by Roy Burnett
Most serious businesses already have their website up and running, whether they have a small store location or strictly sell their products or services online. Nowadays, having a website is almost a requirement. Once you have your website, the world is not going to know you exist; you must promote your website yourself. After all, you put in all that time and effort into starting up a website, not to mention the cost, now it is up to you to make sure it all pays off. Not only do you have to steer the traffic to your website, but you also have to turn those visitors into customers. You have to have something to offer them to convert visitors into customers, and to keep them coming back. Customers can always generate more business through word of mouth and act as your own personal marketers.
One key way to keep the customers, and potential customers, coming back is to write your own articles that refer to your website for maximum exposure. There are many free websites where you can write and post articles about your website and what your website can do for others. First, if you are not an experienced writer, take the time to learn how to write articles. Collecting a few tips never hurts. If you do not have the time, but have the extra finances, you can choose to hire a writer or business to write the articles and post them for you. Although this is most convenient, it may prove to be quite costly in the end.
A publisher is a specialised form of bank or building society, catering for customers who cannot cope with life and are therefore forced to write about it.
—Colin Haycraft (b. 1929)
Here are some tips on how you can maximize your exposure by writing articles referring to your website:
1. Choose a particular product, service, or update on which you want to write an article. Keep all articles between 75 and 1200 words. Write in layman terms and avoid all the long technical and scientific mumbo jumbo. Keep the sentences short and to the point. Keep the paragraphs short and limited to one topic. You do not want to start writing about how great your peas are in one paragraph and start in on your great carrots in the same paragraph. If you are selling vegetables and want to write about your vegetables, give the peas and carrots there own paragraph.
2. It is important to upload new material. It does not take long for an article to go stale. You want to keep useful and original information coming on a regular basis. You have to prove to your customers that you are still there running and active website. If you wrote your last article in October of 2004, then your website would appear to be unreliable or abandoned. Keep your customers and all of your potential customers up-to-date and provide them with free information that they would not be able to find anywhere else.
So it is with books, for the most part: they work no redemption on us. The bookseller might certainly know that his customers are in no respect better for the purchase and consumption of his wares. The volume is dear at a dollar, and after to reading to weariness the lettered backs, we leave the shop with a sigh, and learn, as I did without surprise of a surly bank director, that in bank parlors they estimate all stocks of this kind as rubbish.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
3. Think of how your new article will benefit your customers. Try to write some 'how-toā€¯ articles. Many people are most interested in how-to articles. Helping your customers find out how they would benefit from your article will earn you the respect and trust you deserve and from which you can profit. Trustworthy businesses generate loyal customers.
4. If you choose not to write an article, you can delve into articles, tips, testimonials or book excerpts written by other people on websites and e-zines and copy and paste them to your site. Keep in mind that you must have the writer's or website owner's permission to do so beforehand. Although this is not something to do on a regular basis, it can be nice filler for your website. Always be sure to choose the articles with the content relating to your website.
It is your job to write something your customers want to read and keep them coming back for more. Updating your website on a regular basis is a great way to let your customers know that you are there. By tending to your website on a regular basis, you let them know you have not abandoned your post. You can also keep your customers returning to your site by offering monthly specials. Try offering attractive incentives such as Free Shipping Month, Free Gift Month, Discount Month, or Buy One Get One Free Month. It is up to you to offer your customers incentives to return to your website.