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There are over 200 million active websites in the world, but only ten positions are on the 1st page of the Google search result. At least five new websites are launched every second, but 98% of them are destined to have less than 3000 visitors per month. This sounds quite frustrating, but it’s possible to avoid drowning in this digital ocean of living dead.
Fortunately, the success of the remaining 2% is not based on luck. It is based on a well-thought-out website marketing strategy. So how to promote your website to beat the mark of 10K unique visitors per month and start driving great amounts of traffic? Let’s find out in the article below.
How to promote your website: 12 effective ways
The truth is, you won’t be noticed unless you make an effort to stand out and advertise your website by all possible means. People are not ready to spend their precious time to search for the best existing solution, in 67% of cases they just click on one of the top-5 listings in a search result. The competition is fierce, so you need to use every option to fight your path to the top.
When searching for ways to promote a website, don’t dwell on only one method of attracting potential customers. For example, some marketers are stuck on social media but underestimate blogging and vice versa, wondering why they still can’t go beyond 3000 visitors per month.
All the aspects of web promotion should be combined in a holistic marketing strategy to produce the best possible results. To make your traffic grow exponentially, consider these best ways to promote your website.
#1: Search engine optimization
Since ranking algorithms grew smarter, Google paid more attention to intent formation rather than to separate keywords in order to determine the page's relevance. However, to become #1 in the Google search, you have to work pretty hard. In order to create successful SEO campaigns, you need to know beforehand what content type your target audience prefers - text, audio, video or images, and only then decide how to create content.
Useful content is the main factor that influences your website’s position and can improve website marketing. Google's algorithm is smarter than it seems to be: no matter how many relevant keywords you add to your main page, it won’t rank high if the quality of your content is poor.
Still, keywords are essential: your prospects form the search queries on that basis. That’s why you need to build a strong semantic core of your website by selecting the right keywords. The best free tool to do this is Google Keyword Planner or other related tools.
SmartyTip:
According to Hubspot research, 50% of the keywords are 4 words or longer. Long-tail keywords perform better and we recommend you to focus on them since the competition is lesser, but the return is higher — the targeting is narrower, so you attract exactly the audience you need.
#2 Link building and backlinking
Relevant keywords and quality content are not the only things that can positively affect your SEO ranking. Another effective technique to boost your position in the search result is link building.
First of all, you increase your rating by including a link to the reputable sources to your piece of content. Secondly, your website automatically improves its positions if the reputable source links to your website (this is called backlinking). To earn more links, companies create articles, videos, and other kinds of content to publish on third-party resources, seamlessly incorporating the links to their own website.
#3: Social media marketing
The next powerful tool that will help you to promote your website is social media marketing. Even though social media are generally not used for searching goods and services, people spend at least 30 minutes per day on each social network.
If your prospects use multiple social networks, then they spend several hours daily. This way, it’s not surprising that this website marketing tool brings around 20% of traffic to your website.
Apart from high-quality content, which is an unspoken rule, you should focus on increasing your engagement rate on social media. This is the most important benchmark that shows how active your followers are and how effective you are in attempts to engage them. The formula looks like this:
ERR = Total Reactions/Reach * 100%
An average ERR for Instagram varies from 1% to 3.5%, for Facebook across all industries — 0.17%, for Twitter — between 0.09% and 0.33%. If your rates are below these values, it’s time to take action. The fastest method to boost engagement is to run contests, giveaways, and interactive promotions. Relevant questions, polls, and surveys are also good ways to engage your audience and make them buy.
But an indeed killer technique to market your website and increase reposts is video advertising. Create and serve a video tailored to the needs of your potential customers and gear the video marketing in action making sure you include a quality creative to your campaign.
SmartyTip:
Which social network is better for your business to promote your website? Actually, it's better to establish a presence in all media. But you can choose one of them as a preferred one. Thus, Facebook is perfect for sports, entertainment, retail, and food industries, Instagram works better for fashion, beauty, and fitness when Twitter is more suitable for news and media.
#4: Corporate blog posts
At first sight, it’s not very clear how selling goods can be related to blogging but blog posts help you to find and establish a distinctive voice of your brand. You should include corporate blogging in your website promotion strategies for a very solid reason. requires a lot of time and effort, but the example of successful brands prove the worth of it.
For instance, the number of contacts generated from Hubspot’s blog increased from 0 to 4800 during 1 year of active blogging. The posts you write will be indexed by the search engine afterwards so promoting your website today with blogging means attracting new customers tomorrow.
Another great example of how to put the content marketing strategy in practice is SmartyAds blog. Here you can see corporate and industry news, tips on programmatic advertising, and any other pieces of content related to the company’s products and solutions.
SmartyTip:
To get new visitors from your old blog posts, add several paragraphs that contain some trending long-tail keywords. Aside from an opportunity to make an article more SEO-friendly, you can include new links that lead to your recent blog posts.
#5: Email marketing
If you are thinking how to promote your website, you might also ask yourself if email marketing is dead or growing? This is a subject of concern for many marketers. Email is still a primary channel for lead generation and has a 122% median ROI — which is 4x higher than an ROI of social media.
The effectiveness of email marketing as a tool to drive more traffic to your website can be easily measured. The metric which determines the success of your web promoting the campaign is called a click-through rate (CTR). Formula:
CTR = Impressions/Clicks * 100%
An average CTR for emails ranges from 1.8% to 4.7%. This is the percentage of your leads that read your email and followed the link you included in the call-to-action.
SmartyTip:
- Always include the sharing options to your social media. At least one option boosts your CTR by 30%.
- Make your email copy concise and use only one call-to-action.
- Add a testimonial from your previous client — reviews from other people are the most powerful method to make prospects trust your brand and, therefore, click on the CTA button.
Personalization is a trend not only in email marketing but also in advertising. Precisely targeted ads are preferred by 71% of consumers. Want to win more of them? Promote your website only to those who are already interested in the products like yours. Take advantage of intelligent programmatic targeting and always reach out to your potential customers instead of random people.
#6: Native ads
The ad that works best for a promotion website doesn’t look like an ad at all. And that’s the essence of native advertising: to blend in with regular content on a publisher’s website. Unlike regular display ads, they don’t disrupt the user’s experience. Let’s compare them using advertisements on BuzzFeed, popular media and news companies, as examples.
“Create an Avatar Like You” is a regular display ad that has nothing in common with most of BuzzFeed's content. Users quickly understand that the owners of the website bought space from BuzzFeed to promote their website.
Exploring BuzzFeed, you can stumble upon the section called “BuzzFeed reviews.”, if you move on to reading one of those reviews, you will also notice clickable ads on the left side of the page that blend with the rest of the design.
Native ads are more relevant to the end user and definitely less annoying. Practice shows that a native ad’s CTR is at least twice as high as the CTR of a non-native display ad. BI Intelligence predicts that native ads will generate 3x more revenue than non-native.
SmartyTip:
Native advertising is a powerful tool to promote your website, but how to enhance its benefits even more? The answer is simple: combine native ads with programmatic solutions. Apart from automating media buying and speeding up the whole process of advertising, a Demand Side Platform opens up new opportunities for targeting, let alone real-time reporting, all-platform coverage, and intelligent optimization. It takes less than 1 second to determine your target audience and show your ad on the right website to the right people.
Publishers can also benefit from native ads through Supply Side Platform and monetize their own website, blog or an app. With every click on the ad taking place at their inventory, they will obtain an income. Through SSP dashboard the publishers are able to pre-define the type of the ad, size, position, set the preference for advertisers they want to work with and the floor price at which bid for placement can be accepted.
#7 Guest posting
Guest posting is another powerful way on how to promote your website. This simple yet effective marketing tactic is used pretty often to increase a platform’s visibility and build authority. It consists in creating professional, unique, and relevant content for other reputable resources within your niche.
By being posted on another website you will be able to showcase your expertise, increase credibility, reach broader audiences, and attract targeted traffic to your website. When it comes to guest posting, each platform establishes their rules so you should check out the requirements of each individual case. However, make sure you offer high-quality insights and cover the most burning topic to draw attention of people and attract them to visit your site.
SmartyTip:
For maximum effectiveness, it’s better to choose reputable and popular platforms. However, as the competition is fierce, we recommend you to get posted in smaller yet super relevant websites that have less requirements and you will be able to place your article faster to drive tangible results.
#8 Influencer marketing
If you are searching for more ideas to promote your website, then influencer marketing is a great choice to consider. This type of marketing is pretty effective as you advertise your platform through the authority of a trusted social media personality within your niche. You don’t need to collaborate with really big and famous influencers. Start by selecting the smaller influencers relevant to your industry that will help you reach audiences of the desired demographic.
People usually trust their favorite influencers, so most likely, you will be able to generate significant results, build brand awareness, and create trust on your website.
Feel free to promote your website through diverse formats — engaging posts, captivating stories, Reels, and videos can work perfectly. Be super specific about your guidelines to preserve your uniqueness and authenticity.
SmartyTip:
To measure the effectiveness of your influencer marketing efforts, we recommend you track website traffic, referral links, and conversions.
#9 Quora and online communities
Here is another prominent website promotion tactic you should pay attention to. Quora, along with other similar online communities, is an excellent platform for free and very native website promotion. The opportunities are endless here. You can establish yourself as a knowledgeable authority, participate in various discussions, and answer relevant questions to provide real value to users while subtly promoting your site.
The first step will be to identify communities and topics that align with your target audience or with your niche in general. Then, come up with informative, well-researched answers. Include a relevant link to your website when it adds value, and it will serve as a strategy to promote your website. But be careful and don’t advertise too much — share insights, answer queries, and participate in conversations just to bring use and value to users to build their trust.
This approach builds trust and encourages users to visit your site and attracts an audience genuinely interested in your offerings.
SmartyTip:
Monitor your contributions to Quora’s community through metrics like upvotes and comments. Prioritize quality over quantity — even one practical insightful link-backed response can generate long-term traffic to your website.
#10 PPC campaigns
PPC or pay-per-click is a widely used strategy not only to promote your website but also is considered an independent marketing branch able to bring traffic and raise brand awareness for any business. This approach can help you drive the desired audience to your website pretty quickly.
The core idea is pretty simple — by bidding on relevant keywords, your ads appear at the top of search engine results or across social media, or other platforms, to give you maximum visibility.
PPC marketing allows you to reach specific demographics, locations, and interests. Therefore, this tool is very effective for reaching your ideal audience. You pay only when users click on your ad so it’s very budget-friendly.
SmartyTip:
Conduct a thorough keyword research to avoid irrelevant traffic and minimize budget waste. Don’t forget about a compelling ad copy, strong visuals, and clear CTA to achieve conversions.
#11 Online directories
You can list your business on online directories like Google Business (or any other similar one like Yelp or Bing) to promote your website. The essence of these platforms is to help users find relevant businesses through local searches. For you, it can result in increased visibility and higher website traffic.
Make sure you invest your time to create a complete, optimized profile with relevant and up-to-date contact details, website links. Engaging visuals can boost your credibility and search rankings even further.
SmartyTip:
If you are a service or product business, keep your listings updated and encourage satisfied customers to leave reviews. Positive ratings improve trust and SEO which will attract more visitors to your website and drive conversions in the future.
#12 Giveaways
Giveaways are not an all-size-fits-all option that every website and business can use. However, it’s a very dynamic marketing tactic that can help promote your website and grow your audience in a very fun and engaging way.
The idea of giveaway is very transparent — you offer a valuable prize in exchange for actions like signing up for your newsletter or sharing your content. It can boost engagement and drive traffic.
SmartyTips:
Use giveaways to create excitement, encourage user interaction, and enhance brand awareness. They’re an excellent way to attract new visitors while rewarding loyal ones.
The bottom line of our “How to promote your website” guide
These tools to promote your website may be the core “ingredients” of your “marketing cocktail,” but we don’t recommend you stop there. Season it with other working tactics because there is no proper way to find the perfect recipe for your brand promotion but to test different strategies in practice.
However, the future is automation. Companies that use the latest advertising automation software will always be one step ahead when it comes to how to promote your website. 63% of successful brands utilize programmatic ad selling solutions for growing their revenue. So if you are still not on board, it’s time to join the club.
Promote your website with cost-effective and highly-targeted ads — register at SmartyAds DSP!
