Everyone who owns a website has one goal, what is it? When I ask this question during our seminars, the answer is always a resounding "to have my website place in the top listings of every search engine." When I tell the seminar attendees that there are somewhere in excess of fifteen million websites in existence, I can see the look of futility grow on their faces.
It is my experience that most websites are conceived and constructed without much thought given as to how the site is going to be promoted and what the processes will be used to attract visitors. Many website owners simply assume search engines will do all the work for them, and that the website will be yet another example of the classic Hollywood movie Field of Dreams quote ... "If you build it, he will come". The truth, to those of us who have been in the industry for a few years, attracting visitors is a tough, endless job and is more akin to the movie "The Impossible Dream". I know I'm not alone when I scour news articles and Forums, like those on webpronews.com, I see that many people realize search engines are not the singular answers and that they too are working hard to bring in visitors to their site, and looking for other ideas.
Don't get me wrong, I firmly believe that every website should be registered with the search engines, and that many websites do need to be optimized for their search engine placement. The question then becomes, what is the best way for me to promote my website for maximum effect ? The answer is in knowing whom your customer is. Are they local or are they are distant? Think about this scenario for a moment. Does a local Philadelphia Plumber need to have his website search engine optimized for something like "on-call plumbing"? Do you think someone in Albuquerque , 3000 miles away, who has a backed up toilet, and has used a search engine to find "Plumber"; do you think they care about a search engine result for a Plumber in Philadelphia ? (I know, not unless he does house calls in Albuquerque ) This tells us that each businesses and website needs to tailor their website promotion specific to their clients and visitors .
Another interesting statistic is that the bulk of Internet users spend 91% of their time off-line. This tells us that there is a huge opportunity to promote your website other than on-line, wouldn't it be nice to capitalize on some this? There are lists of innovative things we can do to promote our websites off-line, and you will virtually be alone in doing it because almost no one is utilizing this area. There are books in the library and book stores that will give you ideas on 1001 ways to promote your website and business. In order for any of these to be effective, you need to begin by analyzing your business so that your promotional efforts will not be wasted. It's imperative that you know your customer demographic, are they local or distance and what other things identify them.
In my daily travels and commutes I see countless vehicles, from companies that I know have a website, but they do NOT have their company website displayed anywhere on the vehicle. I also drive past hundreds of businesses that I also know many of these have a website but they are NOT displaying it anywhere. Both of these situations are equivalent to thousands and thousands of "impressions". I think Strother Martin said it best in the movie Cool Hand Luke - "What we have here is a failure to communicate" . There are many things that we can do in our daily routines to help promote our websites. Starting with making sure the website address is on ALL of our correspondence, business cards, letterhead, invoices and envelopes, etc. I know it sounds simple but many businesses don't do these things. Then if you want to put a bit of effort out, you could make some small sandwich sign boards (these are surprisingly effective); Get some decals for your vehicle from a sign shop; make sure your web address is included in your answering machine greeting; use point-of-purchase signs to announce web specials. In short, be creative and tenacious in getting the message out and be excited about doing it, make it fun.
To give you an idea of what can be accomplished, when we began planning one of our own website ventures www.woodworkweb.com. We planned on how and what we would do to promote it even before we made the site's story board. On the second day that the website was open to the public, the website received 451 unique visits. Not bad for day two of operation, and without spam. What we did to accomplish this would be far different from what someone might do who owns a bricklaying business and website themed for a local audience. So web promotion without search engine optimization can be done, and yes it's long hard work ... and I'm prepared to tell you more, but for right now. " I do wish we could chat longer, but I'm having an old friend for dinner" Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lams.
Colin Knecht
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