What would happen if you woke up one morning to discover all your website files were missing or corrupted? Or did your Facebook or Twitter accounts get hacked or deleted? These are some reasons I say your website is central to your digital marketing.
Your website is central to your digital marketing efforts. Because if you run a forum, blog or CRM system on your site, it contains all your blog posts, all the comments and links you have ever created.
Since much of your valuable content is from your website users, this relevant content won’t exist in any other place than on your website.
Remember, all your social media accounts are not your property. All the quality content you post to your various social networks exists at the social network’s discretion.
And if you default their terms and policies, your account’s deleted, your content lost, and all your hard work gone!
Avoiding all these problems is why, as much as possible, you must make sure your content’s created first on your website. It is your property, and you have more control over it.
But some web hosting companies don’t back up your website files. Most of those who do, make these backup files for their protection and don’t make the data available to customers. Google also penalises your site whenever it goes down for a lengthy period.
If you are serious about digital marketing, ensure you’re hosting your website with a reputable web hosting company that can come to your rescue in your time of need.
The services of reliable web hosting companies do not come free or cheap. You will have peace of mind knowing your website files are safe.
Do not rely on your web hosting company only to keep regular backup copies of your website files. You should have at least three backup copies and keep them in three different places or forms, such as various internal/external hard drives.
The advantage of having three backup copies is if one should get lost or corrupted, you can use the others to restore your website.
So if you have not backup your website files, it is time to do so now. If you are the type of person who likes to get your hands dirty by doing all the techie stuff yourself, go ahead.
Remember, all your social media accounts are not your property. All the content you are posting to your various social networks exists at the social network's discretion. Click To TweetBut, if you are not the techie type, you can ask a friend or colleague to help you out. Better, though, if you are fortunate to host your website with a reputable firm, you can ask them for help in backing up your files.
If your website files should ever get lost or corrupted, the time your website is down will affect your rankings on search engines. Google and other search engines will penalise your site whenever it goes down for a lengthy period.
Backing up your website is a necessary step for all website owners serious about digital marketing. So please don’t leave it till later. Please do it now to avoid any future embarrassment. Are you looking for a reliable hosting company? Contact us. We would be glad to refer you. Catch you later!
Now let’s look at 24 tips on how to go about marketing and promote your business website. You can implement some of these tips for free. The others will cost.
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How Do I Promote My Business Website for Free?
For many people and businesses, the words ‘promotion’ or ‘marketing’ conjures up visions of pricey strategies and excessive expenditure. Website promotion doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. Here are a few ways you can promote your website online.
How Do I Get My Website Noticed?
So, you’ve created your company website. Now what? How do you drive qualified traffic to the website? After all, how will you make sales and increase your customer base without people visiting the site? How can you get your website noticed?
Getting traffic to your site is arguably the most critical reason to have a website. There are many ways to get your website noticed.
Here are a few ways to promote your website for free!
1. Capture Email Data
Ensure you have a GDPR compliant online sign-up form for capturing email data from website visitors. Armed with your website visitor’s data, you can engage in different online marketing or outreach marketing initiatives or create custom audiences on Facebook for your Facebook advertising.
2. Email Marketing
In your email marketing campaigns, avoid being overly promotional. Always offer something of genuine value to the recipients. Keep the emails messages consistent, but never overwhelm your recipients with your emails’ volume, so they do not unsubscribe from your mailing list. Make sure you abide by all the rules of your email marketing service provider.
3. Video Marketing
Set up a YouTube channel at the minimum. You don’t have to create Hollywood-style movies to be successful. A simple video from your smartphone will do. If you’ve got something worthwhile to say, use video media.
4. Post to Facebook
Facebook is an excellent social network to promote your website. Unfortunately, the latest algorithm updates have made it more challenging than ever for businesses to gain visibility in the news feed without paying. But you’ve got nothing to lose with social media marketing. Post regular updates–be engaging and exciting, don’t be spammy. Be genuinely interesting. Pay for an ad when sharing a link to your website.
5. Interact with Industry Experts on Twitter
Twitter is my favourite social network because it’s an excellent platform for engaging with business owners, industry experts and customers. Respond to customer feedback, retweet the best user-generated content, and offer genuine input to industry discussions. All these combined will help in promoting your website.
6. Create an Instagram Account
If your business benefits from a visual presence, make sure you dedicate time to create an Instagram account. As a visual platform, ensure your content is amazing to capture your audience’s attention and yield the desired engagement/results.
8. Build your Network on LinkedIn
If your business is a B2B company, ensure you have a LinkedIn presence for building your network. Engage with experts and offer genuine insight. Be tactful and not spammy.
9. Advertise
Search ads, social media advertising and display advertising are lovely in getting your website in front of your target market. Adjust your paid traffic to suit your goals. Make sure you bid on relevant search terms and search queries that your target audience uses to find your website online.
10. Mix It Up
There is no magic formula to website promotion success, despite what some would have you believe. So, instead of picking one method mentioned in this post and using it in a silo, try mixing things up and integrating a few of these methods in varying degrees as your budget permits.
11. Write Irresistible Headlines
Headlines are one of the most critical pieces of content on your website. Without an exciting headline, even the most comprehensive blog post will go unread. So it would be best if you mastered the art of headline writing.
12. Pay Attention to On-Page SEO
SEO is crucial to promoting your website. Pay attention to on-page search engine optimisation issues like title tags, meta descriptions, image alt tags, header tags, anchor texts, internal links, article length, etc. All these combined will help you in attracting organic search traffic. Research to find the correct search query to target your organic search traffic campaigns.
13. Target Long-Tail Keywords
The bulk of web searches are long-tail keywords. So you’ll be missing out on a lot of traffic if you’re not targeting these types of keywords as part of your SEO or paid search strategies.
14. Start Guest Blogging and Invite Others to Guest Blog on Your Site
Guest posting on a reputable site can increase blog traffic to your website and help build your brand. It will also earn you backlinks to your site. Besides posting content to other blogs, invite people in your niche to blog on your site. But any spammy tactics may attract stiff penalties for your website/brand. So proceed with caution when using guest posts.
15. Sponsor an (In-Person or Virtual) Event
Events sponsorship can work wonders if you use the right strategy. Consider sponsoring events where the attendees will be members of your target audience and, therefore, interested in your product/services. Provide coupons and free stickers in return for email list subscriptions and social media follows.
16. Interview Industry Influencers
Interviews work because they work for both parties. Your guest gets more exposure while the interviewer gets their hands on some hot content for their blog to boost your social media presence.
Ask your guest relevant questions about their lives and careers, and the industry. I will ensure your guest’s fans get a taste of their personality, while others will value their expert advice.
17. Pull a PR Stunt
If you want your first sale fast, pulling a PR stunt could do the trick. Like viral videos, a PR stunt can make your brand famous on the local and international scene. A PR stunt is all about doing something unusual, outrageous, hilarious, or remarkable enough to be worthy of media attention. But make sure the fame is for all the right reasons. Do nothing stupid or illegal and get into trouble with the law. Your business does not need negative publicity.
18. Retargeting
Do most of your traffic leave without making a purchase? Retargeting advertising uses cookies to create Google ads (formerly Google Adwords) on other sites to lure visitors back to your site. It’s worth the extra buck to get them back.
19. Insert Calls To Action (CTA’s) In Your Team’s Email Signatures
Your email signatures is a good marketing tool for introducing your products or services to potential customers. The best way to take advantage of email CTAs is to offer some lead magnet or freely available offer to appeal to your target audience and push them forward in your funnel. Ensure your team members have an official email address with the same CTA on the email signature. Ensure you use Google Analytics or any other analytics solution to track your CTAs, blog content, and other high-quality content you share online.
20. Set Up A Google My Business (GMB) Account
Your Google My Business GMB listing is the foundation for all your online citations and listings in online directories. Ensure your company’s other business listings online match your GMB listing, particularly for your name, address, and telephone number. Google takes this stuff seriously, so do not joke about it.
21. Audit Your Online NAPs
Have you listed your company on GMB or any other relevant business directory? Ensure your details are the same for all your online listings for your website to earn Google’s approval. Google recently introduced E-A-T (expertise, authority and trust) as ranking factors. Remember this when promoting your business website.
22. Offer a Free Or Discounted Product/Service
There are many ways this can drive leads, sales, referrals, etc. Ecommerce stores have had fantastic success with introductory discounts. Other possibilities include free software apps or free trials. Depending on your business model, you can sacrifice your profit and make a loss to pull in market share.
23. Give A Presentation or Webinar
These are powerful tools for attracting both online and offline prospects. Of those who attend your presentation/webinar, some may decide to patronise your product/service. They may be scanty prospects, but they will be of high quality. You may also get more leads and referrals. You can even consider getting a co-host, so your combined efforts will mean more bang for your buck.
24. Press Release Distribution
You can distribute newsworthy announcements about your business or its services via a press release. Submit your press release to any of these services:
Over to You!
Do you now agree your website is central to your digital marketing? Do you use any of these strategies to market or promote your website? Tweet me @ademolaabimbola or @mauconline to let me know. I’d love to hear about your experience.
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- How to Integrate Content Marketing and SEO
- Digital Marketing Is Bound to Make an Impact on Your Business. Learn Why!
- Digital Marketing Tricks Business Owners Should Know About
- How Much Does It Cost to Build a Website in Nigeria?
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