Web Site Marketing (General Overview)

There are many different facets to web site marketing and driving a targeted audience to your web site. Although our focus here is on ways to market your web site using online methods it is still very important to use all available media channels to help maximize your marketing efforts and drive targeted traffic to your web site.

As stated on other pages within this site there are approximately 56 million web sites and over 8 billion web pages. This means many other web sites are probably competing for your online targeted audience's attention. Not to forget the fact that it can be extremely difficult to even find your web site in this enormous sea of web pages. At Webstream Dynamics we try to stress with every web site development project the importance of good, sound web site marketing strategies to help ensure a return on your investment.

Most Common Ways of Driving Web Site Traffic

Below are the most common ways of driving web surfers to a web site:

Through a search engine / directory (paid advertisements and/or free listings)
Links to your web site from other web sites
Emails with links to your web site embedded in the email
Web site address promoted in traditional media (newspaper, magazine, etc.).
Word of mouth and typed web site address directly into browser.
Online banner advertisement that links to your web site.

Search Marketing

Search Engines offer several ways to help drive traffic to your web site. The most common way is through the search engine's own web site where users type in search terms to help them find listings revelant to what they are seeking. Another way is through a search engines aligned web site partners or content partners. These are web sites that allow the search engine to display search results and links inside the partner's web site. This can dramatically broaden an advertiser's reach.

Natural Search

Most users begin their search by going to their favorite search engine and typing in several relevant keywords to help them quickly locate web sites that will give them the information they are seeking. A web site may or may not appear depending on how relevant the web page's text content is to what keywords were entered by the user. This is often referred to as the "Natural Search" or "Organic Search".

Pay-Per-Click Advertising

Many web sites also bid on keywords and phrases that are relevant to their web site and content and that they hope the user will use when searching. Depending on your bid amount and keyword relevancy to the search phrase your advertisement may appear in the "Sponsored Links" along the right side of the screen or at the top. For those people not familiar with this method of advertising, it is referred to "Pay-Per-Click Advertising". An example of this is Google's AdWords. It is important to realize the advertiser never pays anything until someone actually clicks on their sponsored advertisement. This is truly "performance based advertising". For more specific information see our page on Pay-Per-Click Advertising.

Google and Overture also have a global network of content partners and web sites where the pay-per-click advertisements may also appear based on how relevant the advertisement and keywords bid on are to the content for that page. Google's AdSense™ is an example of this and allows content publishers the chance to make additional income by allowing Google the opportunity to control the ads that will appear on their web site. Using the Pay-Per-Click advertising on the search engines and throughout their global content network can dramatically improve your reach for your targeted audience.

Getting Listed in Directories

I will try to keep this simple. Besides search engines there are many directories where web sites are grouped into categories and listed alphabetically. Most directories are maintained by humans who actually visit your web site prior to insertion. A few of the more popular directories are Yahoo! Directory, Zeal, DMOZ open directory, AbiLogic Web Directory. They can help drive traffic to your web site as well as improve your link popularity.

Exchanging Links

Another common and useful way to drive targeted traffic to a web site is by exchanging links with other web sites that have similar content or content related to your products and services. Finding these web sites takes will some effort but can be done cost-effectively using the barter method ("You put a link to my web site on your web site and I will do them same for you on my web site.") Don't forget to use good link scent so users will know why they should click on the link going to your web site.

Email Marketing

Anyone loves getting email and it comes to directly to all of us rather then going searching for it. Unfortunately, it is often abused by spammers. Today, it is important to get the customers permission to send them emails about sale events, new product introductions, etc. Be sure to clearly state the subject so the email recipients will know what it is about and read it. The email message should be short and to the point. Within the body of the email be sure to have some sort of "Call to Action" to encourage them to visit your web site.