to have a designated employee that specialises in the customer experience delivery chain.

A company that does not currently have a strong presence in social media does not have to fear making a huge investment in social media. There are a number of low cost options that can be used to make that initial leap into the realm of social media marketing.

Starting a blog about relevant industry news, trends, or intriguing applications of your product line is an excellent way to embark into the world of social media. Creating a LinkedIn group, Facebook page, Twitter account, a customers-only discussion forum, or a YouTube channel can provide unique opportunities to present and inform users and fans alike of current company highlights and information.

The key to a company’s successful use of social media is all about the results and the ability to properly measure them. There are companies who can help you to track your Return on Investment (ROI). But to begin with you can use a few simple tools to measure your impact.

Google Analytics
This is free and can provide a really powerful baseline for a variety of different factors. You can track incoming links and then the activities of the users they send, which can be helpful.

Omniture
Omniture has a slew of services available for businesses, including components that track Facebook and Twitter metrics.

TweetMeme Analytics
This is useful if you use TweetMeme’s retweet buttons on your sites. It’s a lot like Google Analytics, but focused on TweetMeme.

PostRank Analytics
This suite of tools measures social engagement on other platforms and services. What’s nice about PostRank is that instead of just a raw number, you can actually see the messages and comments from other sites that contribute to your stats. This can be really important for sentiment analysis.

HootSuite
HootSuite is a great Twitter manager but also offers impressive analytics. The nice thing about the click data you get from an app like HootSuite (or bit.ly) is by looking deeper you can more easily see if those clicks translate into transactions or impressions on your other sites.

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