General Strategies

Some Web marketing and promotion techniques may seem intuitive once they are discovered, but it's amazing how many people still overlook them. Here are a few simple ways to improve your site and your understanding of it.

• Cross-pollinate: Put your website address on your brochures, paper ads, commercials, and other media. This is an easy, cheap ad for your site. In addition, including your traditional contact information such as your phone number, postal mail address, and so forth on your website allows the customer to contact you in the way they feel most comfortable.
  
  
• Use your current content: If you're stumped on what to put on your website, chances are you already have content you can use. Do you have company brochures? Flyers? Informational papers you hand out to potential customers? All of these can be transferred to your website, autoresponder, frequently-asked questions, and so forth with ease.
  
  
• Content Organization: Certain techniques may boost your signup ratio simply by the way your content is organized. You can give the basic info found on all your brochures to all website customers, then include a members-only section for people who register on your site for free. In it, include more detailed information, free samples, helpful advice, and other exclusive, special information for your valued members.
  
  
• Plan frequent revisions: A website is worth little more than a pile of company literature if it doesn't change often. You should keep your site current with all the latest information and news on your company, including anything you hand out to potential clients at your brick-and-mortar building and possibly more. Don't abandon your site or let it grow obsolete. If you do, you'll lose any gain you might have had in putting the website. If you neglect your website, they'll expect you to neglect their business in the same way.
  
  
• Set reasonable goals: The end result may be that your website produces few direct sales. That doesn't mean it's worthless, though. It could be a valuable resource for your customers and a way for them to gain knowledge about your products and services before they call you or walk in to actually order. This also reduces your printing and question-answering costs. It allows customers to consider your offerings even before or after business hours.

For more info: The Internet Marketing Plan: The Complete Guide to Instant Web Presence - Kim M. Bayne