Back in the 1990s, promoting your company website was relatively easy. You simply placed ‘meta tags’ on the top of your home page and submitted the page to free search engines or directories. With literally hundreds of millions of websites on the internet today and the quantity continuing to grow at a rapid rate, it is crucial to come up with proven and innovative ways to drive traffic to your company website on a continuous basis. I have listed 46 that come to mind. The growing importance of website marketing for maximizing company profits has resulted in a new group of marketing rock stars: digital marketers and even the chief digital officers.

Without further ado, here are 46 ways to drive traffic to your website:

1. Start with a strong, solid business foundation. This encompasses designing a business plan, marketing plan, and ideal client profile and 30-second elevator speech.

2. Post videos including how to videos on your own company YouTube channel. Reference your website URL in the videos.

3. Be consistent and ‘brand’ your company. Use the same colors, logo, etc. everywhere on your website. Perform QA on the website when making updates for proper branding.

4. Make your website trustworthy by implementing trust building policies: top-notch customer service, a code of ethics and a newsletter privacy policy build trust.

5. Ask your webmaster to name each of your pages using a keyword you have supplied him/her with.

6. Offer added values on your website that make sense to your business and target market/s. This can include affiliate programs, books, and recommended links to websites.

7. Add a ‘favorites’ or ‘bookmark this site’ script to some of your website pages.

8. Add a ‘Recommend This Site’ on your website. If someone visits your website and knows someone else who may like it, this feature will e-mail the page’s link to a recipient.

9. If you have pages you update monthly on your website (such as products, an articles page or recommended links page), mention this on the page.

10. Participate in a few Web rings and connect your site with other sites in your niche. For additional information, visit WebRing and Bravenet.

11. Provide an e-mail subscription box, to your e-zine or business announcement list, on your most viewed website pages.

12. Create a newsletter. Ask your visitors to sign up for your newsletter, and encourage them to send it along to people they know. Send a newsletter regularly with teasers or lead-ins to your in-depth new articles or with special offers and the latest products.

13. Give away free items. Offer something on your website that people want. Give them a reason to come back and get more. Offer free downloads and update them regularly. Offer coupons or discounts. Content is definitely king.

14. On more content rich websites, create a ‘What’s New’ page and consider asking your web designer to design a ‘Site Map‘ for your visitors.

15. Make sure your website is ‘search engine friendly’. Search engines look for certain things such as titles, headings, and meta tags so this is crucial.

a. Title tags: Title tags should be approximately 60 characters and should include some keywords.

b. Header tags are numbered from 1 to 7: some search engines recognize header tags, so be sure to use these tags for each of the titles on your page.

c. Keyword Meta tags: Add no more than 15 to 20 keywords to keep the search engines from flagging your site for keyword spamming. Prioritize your words. The best way to submit to search engines is to submit to each search engine individually.

d. Use keywords in the text area of each page. They are especially important at the beginning of sentences and higher up on the page.

e. To learn more about meta tags and choosing keywords, read How to Choose Your Meta Tag Keywords by David Carter

16. Search engines do not find your site unless you submit your site’s information to them. Below are ways to submit your website to search engines:

a. Get listed in search engines by submitting your website to all major search engines. Even though it is time consuming, it is often recommended to submit to key search engines individually.

b. Submit your site to get it listed in all the major web directories. This will generate traffic directly from the directories themselves and will also help to improve your link popularity. That helps you win on Google.

c. Utilize a search engine submission service or program. Two good search engine submission services are Submit Express and Scrub The Web. You can also pay for a program that will assist you to submit and critique your site such as WebPosition.

d. Lastly you can hire an expert Internet Marketer or Search Engine Optimization as a member of your staff or as a consultant to handle your search engine submissions. Your goal should be to come up high on search engine results when people search for keyword phrases related to your products or services.

17. Visit these search engine information sites: Search Engine Watch and Search Engine Guide to keep up with search engine technology.

18. Find easy and secure ways for your clients to pay you. A shopping cart with an SSL certificate and a secure way to accept checks and/or credit cards such as Paypal work very well.

19. Check your business web site’s links regularly to make sure they all work. Use a free link checker such as Xenu’s Link Sleuth.

20. Provide monthly chats or online bulletin boards (forums) on your website or linked to your website to build relationships and community.

21. Conduct periodic contests (e.g. photo contest or essay on how I used your product or service) and announce the winners on your site. Stage regular giveaways and spread the word about it.

22. Offer a free e-book or e-report (e.g. white paper) on your site. The size doesn’t matter if you’re providing it for free and it’s specifically tailored for your ideal client. Provide permission for the e-book to be forwarded to others for their personal use.

23. Design some quizzes or surveys. Surveys can be created for free on SurveyMonkey. Statistics show that visitors love quizzes and assessment tools.

24. Participate in online forums including LinkedIn groups as an expert in areas related to your business. You get to ‘quietly’ promote your business in your three or four line signature. Leave insightful comments, and people will click on your profile, and then visit your website. However, spamming unrelated areas is not recommended. Participation should be content oriented and not just a sales pitch.

25. Place your business web site address on all your printed literature — business cards, brochures, newsletters, letterhead, e-mail signature, license plates, signage, ads, paint it on your business vehicles – Buy newspaper and yellow pages ads with your URL. Put up flyers and stickers. For businesses that want to promote locally, sponsor a local youth sports team. Do anything and everything to spread the word.

26. Promote your web address in your signature for e-mails (change it regularly to highlight something new you’re promoting).

27. Teach classes or speak to groups about subjects relating to your products.

28. Network locally to bring people to your site.

29. Get links to your site. Get people with complementary sites link to yours. If you offer real estate closing services, ask a local realtor and others to link to you and offer a reciprocal to link to them. Links lead to clicks onto your website and help to improve your search engine rankings.

30. Buy sponsored links on other websites. That means more people visiting your site, and many sites offer a pay for performance model.

31. Buy banner ads on other websites. This helps to build brand recognition.

32. Participate in a banner exchange program. This won’t cost you anything, and will lead to a few extra visitors. You also will be spreading your brand all over the place.

33. Pay for clicks to your site- pay for clicks or inclusion on the search engines enable people to see your site in the sponsored links section of the search results when they search for keyword phrases related to your products or services.

34. Set up an affiliate marketing program. With affiliate marketing, you can either pay per click, pay per lead generated, pay per sale, or pay per customer acquired.

35. Make public relations (PR) an integral part of your web traffic building strategy. Get news coverage of your business and your site. When your launch or update your website, send a press release to the media, your clients, and friends and associates, too. Approach online and traditional media; this will often lead to others placing links pointing tomyour website, which leads to more clicks and also to improved search engine rankings. Promote to editors in your target markets in your business. Reach out to print and online editors and also TV, radio, newspapers and business news media where appropriate. Coverage can be local, national or international depending on your market.

36. Use E-mail marketing. E-mail your special offers driving traffic to your site, but also provide other useful information so you can keep the open rate up and minimize opt-outs. If your e-mails are always salesy, they could lose their impact.

37. Write articles for publication on other websites that focus on your target market and get published. The author profile will link to your site. The article will show that you’re an expert. Also submit to article banks.

38. Write articles for your own website regularly and publish yourself. This will help you to win on the search engines and gives your visitors a reason to visit your website again and again.

39. Ask for reviews. Ask for reviews of your self-published articles on other webmasters’ websites. Ask for reviews of your website, your products, your software, your services. These will usually include links to your articles. Also, reach out to influential bloggers that write about your target market.

40. Write briefs. Write daily or weekly news briefs focusing in on your industry or specialty area. This keeps your site “fresh” in the eyes of the major search engines and helps you to spread a wide net when fishing for top search engine positions.

41. Create a newsletter. Ask your visitors to sign up for your newsletter, and encourage them to send it along to people they know. Send out a newsletter regularly with teasers or lead-ins to your in-depth new articles or with special offers and the latest products. Concentrate on the content of your newsletter instead of flashy formatting.

42. Give awards for excellent sites in your niche. This builds more links back to your site and establishes you as a credible reviewer, an expert in your space.

43. Join your local business organizations. Chambers of Commerce and other organizations will often add your site to their member directory. That’s an added advantage over the obvious business-building and networking opportunities.

44. Create an RSS feed of your website. Give people another way to interact with your content. Subscribers to your website via RSS feed are often a receptive audience.

45. Be accessible. Build your site so that it is accessible to all browsers and on the Iphone/iPad and Android platforms. People with disabilities can be great customers, so make your site Section 508 compliant. Online tools are available to test the Section 508 compliance of the website.

46. Have a company Wikipedia page. This can drive traffic to your website and sections of your website. Visit it regularly to make sure updates from those outside your company (allowed on Wikipedia) are accurate. Wikipedia pages can be added for specific products and services.

Even if you don’t have the budget or resources to do all of the above to drive traffic to your website, doing a portion of these and doing them well should take you a long way on your quest to maximizing your website traffic.

Mark Gottlieb is an accomplished, out-of-the-box thinking marketing professional with broad digital, print, B2B, B2C, and global marketing experience, who has been known to increase campaign profits by as much as 800% during the worst economic times since the 1930s, negotiate 80% cost reductions on key lists and other costs, and develop creative tests that beat profitable controls by 50%.  To learn more visit: Mark the Marketer.

The question received more than 70 comments and by and large, the answer seemed to be a resounding yes. A quick search for additional data also indicated that email marketing is still a great way to reach your customer. According to the Direct Marketing Association, every $1 invested in e-mail campaigns in 2009 earned a return on investment of $43.62.

But that being said, all discussion participants agreed that if the content of your email newsletter isn’t relevant and interesting to your target audience, it will fail. For those that missed this discussion, I’ve summed up a few points we’d like to share with you on creating an effective email newsletter.

(1) Newsletters exist in abundance, but so do readers who are like sponges looking for information to soak up! Consider your content in light of this. Is your newsletter only providing company and product updates and other related sales information? Or is it providing real information that your readers will find useful? Your content should have your readers reaching out for more… and then reaching out for your products and/or services.

2) The frequency of your newsletter needs to be right for your type of business and for the quality of the content you are able to develop for each issue. Frequency levels range from weekly to monthly to quarterly.

In terms of content, one suggestion is that you save up your resources to give each email more clout.  Another good recommendation is to prepare an editorial schedule in advance. If you know what will be in each issue of your email newsletter long before you are planning to send it out, you can pull together much better material. If you’re looking for ideas two days before you need to send it, then you’re always going to struggle for good content.

3) Your newsletter needs to be short and easy to read. One discussion participant noted that since streamlining her company’s newsletter, its readership was boosted from 12 percent to between 25 and 40 percent. Also, remember a clean creative design that is easy to read is key.

4) As with any direct marketing tactic, your list has much to do with the success or failure of your newsletter. You need to be sure you have the right people on your list, and quantity does not equal quality!

5) Finally, be sure you have an offer worth responding to. One company offering SEO services mentioned that when they noticed their competitors were charging upwards of $100 to help companies list their businesses on Google Maps, they created a free DIY guide. Your offer depends on your products and/or services, but keep your readers interests first and foremost when creating it, and you should be able to come up with a winner.

If you need help with your email newsletter, send me a copy. I’ll review it and send you a brief report on what’s working and what’s not!

Contributed by:

As a woman entrepreneur just starting out, your to-do list can be endless. Promoting your company is definitely on your list, but where do you start? There’s traditional media, social media, advertising, blogs, TV, magazines, etc.  The possibilities go on and on. Resources are tight, so you need to know where to begin.

To help strengthen and simplify your PR to-do list, here are six key things to keep top of mind:

1) Get Your House in Order. It’s important to be sure you have your key items lined up such as a professional website, press materials (bios, company backgrounder, fact sheets), key messages, and images. Be sure to have all of these materials on hand, and post these documents online in an “About Us” or “Press” section of your site. That way they are easily accessible to media and you have a place to direct people for more information.

2. Prepare Your Pitch. Everyone has a story to tell…what’s yours? It’s crucial to find your unique story beyond just a press release. Reporters want to know why your company is different and what you have to offer that is worthy of writing about. The best way to tell your story is to think about how you help others. People often think their story is about them, but the real story may be about the people your company helps. Or it could be about the struggles you went through to found this business. Get to the heart of your story and stay away from being overly promotional.

3. Target Your Outreach. Once your pitch/story is prepared, you need a targeted media list. This can be done in a few ways:

• Through a subscription database such as Cision or Vocus (this can be pricey, but useful if you’re building a lot of media lists)
• Conducting your own research. Decide your top targets and visit their sites and/or read their publications to find out the best person to contact for you and your story. Finding the right journalist to pitch is one of the most important factors in getting press.
• Enlists a service such as HandleYourOwnPR.com that offers affordable media lists available for immediate download. You can also hire them to create a custom list for you.

4. Start Local.  A great way to get regional or national attention is to first start local. Begin your media outreach on a local level with newspapers, TV, local websites, etc. Most cities have someone who covers local news – companies, profiles, interesting stories, etc. Once you have hit it on the local level it’s time to expand your circle.

5. Gain Momentum & Stay Committed.  PR can take a while so it’s essential to not give up. PR is a commitment, a long-term, ongoing to-do, so if you don’t see results after a month or two – keep going. It takes some time to gain momentum and get noticed. Also, if you get rejected, put it behind you and move forward. There is plenty of PR for everyone out there. Be assertive, but not aggressive.

6. Use What You Got – PR isn’t just about getting press to write about or feature you. It’s also about engaging consumers and creating a community online through sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Another great way to reach your customers regularly is through an e-newsletter or blog. Write about your company and what is new. Offer them inside scoop, deals/discounts, etc. to make them feel a part of things.

Being an entrepreneur can be scary at times as there is never enough time in the day, but just remember hard works pays off in the end. PR takes time and is something you earn. Stay focused and in the end you’ll be rewarded handsomely.

Jenny Finke is the U.S. founder of HandleYourOwnPR.com, a website that provides DIY PR advice and tools, including media lists. She also is the founder of a full service PR agency, Red Jeweled Media. Please find her at www.HandleYourOwnPR.com and www.RedJeweledMedia.com.

Lately, I’ve been collecting ideas on how to build and market my own business, and I thought I’d start sharing tips on free marketing and educational opportunities on this site. Here are a few I noticed over the past week. Check back soon for more!

Have A Story You Want to Share With Other Moms In Business?
Maybe you learned something you think others should know, or maybe you are an expert in a specific area and want to share your advice with other mom business owners. Write for Marketmommies.com! We are looking for moms to contribute to Marketmommies.com. We already have a great group of moms already at work – but would love to hear your story. Email: info@marketmommies.com, if you are interested in contributing!

Is your company Buzz Worthy?
Do you have a product/service that you feel is filling a niche in the market? How is your product different from your competition? For my Daily Buzz free PR newsletter, I write a post every Tuesday called Buzz Worthy. I’m looking for companies to showcase so let me know if your company has the right stuff to be featured on Buzz Worthy. And it helps if you are a Daily Buzz member. Sign up at here and shoot me an email once you receive your first Daily Buzz by simply replying to it. And spread the word about Build-A-Buzz.

Win a Trip to the Super Mom Entrepreneur Conference & Expo
The Super Mom Entrepreneur Conference & Expo will be held on 10/30/10 in NYC at The New Yorker Hotel.  Whether you are an experienced mom entrepreneur, one who is just starting out, or a mom entrepreneur to be, this conference has got you covered.

In an effort to give more mothers an opportunity to experience the inspirational and transforming event, conference speakers and mom entrepreneurs Mindee Doney and Julie Pickens, the co-inventors of Boogie Wipes, are offering an all expenses paid trip to one lucky mom entrepreneur. All interested moms, whether they have a successful business, are a new start-up, or are thinking of starting a business down the road, are eligible to enter.

To be considered, visit the Boogie Moms’ blog between July 1st and September 1st, fill out the form and tell them a bit about your business or business idea, your goals, and how the Super Mom Entrepreneur conference would benefit you. The winner will be chosen by The Boogie Moms and will receive an all expenses paid trip, including airfare to the conference (from anywhere in the Continental US or Canada), lodging for two nights, conference registration fees, and two hours of business consulting time with Mindee and Julie, The Boogie Moms.

Below are the highlights of my exchange with Kristen.

Hot Industries for Freelancers

An Interview with Kristen I. Sabol, Communications Specialist at Guru.com 

Noelle:

What specializations present the greatest opportunities for freelancers today?

Kristen:

Site-wide, Guru.com offers opportunities in more than 160 different skill categories. The site has traditionally witnessed the greatest amount of activity in the following categories:
 

• Website Design
• Website Marketing
• Programming/Software/Database Development

After these fields, we also see a high demand for:
 

• Writing/Editing
• Translation
• Graphic Design
• Presentations/Multimedia
• Illustration/Cartooning
• Painting
• Sculpting

Noelle:

How competitive are these categories?

Kristen:

That’s a good question! While it is true that these areas see the most activity on the site, the ratio of available freelance talent to available project listings needs to be considered as this balance has great impact on how competitive a category may be. 

These ratios are in constant flux as new projects are posted and awarded out to talent on a rolling basis, but if we look at a particular day in early February 2009, we can see that 16,678 Website Design / Website Marketing freelancers were listed as active; while a total of 1,537 Website Design / Website Marketing projects were listed as open for bidding. And, 23,217 Programming /Software/ Database Development freelancers were listed as active; while a total of 1,144 Programming /Software / Database Development projects were open for bidding. So it’s safe to say that today the Website Design / Website Marketing category offers greater opportunity and less competition!

In the most competitive categories, aspiring freelance moms need to take the competitive landscape to heart. Succeeding as a freelancer in these fields will require working very hard to market your skills and expertise.  In order to beat the competition and win work, you cannot have a passive mindset. Getting started in these categories will take lots of dedication and attention.

Noelle:

What general trends are you seeing in the freelance industry?

Kristen:

Overall, we currently have about 125,000 active freelancers and approximately 5,200 project listings. However, as the economy continues to weaken, we are seeing both numbers rise quickly. From 2007 to 2008, we had a 25 percent increase in new freelancer registrations and a 27 percent increase in transactions completed on the site.

Noelle:

What advice can you offer to new freelancers?

Kristen:

Freelancing in many ways is about taking complete responsibility for your own fate. Freelancers should not expect any online marketplace to instantly bring success. You have to create your own success, and that only happens if you really want to be successful. Guru.com presents opportunities, but a freelancer’s success is dependent on what they choose to do to capture and build upon these opportunities individually.

The Resource Center on Guru.com houses a large body of documents including how-to guides that orient users to the site; brief tips and reminders to keep them sharp and on their toes; and general documents that provide lots of information about how to approach freelancing in an online marketplace setting like ours. All new freelancers should peruse this information before getting started.

In terms of some of the most important steps a freelancer can take when conducting business on Guru.com, I’d say new freelancers should start by creating a detailed profile as well as a resume that highlights their skills. Then, they should be sure to upload work samples that showcase their skills and work. 

Once a freelancer begins to propose solutions to employers, they should be sure to personalize each proposal to the employer’s needs. Employers are not only looking for someone with the skill set they asked for, they are looking for someone who is in sync with their thoughts about the project. If you send a canned response that does not speak about their project or organization, you are sending the message that you don’t care or have the time to communicate with them.

Focus on the quality of proposals submitted over the quantity of proposals submitted. Make sure all your documents are free of spelling and grammatical errors. Though the work you may be bidding on does not require you to be an expert in grammar, the person reviewing your proposal will likely perceive you as a poor communicator if your proposal and profile are lacking in the proper grammatical structures. 

And don’t let rejections deter you. Securing work of any kind is a tough business. For every twenty or more proposals you send out, you may receive one response. Dealing with that type of rejection takes resilience, and the more you have of it, the better off you will be in the independent contractor world.

Finally, make sure you complete all projects assigned to you in the most professional and time-conscious manner. Good credentials and a well-developed track-record go a long way to securing future projects. Research has shown that 60 to 75 percent of the jobs filled today are filled through referrals. So be sure you produce referral-worthy work! 

Every time you successfully complete a project remember to ask the Employer to endorse you, so others in his or her Guru.com Network will see you as a recommended freelancer.

Noelle:

Why should aspiring freelance moms participate in an online marketplace for freelance talent like Guru.com?

Kristen:

Using a site like Guru.com offers aspiring freelance moms great benefits in terms flexibility, structure and protection.

When it comes to flexibility, the range of opportunities on the site allows moms to choose the kind of work that suits them best, whether that is short-term projects with flexible deadlines or longer term initiatives that require intense focus for a period of time. All opportunities posted also allow freelancers to work remotely. And how much work or stress one takes on at any given point is really under one’s own control and at the discretion of each individual according to their personal business-development goals.

In terms of structure, Guru.com includes tools that can help a mom manage her freelance business from start to finish-from searching for opportunities, placing bids on the ones she wants and detailing a project agreement-to managing work completion, payment and feedback.  Each freelancer account also includes a Project Tracker that can help a freelancer oversee multiple projects at once.

Finally, Guru.com is extremely devoted to the security and protection of our users. When work is contracted through our site, transactions take place through our patented SafePay system which includes an escrow service for guaranteed payment upon work completion. This service is extremely valuable as it also includes access to our team of mediation and arbitration experts should a disagreement or other problem ever arises between a freelancer and an employer.