Hello everyoen, I've got my own website that is almost ready for launch. I had a question for those of you that have been doing this for a while. What kind of advice can you offer to someone new with the Internet regarding marketing your website. The website is a home and garden website. What other ways do you use to market your website. For example, do printing shirts, magnets, pens, stickers, etc .... work? What about advertising in your town with newspapers? Your advice is greatly appreciated. Thank you. Sari www.CoconutzHomeAndGarden.com
The best way to market your website is locally (where you live) and expand into larger markets such as international. Yes shirts, magnets, pens, stickers, etc do work and also advertising in your local newspaper wont hurt. But you will need to find places where you can advertise your business in your niche market in your case Gardening and home improvements is apart of you niche market. Some good places to advertise your website/business online would be - -Websites related to yours -ppc campaigns such as AdWords for keywords that relate to your site or products e.g. gardening -add you link to directories either free or paid submissions. -don't bother buying pop-up or pop-under traffic since it is a waste of time and resources and it doesn't work. Some offline advertising can be: -advertising in your local paper -gardening magazines -on your car -flayers If people like your service then they are most likely going to tell there friends and family about your service.(word of mouth) Hope this helps you a bit.
Make sure you don't just by some tshirts or magnets and just give them out to people as free gifts without a specific strategy to make them work for you. Here is a recommended book on amazon.com The Power of Promotional Products Here is an example of a strategy that might work if you adapt it to your situation: http://www.web-magnets.com/#Best
Stick to Local, for the time being anyway. Search 'Tourist Websites' for your Local Area, there you will find loads of Local Business Directories. Cut and paste your ad words and place them in your 'edit' box, as you make each Directory simply paste your site into the site description. Search 'Local Websites' - Business Websites for --- each time use your hometown name. Use the search term 'Facts' in your desription of your services, ie Gardening Facts - the reason I advise this is that Google loves the word 'Facts' it has site relevence. When you have finished local Directories go to the Directories page here, and realise what you have just got yourself into lol www.pheedster.com
Sari, I wasn't sure from your post but will you have a local brick and mortar shop? If NOT then I wouldn't worry so much about promotional products or local advertising....local shoppers usually want a 'place' they can go to and actually see products first hand. Now, if you have products with special local themes then that might be a different story. Before spending any money on promotion create a marketing plan. Keep it simple. Analyize the best potential target markets (what type of people will want your products? where do they usually go to buy them?). Now outline all the possible ways to advertise and promote your site, then prioritize based on your budget and target market. Don't forget old fashioned public relations. Create some press releases and send these to local papers and some of the free online distribution services. If you've got a unique angle it's not hard to get mentioned in local papers. There's lots of options for maketing so staying on top of your market demographics and budget limitations is VERY important. Hope that helps!
Like most people in here we all started from small foundations and have built up our business over a period of time. I've had a look at your website, and depending on the type of products you have to offer it maybe something that our clients who own holiday homes would be interested in. When your website is launched you might want to mention it on this forum, for members to review it - I did this when I first joined up and it's good to receive some constructive critism. Here are a few thoughts for marketing; Local classified ad newspapers Place a card in local shops and newsagents / post offices Buy some cheap pens with your domain name engraved ... most importantly though optimise your website for the major search engines, submit your website to directories, and put your website in your signature on various forums relating to your business.. hell even start your own forum! Quick tips to optimise your website; Ensure your website has clean HTML code Research your competition Research what keywords people are using to find YOUR products Ensure your web pages have meta tags, especially title, keywords and description tags Get links to your website using the keywords you have researched Read Webmaster forums like DP's Hope this points you in the right direction - if you need any help just drop me a pm. Darren