So You've Got A New Website: Hop, Skip and Jump to Success

So you've got a new website, great you're now a step ahead of those without one but a small hop, skip and a jump behind those who have been online for a while.

What can you do to catch up with those who already have plenty of traffic, links to their site or a popular brand name?

Well don't despair there are many ways to get your site out there and in front of people and even steal a march on your competitors who have become complacent.

The Hop - Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

You should incorporate SEO in your design brief to your web designer but if you didn't then it's not too late to make changes that will help your site in the long term.

Directories

The first port of call for many people are directories and although not vital they are a good foundation to work from.

Submit your website to the main search engines/directories such as Google, Yahoo, DMOZ and MSN. To take this a stage further you can pay to be included in business listings such as Yahoo or Best of the Web which would give you and your website an advantage over the competition.

Google Maps is a great way to promote your business to the local community and will also help you in the search engine results pages for local traffic.

The Skip - Free Publicity

A press release is a useful way to generate local traffic to your site or even national users if you strike it lucky.

Pay Per Click (PPC)

In the early stages of a website a Pay Per Click campaign is a quick and easy way to gain traffic to your site. In turn this also makes the search engines aware of your site giving it a much needed boost.

Combining a PPC campaign with SEO can be an effective way to target users to get a good ROI in both areas.

A well researched and quality ad campaign can send you users that would otherwise take you weeks/months to build up organically.

The Jump - Social Media Marketing (SMM)

If you have a blog on your site a good way to gain links and leverage is to market it via social sites and networking communities.

There are a multitude of social media marketing platforms to choose from, but not all of them will give you traffic that will bring you custom. Do spend time researching SMM and the benefits it can bring.

Constant monitoring of your analytics will help you find out where your website traffic is from and who is sending them to you.

Your future success online doesn't stop with just a website. Promotion across all forms of online marketing over a sustained period of time are required to make it a long term success.