Too many web marketers work on the if-you-build-it-they-will-come model. They won’t. Once you build a Web site you must give them a reason to come. A Web site is a passive
form of marketing: providing a signboard which points visitors to your
products and services. To be most effective, a Web site should be used
in conjunction with seven active forms of marketing which we
will examine briefly in this article. Just how do small business people
on a limited budget entice visitors to their Web site?
First, advertise your Web site to Web search engines that index the Web,
such as Yahoo, Lycos, WebCrawler, and InfoSeek. The actual registration
process can be deceptively simple. A service called SubmitIt! (http://www.submit-it.com)
provides a way to submit information to approximately 15 of the most
important indexes. If you do this late at night when Internet traffic is
at its lowest, you can transmit your business’s on-line address and
description to all of these within three-quarters of an hour. Done
right, a person who is seeking a consulting engineer in Northern
California with experience in large electrical systems will quickly
locate your name. Widget customers will be able to pick you out from the
increasing crowd of on-line vendors.
The danger is that the untutored can construct a carelessly-written
25-word or 200-character marketing description that blows their
opportunity to be seen by vast blocks of potential customers. These 25
words must be written to include the chief keywords by which customers
would locate you. If you want to change your description in a month or
two, it takes much longer than an hour to contact each of the services
separately, and then convince or nag them into making changes.
You can pay modest amounts to several services to perform this
important task for you. For example, my company, Wilson Internet
Services, offers as part of our website packages to carefully register
your Web site with the most important indexes. See also services
available for a fee at AAA Internet Promotions and WebPromote (http://www.webpromote.com).
2. Second, you must give them a good reason to come.
A tried-and-true marketing approach is to offer something of value for
free. A number of well-financed corporate Web sites offer an
entertaining fare which changes constantly. While most small business
Web marketers can’t afford to compete, you canafford to offer
valuable information. If you take the time to provide up-to-date
information about your industry, for example, you’ll find people
returning again and again to your site, each time increasing their
chances of doing business with you.
3. A third approach is to find industry-wide linking pagesand
negotiate reciprocal links to and from their Web pages. Your trade
association probably lists members. Several on-line craft centers, for
example, offer free links to other crafters. If you are a hotel, be sure
to get a link with “All the Hotels on the Web” Consultants will seek
links with The Expert Marketplace, or try for a listing in the Virtual
Trade Show. The entire list can seem endless, but specific for each
industry. Surf the net enough to find which are the key sites for your
field, and then seek links there.
But be judicious in your use of out-going links. You’ve just got those people in your door; don’t quickly send them away again.
4. A fourth method is to purchase Web advertising–usually
a rectangle ad with a clickable link to your site on a
carefully-selected, high-volume Web site. A certain percentage of their
thousands of visitors will explore you Web site, and hopefully like what
they find. A whole industry has sprung up to act as brokers for such
ads. A couple to consider are WPRC (http://www.wprc.com) and WebConnect (http://www.webconnect.com).
Small business people will need to find ways to test the effect of
specific ads on the bottom line, perhaps by sending people from each ad
to a different Web page “front door” so you can monitor traffic from
each ad.
5. A fifth important way to let people know about your Web site is to become active in several of the thousands of Internet news groups and mailing lists. Find the groups that are most likely to be frequented by your potential customers–groups can be very
narrowly targeted–and join in the discussion. You might find groups
that relate to your industry by doing a bit of research with DejaNews (http://www.dejanews.com), which searches messages about particular topics or companies voiced in thousands of news groups and mailing lists.
“Lurk” for a few weeks so you understand the particular culture of
the group you are targeting. Then find ways to add constructive comments
to the discussion. At the bottom of each message include a
“signature”–a 4- to 8-line mini-advertisement with your product, phone
number, and Web address. Every time you contribute to the discussion,
your mini-ad is seen by hundreds. You’ll find considerable fruit this
way, but like anything, it comes in response to hard work and
persistence. Resist the temptation to send bulk e-mail messages to
dozens of news groups–”spamming” in Internet parlance. People do it, but
while it may bring customers, it doesn’t offer the solid reputation and
respect which will build your business in the long run.
6. Sixth, make your Web site part of one or more of the many “malls.”Businesses in physical shopping malls benefit from the traffic flow of multitudes window shopping. The same can be true on-line.
Some malls only include businesses who subscribe to a particular
Internet Service Provider (ISP) or pay a fee or percentage of their
gross revenues. Others take any business that fits their particular
criteria. Dave Taylor, for example, developed The Internet Mall (http://www.internet-mall.com/),
a collection of upwards of 30,000+ businesses that meet under one roof.
The mall is illusory, however, since businesses in the mall are hosted
on separate ISP sites all over the world. Perhaps the largest mall, if
you will, is Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com), which doesn’t charge anything, but gets its revenues through advertising. Make sure you have a good link there.
7. Finally, include your e-mail and Web addresses on all your company’s print literature, stationery, and display advertising.If people believe they can find out more about your products or services by looking on-line, many will do so.
There you have it, seven important ways to increase traffic to your
company’s Web site. If you use most or all of these forms of marketing,
the chances are that two years from now you’ll be bragging about your
foresight in developing a Web site when you did, rather than trashing
Web marketing as just another fad where you threw good money after bad.