Planning, Developing, and Promoting Successful Small Business Websites

Table of Contents

Offline promotion can be a powerful way to drive local traffic to a website. For many types of websites local traffic is the most beneficial. Users in the same local market that visit the site are more likely to be interested in goods or services when they have the assurance of someone nearby to talk call if something goes askew. Offline promotion has reigned king for many years until the recent exponential growth of the Internet. The Internet now offers a medium that is much more measurable and has farther reach than traditional advertising mediums. The traditional mediums, however, are still useful and can help to drive additional targeted traffic to a website.

There are many great ways to use offline promotion to promote a website. “Free print” is a great way to launch a site. When a site is first released to the world the developer may be able to get free advertising via press releases in local newspapers or magazines. This is a great way to announce the release of a site, and best of all it can be free.

The domain name of a website should be plastered on any advertisement that an organization places. The website serves as a tool to provide more information than what can be placed in a traditional advertisement for much less cost. There really is no limit to the amount of information that can be placed on a website, and leveraging this new tool should be a top priority to any company. Some of the other places an organization can advertise a website include; posters, flyers, billboards, stickers, cars, and clothing. These areas should not be neglected in the promotion of a website.

Advertising executives are not often willing to admit that the old methods of advertising are not comparatively as useful as they used to be. Since it will probably be quite a while before executives will be convinced to dump the significant portion of their budget into online advertising, it is important to use the advertising to serve a dual purpose of promoting the website while utilizing the traditional methods. A domain should be listed on all billboards, magazine or newspaper articles, and signage.

Everyone loves freebies. Giving away free stickers or tee-shirts advertising a domain name may go a long way. The gifts should be included in the orders of top customers, and given away at trade shows and promotional events. Word-of-mouth is still the best and most powerful form of advertising. A satisfied customer with a domain name tee-shirt can be a company’s best billboard.

Any organization that has a company vehicle should have the company website listed on their vehicle. This is a very cheap and effective form of advertising. When someone sees a company car driving down the road, and the company sounds interesting they are pleasantly surprised when they can go to a website and find out more information. Domain names on a company vehicle will help to deliver localized traffic, and jog the memory of visitors in the local area to visit the company’s website. An added perk is that it might even keep employees from speeding.

Listing domain names on a billboard is a must as well. Billboards are often designed and paid for just to improve credibility and brand recognition in high traffic areas. Since these are some of the same goals of a website it is only good sense to place a domain name on company billboards.

Offline advertising is one avenue to drive traffic to a website. Unfortunately, offline advertising can be quite expensive and ineffectual compared to online advertising. Companies that already employ offline advertising through traditional media should position their website in existing advertisements and budgeted funds should start to be migrated towards online advertising. Companies based primarily on the Internet will probably not benefit much from traditional offline advertising due to the relative inefficiency and expense when compared to online advertising. Offline promotion is only a short-term solution to the problem of low website traffic.

Appendices
(All in a single document) Appendix 1-1: Overture Search Term
Research Tool

Appendix 1-2: Wordtracker Search Query Research Tool

Appendix 1-3: Google Sets Website Theme Research Tool

Appendix 1-4: Reach/ Acquire/ Convert/ Retain

Chart Appendix 2-5: Zehnder’s of Frankenmuth Information Architecture Flowchart

Appendix 2-6: Search Engine Themes Pyramid Information Architecture Example

Appendix 2-7: Webpage Download Time by File Size Chart

Appendix 2-8: Expected Locations for Common E-commerce Elements

Appendix 2-9: Website Usability Checklist

Appendix 2-10: Text Vs.Code Ratio/ Content Near the Top of Souce Code Examples

Appendix 3-11: Overture Bid Price Tool

Appendix 3-12: Webalizer Website Visitor Tracking Tool

Appendix 3-13: AW STATS Website Visitor Tracking Tool Appendix

3-14: Clicktracks Website Statistics
Analysis Tool

References
Author Notes

Additional Bonus:
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Planning, Developing, and Promoting Successful Small Business Websites Table of Contents

Planning, Developing, and Promoting a Successful Small Business Website

Website Promotion and Analysis for Small Businesses Page 35

Offline Website Promotion

Planning, Developing, and Promoting Successful Small Business Websites

Table of Contents

Website Promotion and Analysis for Small Businesses
Page 35