7 Steps To Promote Your Website for Less (Or Even For FREE!)

The goal of every entrepreneur in the e-commerce market is to manage their budget—especially when it comes to website promotion—and gain generous profits, with the least expense.

After all, no matter how great your product or services might be, if your target market isn’t aware of it, you will never get the earnings you need for your business to thrive.

One of the very real challenges in website promotion, therefore, is how to increase your traffic and gain customers. It entails a certain amount of resourcefulness, and the success or failure of your online business will depend on the effectiveness of your promotional campaign.

The basic formula for the so-called “bottom line” applies: revenue less cost equals income.

If your revenue is greater than cost then you earn a profit. Inversely, if cost is greater than revenue, then you’re in the red and losing.

Your focus, therefore, should be to market your website at minimal cost. But can it be achieved?

Website Promotion on a Budget: 7 Steps to Promote Your Website for Less (or Even Free)

With so low-cost or free resources available, there is no need to earmark a small fortune just to get your online business going.

A shoestring budget can be sufficient if you know how to strategize when it comes to website promotion.

Follow these steps to drive your online business forward and upward.

1. Use Social Media

Social media is powerful marketing tool for a number of reasons. First, it is one of the best places to get your brand in front of people. Create profiles for your business on sites with large user bases like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Not only can potential customers use these profiles as an entry-point to your company, but you can also use these platforms to engage with customers, answer questions, and share your content.

Additionally, if you do have a small budget to work with, Facebook and Instagram offer a lot of flexibility in pricing for advertising on social media while allowing you to target consumers by location, gender, age, and other demographics.

2. Learn on-site SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) remains one of the best ways to improve traffic to your website. However, to take advantage of this, you need to stay on top of changing trends and behaviours of consumers.

With the increasing popularity of virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa, the way people are making search inquiries has changed. In fact, Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently stated that about one-fifth of Google queries are now made through voice search. Adjust your SEO strategy to include long-tail keywords and natural language phrases to respond to this behaviour.

3. Become the Authority

Draw more eyes to your website by making your company the authority in your field online. This includes guest blogging on other sites, and visiting forums like Quora, Reddit, and Yahoo to answer questions relating to your product or service. This is one way you can use the internet to speak directly to your consumer to create a trusting relationship and driving traffic back to your website. Having a strong content marketing strategy (we’ll get to that later) is another way to build authority for your brand.

4. Get Linking

The better you link, the more important Google thinks you are. This is important not only in your own content on your blog or website, where you should be linking both to internal pages and external sources, but also in how many external sites are linking to you.

Start speaking to other websites who have a presence in your field or a related one and work on reciprocal linking. By exchanging links you can create a mutually beneficial relationship where you are both driving traffic to the other’s site. Additionally, you can submit links to your content to aggregator sites like Reddit; however, do so responsibly, as no one likes a spammer.

5. Content Marketing

Creating quality content is one of the most important ways of driving traffic to your website. Hosting a blog on your website, creating a YouTube channel, and regularly posting interesting and engaging content on social media are all great ways to reach new potential customers and solidify your authority.

When working on your content strategy, make sure you aren’t neglecting video, as it is one of the best ways to hold your audience’s attention. It’s also important to switch up the type of content you’re creating to reach a wider audience. Long-form blogs might work for some readers, while others might prefer video. Regardless of the type of content you make, ensure that it is valuable to the audience. Focus on topics that give visitors information they need and solve pain points.

6. Get Your Business on Google

Of course you want your business to pop up high in Google searches, but that’s not what we’re talking about in this instance. One of the simplest and most valuable free resources for businesses is the search engine’s Google My Business feature. Create an account so that customers can easily find information about your company.

This feature puts your company on the map—Google map, that is. By entering an address for your business, any results containing your business will return with a map bringing up your location. Another important feature of Google My Business is the ability for customers to write reviews. This is the modern day way of getting good word of mouth referrals, and you can increase brand loyalty and trust by responding to customer reviews—both the good and the bad.

7. Email Marketing

Email marketing might not sound as flashy and fun as some of our other entries, but it works. It is one of the most reliable ways to drive traffic to your website and remain top of mind to your potential customers. One figure even estimates that for every $1 spent on email marketing, you can expect an average rate of return of about $38.

The key to good email marketing is to keep the content fresh and useful so that it doesn’t feel like you’re spamming your customer’s inbox. Additionally, you need to include calls to action (CTA) to prompt your reader to take the next step toward engaging your services or buying your product.

Know the Consciousness of Online Customers

The way consumers behave online is constantly shifting. From an increase in online shopping, to a rise in voice search queries and discernment, the refusal to adjust to consumer demand can lead to declining customer traffic.

You can take advantage of current trends by following the steps shared above to promote your website, with the least cost possible. However, it is still important to analyze and study the consciousness of the online consumer who is now both discriminating and perceptive.

Employ the best marketing tools and strategies while also making sure that your offers meet customer expectations. By following our tips on implementing website promotion strategies wisely, you will soon see your bottom line improve.