4 Efficient Ways to Market Your Website

Once you have a website, you will find that the next step is to get people visiting it. There are, of course, many ways to get visitors to your site, but some are much more efficient than others.

Domain Names

When you are trying to market a website, you need to keep the domain name in mind. Having a great domain name means having one that others will recognize. If you are selling a product, you need your domain name to have something to do with that product. Making it simple to remember and easy to spell is crucial.

Directories

Taking some time to submit your website to different directories is an important step in your marketing plan. Companies like Canada 411 allow you to list your website so that others can easily find it. The more directories you submit your site to, the more likely it is that people will find it when they need it.

Articles

Like directories, articles can help point people to your website. Writing articles about the topic of your website and submitting them to article sites, will lead more people to your site. The great thing about articles is that they also portray you as an expert in your field. This helps you gain credibility.

Pay Per Click

If you are looking to get people to your site as quickly as possible, pay per click marketing may be a good option. With this option, you set a budget and pay a company each time someone clicks on your link. In return, the company that you work with gives your link a premier spot on their site. The most popular pay per click marketing is done through Google.

How to Market Your Website

There are a lot of business owners who believe that if they just get themselves a great domain name people will automatically know that they’ve got a website and they’ll instantly begin attracting more customers. While this is a great thought, it isn’t how the real world works. It’s true that you need a good domain name that is easy for your customers to remember, but it’s also true that before you’ll start to see any real benefits from your domain name, you will have to do some website marketing first. There are a variety of ways that you can advertise your website and the good news is that the majority of them aren’t that hard to do.

The first thing that you must do to promote your online website is to begin putting your domain name on all of the material your business sends out. This means that all of your business memos, letterhead, pens, magnets, etc. You will also need to put it on your business cards as well. While you should have it on the front of your business cards, you may also find it beneficial to place it on the back of your business cards too. Another great way to market your website is by having a car decal made for your vehicle. You would be surprised at how many people read the bumper stickers and car decals on vehicles while they are stuck in traffic.

Utilizing SEO keywords in your website content is also a good way to market your website. When you have informative content on your website that has popular keywords that have a high search rate with low competition, you will improve your website’s visibility. It works because these keywords will improve your page ranking in Google when someone searches for those specific keywords. When you optimize your website’s content and put your domain name on all your promotional material, your website will see more traffic.

Domain Parking

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If you have purchased a few domain names or would like to take down your current site, then domain parking might be the option of you. This is the situation in which a website owner will buy a domain name and not have it hosted with the company that it was purchased from. The website is not designed, then the domain is parked. Domain parking is a great way to buy popular domains and use them at a later date. One useful way of using domain parking to your advantage would be to register your domain name with a domain parking company that provides revenue.

Not all domain parking companies will offer revenue, but for a popular website that generates a lot of traffic to it, the site owner can be paid a percentage of the traffic that is generated. The traffic is usually taken to a search or click page. The website owner is paid a percentage of all searches completed or all clicks generated.

Therefore, instead of letting your unused domain name go to waste, submit it to gain revenue for you while you think of ways to design it. A parked domain can receive traffic, but know that the more popular the website or the more similar the website’s spelling to another popular website that receives a large amount of traffic, then the more revenue to receive from domain parking companies.

However, do not think of domain parking as a way of getting rich overnight. The amount of revenue will depend on the number of domains you have parked, the amount of traffic coming to that domain name and the algorithm used by the domain parking company to decide and distribute the revenue. Some companies allow revenue to be generated when a visitor just visits the page, while others allow revenue to be generated only when the visitor clicks on an ad.

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Domain Redirects

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Domain redirects have become quite popular and it is necessary to know at least what it entails. Domain redirects refers to the ability to redirect one domain to another domain. For example, a website owner who has two websites, and one is getting lots of traffic can redirect this traffic to the second website that is struggling to get visitors. Actually domain redirects are not difficult to understand and once completed, a site owner can receive the most benefits of visitors across a portfolio of websites. This is one area in which domain name selection will be key, as this can influence the amount of traffic a website will receive.

The Benefits

There are a vast number of benefits to using domain redirects for your website. The use of redirects can increase the marketing and sales potential of a website by tying it to another website that is already established and bringing in a profit.

A redirect happens for only a few seconds, so customers will not have to spend a long amount of time waiting to be redirected. They can quickly be redirected to your product page to start buying.

Domain redirects are also beneficial when a website owner has a domain name that is well known, where as the other domain name is easily forgotten or hard to remember. This happens if the domain name is not associated with the product being sold. A redirect can help from the domain name that is easy to remember to the more complicated name.

Another benefit of a website domain redirect is its use in affiliate marketing. A redirect can be used to send a person from a sales page directly to the parent company’s website for the affiliate to be credited for a sale. With a good stream of visitors, this can be easy revenue for some.

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Branding Vs. Keyword Domains

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There are currently over forty million domain names that are registered and some people may find it’s hard to find a suitable name  they are happy with.  The following are some practical tips on choosing an appropriate domain name.

Practical Domain Name Tips

•    Short and Simple-Whatever name you decide on make sure it is easily recognizable.  This is the name people will find you at and come to know you by so you preferably want a descriptive name or a one word name because they stick in people’s memory.  Sites such as Yahoo.com, MSN.com, Amazon.com, and Google.com are catchy and short names that are easily recognized and remembered.
•    The purpose of a domain name is to attract people to your site so the name should can easily be printed, expressed in any format, or on product packaging, stationary, in your catalogues, in your signature file, in your voice mail, and at the end of email messages.

Branding and Keyword Domains

Some very popular sites do incorporate keyword domains.  These businesses have opted to go with a more traditional domain then brand it. A few examples are eBay, Yahoo, and Amazon.

Keyword domains are chosen specifically to benefit from search engine traffic.  A website ranks higher for targeted keywords if a domain name matches a keyword search, which results in a potential for more sales and added traffic. An example of this would be if you were a Boston moving company, you might prefer targeting the search phrase such as Boston Moving Company by selecting the domain name bostonmovingcompany.com or boston-moving-company.

If your advertising budget is offline and significant, a brandable domain name might work for you.  If you are working on a tight budget, you may want to select a keyword domain name, which will allow the search engines to bring the traffic to you.

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