Marketing your website

[brad211987]

I'm trying to get into some small freelance web design, and have been working on a site for a family business as one of my first projects. It's coming to the point that I want to start attracting people to the website, but I am unfamiliar with some marketing strategies on the internet. I've set up an adwords account with google, and have been learning about search engine optimization etc.. but would like to ask what types of marketing are commonly used, and what some of you have had success with?

Any input will be a great help,

Thanks in advance.

[bcarl314]

I think the first thing to do is identify your target market. Are they old or young, male or female, computer savvy or computer illiterate, etc...

Once you do that, it will be much easier to come up with a marketing plan.

Having said that, some of the basics include:

1) Develop a linking strategy with similar sites. Exchange links if you must, but the best links are one-way links to your site onle.

2) Find out where your target market hangs out online, and post in forums and blogs that cover those targets. Not spam though, make them meaningful posts about relevant information. You probably shouldn't even post your web site until you've got 100 or 150 posts in the forum

3) Google Business Services - Get the business listed in the google directory

4) dmoz, dmoz, dmoz! Go to dmoz.org and submit your url (once and only once though). Many MANY directories are powered from dmoz.

5) Google Ad Words (if you have money to spend)

6) Don't foget to add your web site in EVERYTHING you print, email, etc. Add it to your signature, business card, letter head, mailings, etc.

Like I said those are some of the basics and should get you pretty far. Most take time to cultivate though. Don't expect this to happen overnight.

Hope this helps.

[brad211987]

Thanks for the response, this gives me a few more ideas to go on. Do you recommend any specific ways to keep track of the traffic to your site? I thought about implementing my own via javascript.

[bcarl314]

Most web hosts (at least respectable ones) should have some type of server log software to track hits / pageviews etc. If not, you can always use google analytics.