A marketing check list for launching your new website on a budget

Directory submission
Directories are not an effective method to build quality incoming links but they will build volume and are a good way to get the ball rolling. Most will have a low Page Rank and pass very little link juice on, but when added all together, it could be enough to get you up to PR1. Rather than try to submit to each one manually it is quicker and just as effective to use a bulk submission service. A quick search for “directory submission” will bring you back a list of potential suppliers. If you know of directories that deal specifically with your niche, make sure you manually submit your site to these as well to build relevant incoming links.

Twitter
Make it easy for your visitors to retweet your website/ articles with a retweet button. Also set up your own account to push news items, blog articles, and special offers to engage with your site’s users on a one to one level. Twitter exclusive offers or resources are a good way to build your follower base quickly.

Social bookmarking
Digg, Stumbleupon, Delicious, Reddit, Sphinn, Design Bump… there are dozens and dozens of social bookmarking sites, some broad others targeting specific niches, and they have the potential to be major traffic drivers for your website. Submit your site yourself and provide visitors with the ability to submit directly from your website as well.

YouTube channel/ videos
A marketing tactic long used by savvy affiliates, this is starting to enter the main stream for small budget websites looking for free traffic. Create a short video about your target subject using your keywords in the channel description, title, video name etc. Make sure your URL is used in your description and is visible in the video. Your video will then be shown in searches on YouTube and viewers can then follow through to your website.

Community
For every possible subject imaginable there is a community online supporting it. Sign up with related forums and engage fellow members to raise awareness of your website amongst your target audience. This will drive traffic and help generate incoming links from related websites. Leaving comments on related blogs is another tactic that helps to achieve the same end goal. In both cases use your domain name in your signature and become genuinely involved with valid comments, don’t just leave comments that simply state your URL and special offers you have on, it will have the opposite desired effect.

Google universal search
Google is much more than just web search, and for many keywords they will show results from blogs, images, video and product searches on the web search results page. These are often ignored by webmasters when it’s comes to SEO and can be a back door method to getting on to the first page. As with 99% of all SEO, it is all about your use of keywords, here are some quick tips (these are by no means exhaustive).

  • Images:  Alt tag, file name, anchor text
  • Video: Channel’s title and description, video title and description
  • Product : Product title, product type, description, URL destination, image file name.
  • Blog: Specify it is a blog in the page title, link from home page, update weekly
  • News: Submit a news sitemap, keyword in news title, opening paragraph, outbound links, regular news items

Purchase Email list
Despite the current rush towards social media, Email is still a cheap and effective method for marketing your services. As long as it is well designed, timed and targeted, an Email campaign will provide a positive ROI. Suppliers such as http://marketingfile.com/ will provide you with clean lists. Services such as 1800myweb Email Marketing will help you build your newsletter and send it out with full tracking services.

Write articles for peer sites
Very labour intensive and you will need to pick a subject that they feel deserves to be covered, but if you have the time, idea and writing skills, submitting an article to your industry’s leading news/ blog sites has many positive effects (e.g. raise your profile, incoming link and referral traffic).

Buy low cost advertising
Purchasing advertising directly from appropriate websites can be cheaper and is often much more effective in driving converting traffic and developing your brand. Contact sites your own visitors are likely to visit for their media packs and advertising costs, for example, if you sell vitamins, websites that write about well being and healthy eating would be ideal targets.

If you are looking for a quick intake of visitors without having to wait for your SEO efforts to kick in, if you have the budget, Search Engine Pay per Click (SEPPC) is a good option. Each industry is very different and the costs involved vary a lot so you will need to research the CPC involved and whether you can afford it.

Another option available through Google is to advertise on their content network using text ads are banners. This is traditionally a lot cheaper than the search network but if poorly thought out and/ or left unchecked it can burn through a lot of money quickly.  Go here to read more about advertising on their search network and content network.


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