Because Web Site Promotion has gown in it’s importance to small businesses I thought I would write an article about Small Business Web Site Promotion and the different forms it can take. There are multiple forms of website promotion available including both paid and non-paid Web Site Promotion.

As with most Analyst or Specialist in this industry, I’m a “Jack of all Trades” and a Master of One. I happen to specialize in Organic Optimization (which I think can be the most rewarding). Some of my colleagues at Beacon Technologies are Masters of PPC and others so we all work as a team closing the gaps on any weaknesses.

First I will discuss the paid web site promotion. This takes many forms in itself.

Paid Web Site Promotion:

1. Yahoo Business Directory: Good for credibility, cost about $300 and will help improve your Page Rank. You may see some traffic but it is better in terms of passing credibility.
2. YellowPages.com: Good for getting leads. This directory isn’t setup to pass Page Rank that well so it won’t help give you any credibility. People do use this to find a business when they are ready to purchase so it can be a good source of qualified leads. It can be relatively pricey especially on a national level. There are many other similar directories including Superpages.com and theyellowpages.com but they all provide the same functionality and are about the same pricing.
3. Google PPC: Straight forward Pay Per Click Advertising. You pay every time a visitor clicks on your paid advertisement in Google. There is also the content network in which your ad can be seen on websites that are running Google’s Adsense Program. Here you also pay when a visitor clicks on your ad or an adsense fraud bot clicks it, either way, you pay. Yahoo and MSN’s PPC programs work very similar. This is easy to get started, hard and time consuming to master but can prove to be very rewarding if done with precision.
4. Affiliate Marketing: If a visitor is on a website that is participating in affiliate marketing and follows the link and ultimately ends up converting or purchasing from the site that was advertising, then the site where the user came from that displayed the ad gets a cut of the revenue or a fixed price. This can be beneficial because you only ending up paying if a visitor turns out to be a paying customer. It’s a win win situation for an advertiser but can be difficult to setup and get started with.
5. Purchased Text Links: Looking to build Page Rank? Some sites will sell you a text link which can help give your site credibility. That credibility can then be used to rank naturally for more competitive keywords. This can be effective but if you get caught, Search Engines don’t look too kindly upon this type of activity and it could get you banned.
6. Buying Traffic: When domain names expire, some companies will buy them up by the masses. When traffic goes to these old domains it can be redirected to your site if you are willing to pay for it. I don’t know how effective the conversions would be on this type of traffic because people don’t like to be redirected but it is a straightforward way to buy traffic if nothing else works for you.

There are many more ways to buy web site promotion but these are the top ones that came to my mind. Now to the free web site promotion tips.

Free Web Site Promotion:

1. Organic Optimization: Getting your website to rank high in the natural results from Google, Yahoo, and MSN for keywords that your target market regularly uses to find your type of business. This can be one of the most difficult yet rewarding web site promotion techniques. Depending on how competitive your industry is, and how active your market is online, this will probably be your highest return on investment. Techniques range vastly in how you can achieve this from white hat to black hat.
2. Social Media Optimization: Using networks like Linkedin and Myspace to drive traffic through links. This can be beneficial depending on the industry you are in. The music and arts industries thrive on this type of website promotion whereas others such as business to consumer or b2b markets aren’t so effective.
3. Blogging: Setting up a blog to draw an audience through great content can give you an active audience that is free to market to in the future. This can difficult to achieve and can be very time consuming. Most Business’s never see the positive impact because they give up on it before it can be lucrative. It can also help control online communication.
4. Viral Marketing: Creating something so cool, funny, stupid, or interesting it spreads like wild fire. Doing this successfully can have a very positive impact by creating a lot links, driving traffic, building credibility, and creating brand awareness. This is very difficult to and seems to happen almost randomly but can have a very positive impact. Most SEO Analyst and online marketers strive to create something that will create a successful viral marketing campaign.
5. Online Press Releases: There are multiple free online press release distribution websites. Anytime that your site or company has something to proclaim, releasing an online press release can help build links, and promote brand awareness. Sometimes, it can lead to a successful Viral Marketing Effort.

This really only touches the tip of the iceberg but should give you an idea of what is out there and my opinion of these available options. As the internet shifts, online marketing and web site promotion techniques will also have to shift to adjust to the everchanging atmosphere we operate in. Articles like this are a great way to find out what is out there and what other online marketers are doing for Web Site Promotion.

Brad Henry
SEOslap.com