Ways to Advertise Your Website for Free
Want to promote your website online? Ideally, for no cost.
You already know that “build it and they will come” is flawed. However, you need to have good content. Your website will not be successful if you don’t know how to promote it.
It is not necessary to have a bag of tricks and tips. Consistent processes are essential to creating a flywheel effect.
This step-by-step guide is recommended for anyone who wants to promote their site online.
Start with goals and definitions
It is important to have a foundation before you can do anything. What are you trying to achieve?
It doesn’t matter if your goal is to “make money” or get customers. Be specific.
Do you need 1000 or 10 customers?
Want to make a difference of $1000/yr to $10000/yr or $100000/yr to $1000000/yr?
Are you looking to sell 1000 or 10000 products?
Do you have a budget of $10000, $10000, or both? What is your weekly marketing and promotion time?
Most people skip this step. Website owners want their websites to be a success.
There is a fine line between getting your website online and testing it.
You should be aware of these three things before you dive in:
- How you promote
- To whom are you promoting?
- What amount can you spend on promotions
Take a look at them.
Your Product (What you are promoting).
What are you selling/promoting on the site? Product? What content is valuable?
No matter what it may be, you need to be able to define and communicate it.
This does not have to be your sole mission. You should also emphasize what makes your product unique.
Persona – Who are you trying to promote it to?
Personas can be described as marketing jargon. They describe the profile of your target audience.
Understand who your audience is before you promote your site. What problems are they having?
The ideal customer can be described in two to four personas. This Moz guide will help you to navigate the process.
Your personas are not the only thing that matters. The focus here is to define your initial target market that’s small enough you can effectively reach them but large enough to get some sales and feedback to polish what you’re offering (your product/website/brand).
This is the way most businesses start (remember how Facebook started by targeting college students).
What you can spend on promotion (time and financial budget)
It is dangerous to believe there is no overhead online. Set realistic goals.
Although your budget may seem arbitrary, it is important to outline it. Find out what marketing spend gives you the highest return.
Lay the foundation
Now is the time to lay the foundation. Even though “Build it, they will follow” may seem flawed, once they begin coming you need to ensure that your creations are good.
It can be broken down into three steps
Website/Destination Setup
A good website will make it easy to promote your product or service online.
*Aside: Long-term does not necessarily mean your project should be affected by any platform’s whims (I’m referring to you, Facebook Pages, and Google My Business). However, content publishers do better with an email-marketing platform.
We recommend you create your website using popular, well-known software like WordPress and host it on your web hosting account
We recommend that eCommerce shops use Shopify or WooCommerce to set up their eCommerce websites.
Create Focused Pages
Conversions are made easier by Focused Pages. This depends on your goals.
These landing pages address a specific need, but they don’t have to be complex. Visitors can simply visit these pages and take a certain action (buy your product, sign up for your services, etc.). ).
Why are landing pages important? Because nobody cares about your homepage. Your homepage should only be for people who know you well enough to navigate around and find the information they need.
Landing pages can be used by returning visitors as well as new visitors. They enable them to convert, land (or take any other action ).
For example, if you’re an eCommerce company, you may want product pages that target a specific audience (e.g. Blue Swimwear) or product information (e.g. Swimwear for women Distance swimmers
Service-based companies should create service pages that focus on what customers want (e.g. Atlanta Dentist and Root Canal Services
Pages that organize posts into larger topics are a good idea for sites that focus on content creation. These pages will help visitors navigate deeper into your site and encourage them to take further actions (like subscribing to your newsletter or reading more span>
There may be too many options. You might also consider organizing your website according to keyword or topic.
Install Analytics
Before you can promote your site, you need to have an analytics platform.
You will need to set goals based on the product that you are promoting.
Connect Google Analytics to Google Ads and Create a retargeting audience with Google Analytics.
Get Traffic
Now it’s time to get people to your website.
Marketing channels can be used in different ways because they are not all the same. Each channel has its strengths and weaknesses. However, they can all be combined to complement one another and not compete.
For example, the Aircraft Carrier Group (US Navy’s main war-going unit) is A collection of ships of different types that do different things at different speeds making the group almost invincible.
Many business owners want to get started in SEO or develop a social strategy.
A bad idea. Battleships, also known as SEO, and Aircraft Carriers (aka Social), can take forever to move and turn. Don’t spend so much time or effort if you don’t think SEO and Social will work.
Channels that can speed up, slow down and change direction should be your first choice.
These are the three things you must do to get your community involved, as well as direct outreach and paid traffic.
Direct Outreach Testing
It’s easy to get caught up in the trap of promoting something because you think it’s amazing. What if no one wants it?
It is easy to make assumptions about your audience.
Start by asking for feedback from targeted groups. You might get feedback from them and they may even promote your website for you.
We are looking for complementary marketing “parents”. We are looking for complementary marketing “parents”.
Friends & Family
OK Friends and family may be interested in you because of common interests. Your family might also have similar interests.
Friends and family are great places for outreach. You don’t have to be afraid to share your work with interested relatives and friends.
Individual Brands/Influencers
We don’t like the term “influencers” because we don’t think you should be competing against celebrities on social media.
Individual Bloggers/Site Owners
Bloggers of any size and influence will be bombarded with pitches from large corporations. Agility can help solve problems agencies are unable to quickly solve.
Journalists
Journalists face an inexhaustible supply of content.
A local delivery service pitched an article about “porch Pirates” to Philadelphia newspapers.
Owners Of Complementary Businesses
Your product is likely to pair well with other products.
Search for businesses you can co-promote.
Vendors
Your vendors are interested in your success. It means more sales. You can offer to promote your vendors.
Next, you can start messaging and emailing. They can go to your landing pages, content, or reviews. Track their feedback and send it to them.
Keep in mind that you are emailing people.
Join like-minded groups
You need to identify communities to grow your direct marketing efforts.
Communities can provide more feedback and help you find sales opportunities.
It is important to be part of a group. People don’t like people who are there to encourage, but not to participate.
While you may need to sell now, you must look at the long term.
Learn about your community’s needs and wants. This is just one example.
Forums that are specific to each industry
Every topic has its forum.
Facebook Groups
Facebook Groups are accessible from any location and open to all topics. To discover the unusual, you can use Facebook Open Graph Search.
Forums for Websites
Yes, website forums still exist. Do your homework and get in touch with moderators.
Blog Comments
These posts are still being read by people
Reddit & Crowdsourced Forums
Reddit, the largest global forum, is the best. However, you should pay more attention to the people using it than the platform.
Amazon Comments
Did you know that there are “questions about this product” and discussion sections on Amazon products? You can answer questions using your knowledge.
LinkedIn & Business Groups
This angle is similar to crowdsourced forums but is for vendor and business relationships.
Guest posting
Are there blogs that have high traffic? Find out more about guest posting requirements.
Once your channel is found, you can expand your reach and become more helpful. People will start talking to you.
Get data by paying traffic
Advertising may not be the best way of promoting your website. We have a different goal.
Even if you spend less on search advertising, it can help you gain more data faster. We can quickly access lots of data with some advertising.
This guide will show you how to advertise your website online. The guide to local advertising channels will give you a breakdown of all the available paid advertising channels.
You can use this data for many purposes.
- It’s important to understand which keywords drive conversions.
- Depending on your goals, you need to look at which landing pages and content pieces perform best.
- How do you determine the most effective ad copy?
- To eCommerce, find the most attractive offers (i.e. No shipping charges, 20% off your first order, etc.
- Retargeting campaigns don’t just revolve around “buy, sale, buy”, but also about interesting ads that you can do with traffic. This guide will show you how to redirect some of the paid budgets to Facebook.
- Now that you have your retargeting strategies in place, it is time to examine where your audience is online.
- Improving your ad campaigns in general
Understanding Organic Search
Organic traffic can be a complex and time-consuming field. You still get amazing results with organic traffic.
SEO campaigns are huge wins for most people due to a large amount of traffic Google search can bring. Google processes over 3.5 billion queries per day and most clicks result in organic results.
Clicks for commercial keywords in paid advertisements can be quite expensive. If your website ranks high in organic search results you won’t have to pay this cost.
To get organic traffic to your site, you will need to know how and what to do.
SEO consists of three components.
The first component of technical SEO.
It’s about making sure Google/Bing can crawl your website efficiently. This Technical SEO is for Nontechnical Marketers.
Don’t worry about technical issues if you are using WordPress or an HTML-based website builder. The same applies to eCommerce platforms like Shopify or a self-hosted shop that uses WordPress + Woocommerce.
It’s worth paying for a technical audit if you already use another platform. They won’t convince you that you can rank #1 tomorrow.
To get started, install WordPress SEO by Yoast. Next, check out our guide on how to use it efficiently.
Shopify is an excellent tool to solve technical problems. This is the second aspect of SEO.
SEO includes on-page optimization.
Targeting keywords is key to making your website easy for search engines and visitors.
We previously wrote about keyword mapping, basic SEO concepts, and title tags (such as meta descriptions, Google Search Console, and keyword research).
Many content pieces can be used to bring people to your site. Don’t create keyword-stuffed content. Provide authoritative content that addresses your market’s problems, questions, and other needs.
Great content about your product is the best part of SEO. It will help drive off-page factors.
The third component of SEO is “Off-page components”.
This is SEO-speak for getting links. But not all links are created equal.
Websites can get damaged by poor links (the kind you get for $5). Quality links from well-known websites will help you rank higher in search results.
There are many methods to get links. The following are the best ways to promote your website:
- It’s all about creating unique content and then promoting that content. I love this guide to creating prequalified content.
- Hustle PR Promotion. Find their blogs. Research and follow each one until you can craft an email pitch (see direct outreach).
- For more information, visit our Ahrefs Guide or subscribe to SEMrush or Mangools to get additional ideas.
Social Media:
Social media can be likened to a battleship. An aircraft gives you an advantage in the tactical game and is far-reaching.
Some people consider social media rocket science. You don’t need to be an expert in the field. Knowing where your target audience is is essential.
Be aware that not everyone needs to be on every social network. Building relationships with your audience is key to social media success.
All social media platforms can be used to claim your brand. However, it is important to focus on the ones that will have the most impact on your goals.
This is particularly useful when you need to get feedback on your product or service.
You can automate profiles to have a presence, but not interact with them. You may set up alerts to “listen”, even though you are not actively participating.
Pay for a jump-start. This will make things easier.
Next steps
This website promotion strategy is what we would use for any website. You can make it easier to implement by breaking each section down into smaller steps.
Next steps: First, define your goals and personas. Next, define your goals and personas.
