10 Ways to Increase Site Effectiveness

1. Make sure your site content is optimized
Before you promote your site, you must optimize your content. Your search engine ranking is a based on a complex combination of keywords, content, and sites linking to you. You should also promote and optimize your site geographically.

2. Build your customer base
Include an email sign-up on your site. It is ideal if you offer a monthly newsletter that users can opt-in and opt-out of. Provide solid content about what you are doing, success stories, and events. Ask experts in your field to contribute stories. You can also increase sales leads by offering incentives, contests, free info guides, product demos and white papers. In the long term, launching a sales lead program and a customer loyalty program are the most important steps you can take for and growing your business.

3. Define your message and product offering
Write a 25-word description about your service or product which is focused, easy to understand, and compelling. This description will be used in a variety of ways - within the About section of your Web site and on the home page, in your submissions to directories and search engines, for link exchange programs, in your press releases, in your business plan, and in your internal messages. Make sure the person that answers your phone has a concise copy of your message along with answers to frequently asked questions about your company.

4. Target your marketing programs
Think about the profile of your audience. What do they read? What websites do they visit? Research what your competitors are doing online. Find out who is linking to them. Exchange links, banners, e-newsletter inserts, or content with complementary sites.

5. Don't forget offline marketing programs
Include your URL on all your collateral - business cards, letterhead, post-it notes, pens, anything you use now. Also include your URL in your email signature and participate in professional mailing lists and newsgroups. Become an expert in your field.

6. Write powerful PR
Compile a list of local writers who currently write about your industry. When it's time to write a press release about your new Web site, turn it into a human interest story that a writer would be interested in featuring. Focus on what makes you different.

7. Keep your site content current
Users will leave if you have broken links or outdated items. Send your e-newsletters at least once a month. Tease your customer base. Tell them what's coming next month.

8. Make search engine submissions manually
Bulk submission companies may only charge $99 for 3,500 submissions, but what you're really doing is giving your email address to 3,500 sites that will start sending you unsolicited email. Less than a dozen search engines & directories account for 90% of the general market - focus on those. Also be sure to check if there are specialized directories that target your industry or community. And when you've chosen your targets, don't send the same thing to all of them. Search engines have different (and sometimes even contradictory) rules about submissions.

9. Determine the right keywords
This can be a time-consuming process, but figuring what key words users will type into search engines to find you is key to your online success. Use phrases, and keep it local if possible.

10. Track Your Results
When you first launch a marketing program, you are making an informed guess about what will work and what will not. It is critical to track your progress so you can quickly refine your messaging, online programs, and keywords to get the most results for your dollars spent.