Here at Chatsworth Web Solutions, we believe that learning how to market your website is essential to its success. Therefore educating our clients on best practices is a huge part of our job. However, not all companies have massive marketing budgets. If you’re a marketing manager encountering financial constraints, or you want to ensure you’re implementing all feasible strategies this is the guide for you.
This article delves into 12 methods to promote your website at no cost. Keep reading to discover how to market your website today!
Why is marketing your website so important?
To attract visitors to your website, it’s imperative to market it properly. After all, if you don’t inform people of its existence, how will they ever find it? Marketing your website is crucial to generating traffic and enhancing its online visibility.
When it comes to marketing your website numerous techniques exist, with SEO, social media marketing, and content marketing being the most prevalent. However, don’t limit yourself to these methods, as several other alternatives are available, some of which are even free!
The key is to incorporate these approaches into your overall strategy, prioritizing those that align with your target audience while also considering SEO best practices.
1. Create a Google Business Profile
Google Business Profile is a free tool that enables you to manage your business’s online presence, which is essential if you aim to rank higher in local search results.
Establishing a profile on Google Business Profile is simple and fast. Visit the website and follow the instructions, ensuring that you provide relevant information about your business, such as your website, address, and operating hours. Optimising your Google Business Profile can improve your business’s local map pack ranking within the search engine results pages.
2. Implementing An Email Marketing Strategy
Email marketing is an excellent approach for marketing your website, as it is cost-effective with a high return on investment and allows you to target your target audience. If you haven’t established an email list, it’s crucial to begin building one. Fortunately, numerous free resources and tools are available to help you get started.
Some popular email marketing tools include:
- Mailchimp (My personal favorite)
- HubSpot Email Marketing
- Sender
- Sendinblue
- Omnisend
- SendPulse
- Benchmark Email
- MailerLite
Remember not to SPAM your marketing list and to ensure each email sent contains high value content your audience will find useful.
3. Develop your SEO strategy
Utilising SEO is an efficient and cost-effective approach to market your website. An abundance of free SEO resources and tools are readily accessible on the internet.
With a little investigation, you can significantly enhance your site’s traffic. Need guidance on where to begin? Check out my blog post on the most important SEO considerations when building a website.
SEO is a crucial component of website promotion, but it should not be the sole focus of your efforts.
4. Feature Your Website Prominently on All Marketing Materials
If you’re currently marketing your website, ensure it appears prominently on all marketing materials, such as business cards, flyers, and email signatures. It’s vital to make it as easy as possible for potential clients to find your website address.
This one may seem obvious but you would be amazed how often I see businesses make this mistake.
Interact with Your Target Audience on Social Media Social media offers an excellent means of engaging with your target audience. You can use it to disseminate updates, promote your content, and answer inquiries, but it’s crucial to remain active and engaged with your followers.
5. Using Reddit Or Quora
Forums offer an effective approach to market your website, enabling you to not only reach new audiences but also establish your credibility and authority. When participating in forums, ensure that you contribute value to the conversation and avoid overt self-promotion.
Reddit users are highly engaged and can be a valuable source of traffic for your website. Quora is another excellent forum for marketing your website. For instance, you can search for discussions related to your business, participate in the conversation, and share any valuable insights alongside a link to your website.
For e-commerce products, these forums can be especially beneficial since you can receive real-time feedback from consumers. The opinions you receive may be both positive and negative, but they offer insight into how your product is perceived within the market.
6. Give Away Free Resources When Marketing Your Website
People are drawn to free items, making the creation of free resources or tools a great way to promote your website. By providing value to your users, you’ll also attract traffic to your site, which is a win-win situation.
Examples of free resources or tools include ebooks, templates, checklists, and quizzes. However, ensure that you promote your freebies on various channels, including social media or YouTube. It’s crucial to align your freebies with your target audience’s needs.
7. Repurposing Your Existing Content
Are any of your existing blog posts or articles performing well? If so, consider repurposing them for other channels.
For instance, you could transform a blog post into a video or an infographic. This approach can significantly broaden your content’s reach and attract new audiences.
Marketing an existing blog post doesn’t have to be limited to sharing a direct link to the page. It could be a standalone social media post, an infographic, or a hyperlink in another article.
Repurposing content necessitates devising a strategy for how and where to promote it. Will it be included in emails or perhaps in a social media post? Crafting a plan around how you intend to use each piece of content can help you better organise your content. Once you’ve decided, using tools created specifically for promoting your content is the most effective approach. Check out this list of popular promotion tools to assist you.
8. Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is an effective method for marketing your website and enhancing your credibility and authority by reaching new audiences. However, it’s crucial to craft quality content relevant to your target audience. Additionally, be sure to incorporate a link back to your website within the guest post copy.
9. Consider Outreach Marketing
Outreach marketing is a valuable method to market your website by contacting other businesses and influencers in your industry and requesting them to promote your content. It’s a fantastic way to raise brand awareness and reach new audiences.
When conducting outreach marketing, personalise each request and offer something of value in return, such as a guest blog post or an infographic.
10. Interacting with Your Target Audience on Social Media
Social media offers an excellent means of engaging with your target audience. You can use it to disseminate updates, promote your content, and answer inquiries, but it’s crucial to remain active and engaged with your followers.
Best practices for social media engagement include:
- Incorporating questions in your posts
- Responding to comments on your post
- Addressing negative comments- provide contact information to take the conversation offline
- Posting consistently, at least weekly
It’s vital to choose the right platform when using social media, as not all platforms are equally effective. Facebook and Twitter are ideal for sharing updates, while LinkedIn and Instagram are better for content promotion. Additionally, different audiences are more active on specific platforms. For example, a B2B business may locate its target audience on LinkedIn, while a home services product may reach more of its audience on Facebook.
The key is to determine the platform that best suits your business and audience. Once you’ve found it, you can begin engaging with your target audience.