Do you have a website or online store and do not know how to promote it? Do you have a little budget? Do you want to increase your sales? If you have just created your website or online store and you think it’s all over, let me tell you my friend that nothing is further from the truth.
Think of the Internet as a very big place, it’s not like a store on the street where customers are going to walk by and buy, you have to get them to see you.
To get you seen and promote your website or online store effectively there are many ways to do this, all explained and detailed throughout this article.
It doesn’t matter the budget you have, since to start with it is usually not necessary to spend a lot of money and if you want you can even do it all for free. Something that if you are just starting out you will appreciate. So let’s go ahead, start promoting your website or online store!
Table of contents
Promote your website or online store for free
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Carry out a good Link Building Strategy
Content marketing for your website or online store
Promote your website or online store through social networks
Offer people something for free
Promote your website or online store with a little budget
Advertising in social networks (Social Ads)
Google Advertising (Google Ads)
Email Marketing
Influencer marketing
Promote your website or online store efficiently
Promote your website or online store for free
If you have just created your online store or your website, normally, you do not have much budget to promote your website or it is totally nonexistent and even more if you have already spent on the design of the website.
Therefore, here we offer you a few free solutions that are very profitable and that work but you will have to dedicate time and effort. These are the best ways to promote your website or online store for free:
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO or search engine optimization is what makes people walk past your store (metaphorically speaking), hence the vital importance of its optimization. Optimizing your SEO allows you to rank higher in Google search results.
The user who searches for something in Google only looks at the first ten results, so appearing on the first page can be crucial.
But optimizing your website or online store for search engines is not a simple task as it will take you some time and above all a lot of analytical skills. Also, SEO covers many aspects that you must work on overtime if you want your store to be visible to search engines. These are the steps to follow to improve the SEO of your website:
Perform Keyword Research
This is the basis of SEO. Keyword research is a study of the keywords by which people will find your website or online store. Doing this will allow you to build your website or online store according to the words that the user is looking for and allowing you to rank in the top positions of Google. To do this study you can do it using the Google keyword planner or any other tool. Learn how to do a keyword research.
Study your competency
Another good way to start figuring out how you are going to position your website is by studying what your competitors are doing, especially those that are among the first search results because it means that they are doing it right. You can take their strategy as an example or simply copy it.
This helps you to get an idea of how a website or online store is positioned depending on its activity, what is the structure of the website, how is the menu structured, what are the categories used, etc…
Although you can totally copy the competition, this will help you rise but it will be difficult to be better than them so we always recommend that you try to differentiate yourself in some way.
Optimize your website pages
Do an audit of your website and find out which pages of your website are the most important (the ones with the most traffic). Then, search and locate the keywords for each page.
To do this, differentiate between the head keyword (primary keyword for which you want to optimize the website) and the long tail variations (longer keywords that could bring traffic to your website).
Once you have this keyword, optimize your web page or category using this keyword and its long tail derivations.
Optimize On-Page SEO
On page, SEO is all that SEO that has to do more with the structure of the pages of your website. Internal aspects that can be differential for search engines to better recognize your website and make you move up a few positions. This is what you should take care of SEO on page:
- Optimize the titles: Make the titles follow a clear structure, the main title of the page must be an h1 and there can only be one since it is the main title, the other subtitles should carry the h2, h3, or h4 tag depending on their level on the page. Also, add the keywords in the titles and try to make them as eye-catching as possible for the users.
- Optimize URLs: URLs must be short, cannot contain special characters, capital letters, or extensions, and must provide information. Avoid prepositions, articles, or pronouns. URLs are usually generated automatically but all content managers allow you to modify them.
- Create internal links: Create a network of internal links so that Google sees that the topics of your blog are related and so that the information is completed.
- Add external links: Have links on your website that point elsewhere so that the information you give is completed with information from other websites of the same or higher quality.
- Optimize the images: The filename of the images must be descriptive and relevant, always adding the keyword. You should also optimize the size and weight, add an “alt” tag, “title” and a description from the content manager.
- Optimize meta descriptions: The meta description is what appears below the title and URL in search results. It is important that it is suggestive and perfectly describes the content inside.
Focus on product descriptions and categories
This has to do with the content optimization that every website should have and in this case more specifically if you are an online store in the description of the products and their categories.
Google hates duplicate content so it is important that if you are an online store that does dropshipping rewrite all products and categories so that Google does not penalize you for it.
To have a good and well-optimized product description, it is important to implement the main keywords as well as the long-tail keywords in a credible way. Also, it must be attractive to the user and must be explanatory.
Carry out a good Link Building Strategy
Link building is the creation of internal and external links to increase the notoriety of the web. According to the theory, Google says that the links pointing to your website as well as the ones coming from your website must be natural but honestly, this is something very difficult to achieve.
You should be careful with this task or leave it in the hands of professionals because if Google catches you, it can penalize you.
There are many ways to carry out a good link building strategy that we will describe in more detail in another article but the best way is undoubtedly to ask for links to other websites because asking is always free.
Content marketing for your website or online store
Content is king for Google, so whether you have a website or an online store, one of the best practices that will give you more success, in the long run, is to have a blog where you can publish content regularly.
To create content you can do it yourself although it will take you some time but if not you can always hire a freelancer copywriter that there are out there that are quite profitable.
Be very careful with duplicate content. Try to keep all content original and with high quality.
Promote your website or online store through social networks
Social networks have become a perfect tool to promote any website or online store for free because they allow you to create content, promote your products and interact with your target audience.
Social networks are used daily. It is estimated that up to 45% of the world’s population has at least one social network.
Depending on your type of business it is more advisable to be on one social network or another. Instagram should be mandatory for any business since everyone is on Instagram and you can create an online store in a very simple way. Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn will depend more on your type of business.
Offer people something for free
Free always attracts attention so it is a good way to start to make your business known and above all to let others know about you or start interacting with your brand.
But there is a trick to it because even though you are offering it for free you are really asking for something in return, be it an email, a phone number, or something similar to have a starting point with the customer.
Depending on your business you can offer different things, if you have a website you can offer an ebook or some free information that requires registration. If you have an online store you can simply give away some merchandising that does not involve much cost.
Promote your website or online store with a little budget
Now that you have seen everything that can be done without spending a single euro (which is not little) we are going to show you other methods in which you must spend some money. These strategies are usually much more effective in the short term since the results obtained are immediate.
It should also be noted that to use these strategies more safely we recommend that you leave it in the hands of a professional or at least let yourself be advised, especially at the beginning, since it is true that there is a greater risk since it is your money that is at stake.
Advertising in social networks (Social Ads)
Social ads are one of the most interesting digital advertising formats as they allow you to segment very well to know exactly who your target audience is, think of the amount of information that Facebook or Instagram has about its users! Crazy right? Thanks to Facebook Ads or Instagram Ads you can take advantage of this also at a very reasonable price.
With both Facebook and Instagram (Instagram belongs to Facebook) you will be able to create fully customized ad campaigns specifically targeted to your target audience with which you will start to get more sales, improve your branding or redirect traffic to your website.
Google Advertising (Google Ads)
Google Ads are the ads you see in Google search results. Advertising on Google is a very interesting option to promote yourself at the beginning as it will allow you to get results quickly.
To create a Google Ads campaign you simply have to use the tool that Google offers for companies. To do this it is interesting to use the keywords you have previously studied and create campaigns for some that seem more interesting and that will bring you a profit.
As we have told you before since this is a strategy that has a higher risk because you are spending money, it is interesting that at least the first few times you let yourself be advised by a professional.
Email Marketing
I’m sure you’re sick of receiving SPAM. But that’s because the campaigns are not appropriate, are not personalized, and do not have a clear objective. If you can segment well the audience of your store or website and personalize as much as possible the email marketing campaign we assure you that you will have a good conversion rate.
There are a lot of tools with which you can create an attractive and well-segmented email marketing campaign such as Mailrelay or Mailshake and although this strategy is in the paid strategies the cost is really low.
Influencer marketing
The influencer marketing strategy goes a little hand in hand with the social media strategy but it is a different strategy because it is another person who speaks well of your store or your website which offers greater security to the consumer. Everything that is recommended to us is usually more accepted and more if it comes from people who are “referents” in the sector.
Therefore to make a good campaign with an influencer you will always have to look for one that is according to your sector and above all to your budget, because there are very expensive ones. But like everything else, if you know how to search and if you follow a good strategy, the results you can get are excellent.
Promote your website or online store efficiently
We have already seen all the strategies that can be followed to promote your website or your online store, as you have seen you can do it without spending a single euro or with a very low budget but the results you get will obviously depend on the effort and time you spend.
However, if you invest a small amount of money at the beginning you will get results much faster. That is why we recommend you use both strategies.
If you invest a small amount at the beginning you will get quick income and after a while, when your SEO strategy is already established, you will start to reap its benefits and you will have to invest less in paid advertising.
Also keep in mind that although these tips can help you, they also require a minimum of knowledge in the sector and although if you learn on your own you can do it perfectly well, it is also important that you let yourself be advised by professionals.
