Do you have an online store or other online business? How do we make it successful? To conquer the Internet space, you need a competent strategy. There are two options: use the services of professionals or do it yourself. And if the first is clear, the second requires time and effort. Promoting a website on your own is not an easy task, but an interesting one. You need to study the principles on which modern information technologies are based, carry out a set of works on optimization and setting up advertising campaigns. Efficiency is determined individually.

Promotion: high quality and free

Why promote your website at all? The Internet space is like a huge metropolis, in which there are thousands of companies and stores, and each strives to increase the number of buyers, clients, and expand the target audience as much as possible. If in the real world, signs, posters, and other types of outdoor advertising are used, in the virtual world, different tools and services are used to increase the visibility of your site.

Promotion on your own without hiring a specialist is a completely doable task. Moreover, it can be done with minimal material costs. If your budget is limited, use free tools, analyze the effectiveness of advertising campaigns and work performed, and make changes to the strategy.

The only caveat is that if you do it alone, it will take a lot of time to promote it. It is better to work in a team, the members of which will perform their tasks. However, they will also have to be paid. In this case, wouldn’t it be better to spend money on the services of specialists who will do everything accurately, efficiently and quickly? How to act is up to you! We will try to provide maximum useful information on how to promote a website on your own.

Search engine promotion

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the cheapest sources of traffic. The main advantage of this method is its long-term effect. When all work on optimizing a web resource is suspended, the result will remain for a long time.

This is the best and most effective option to bypass competitors in the niche and attract users’ attention to your brand. You quickly climb the search results ladder from the most remote pages to the top results, leaving other companies and firms behind. Tempting, right? To achieve such results, you will have to work hard. Be prepared for the fact that you will have to wait several months for the first results; you will have a lot of work, including daily monitoring and analysis. Are you ready? Then – in order.

1. Adding a site to search engines and webmaster panels

This is the initial stage, as a result of which you put your web resource in the indexing queue and launch free traffic increase mechanisms. Until it is done, the site will not be visible to users in search results, and it is from there that the maximum number of potential buyers will come. In order for indexing to be correct, you need to perform a number of actions:

• Configure the robot.txt file. It is recommended to open indexing of all pages except duplicates, filter search, basket and personal account, broken and circular links;

• Create a sitemap. This will speed up the site’s scanning by bots. You should specify a full list of pages and their hierarchy, the type of content posted, provide additional information about images and videos on the web resource, set the priority for indexing, configure the frequency of content updates;

• Inform search engines to index new pages that have been recently added.

Independent website promotion involves collecting information and monitoring the effectiveness of the work performed. To track current performance data, it is recommended to add the site to the master panel. Use the Google Search Console services. The registration process is not difficult.

2. Adding Google Analytics counters to the site

These tools are necessary for tracking user activity statistics for target actions. These may include registration on the site, account authorization, or clicking on a link. Using both tools at once (Google), you will receive the most detailed information about user actions. The tools are free and allow you to evaluate the effectiveness of promotion in order to make changes to the strategy if necessary.

3. Register with Google My Business

The My Business feature is a must have for any company or enterprise that works with people directly and through the Global Network, regardless of the field of activity or niche. It allows you to increase the reach of potential customers.

Every time a user enters a query, searches for something similar, information about you will be displayed in the browser. In other words, this is an additional channel of interaction with a potential client. After setting up “My Business”, you will receive traffic from Google Maps and provide expanded search results for target queries.

This stage will have a positive impact on search engine promotion. The function increases the visibility of the resource, forms a loyal attitude of users, improves behavioral factors and the conversion rate.

4. Developing the right structure for SEO promotion

Visual simplicity and clarity are one of the main factors that influence the effectiveness of promotion. You should be able to navigate it easily, understand where and what is located. Therefore, it is necessary to carefully consider the development of the structure. It is formed by the specifics of the enterprise. The most common option: the main page, product categories and product pages.

Why is this important? The structure of a website is a method of interlinking. It determines the location of pages relative to the starting point – the main one the user landed on. This determines:

• Ease of navigation;
• Speed of indexing by search engines;
• Distribution of static link weight between pages.

The optimal distance from any section to the “main” is no more than three transitions. This way the user will be able to quickly find what he needs without using search tools. The wiser and more complex the structure, the worse it is for your site. You will be able to see the typesweb resource structuresand develop an optimal page hierarchy for your own website.

Pay special attention to usability. A/B tests provided by Google Analytics allow you to evaluate this parameter. With their help, you can analyze the reaction of users to different page designs, button designs, and capture forms.

5. Internal optimization in SEO

This stage is one of the most important and longest. Independent promotion of a website in search engines requires a set of works on internal optimization, so it can take a lot of time if you do it yourself and act without a team. Everything starts with the analysis of the technical side of the web resource and the elimination of errors in its work.

Each page should have a title relevant to the content and a description. It is important that they are not repeated and are unique. The texts should be informative.

Each image has an alt attribute. This is a description with keywords.

An important factor of internal optimization is the headings of the first and second levels of texts. Their content affects the relevance of the page and ranking. An example of the correct hierarchy of subheadings is below in the image.

Internal linking is also important for improving ranking. Why? It is convenient for users and search robots. Linking pages with links speeds up the indexing process, anchor links transfer weight from the “donor” to the “acceptor”, which has a positive effect on ranking. Proper placement of links increases the length of user sessions and reduces the bounce rate.

6. Creating a basis for promotion – a semantic core

The semantic core is a list of keywords that users enter into the search. They need to be found, grouped, and placed on separate pages. To independently promote a site, you need to devote a lot of time to this stage, you need to understand why these words are needed and how to select them. Aftercollection of semantic coreyou can proceed to preparing the content. Quality, uniqueness, informativeness and usefulness, wateriness and spam are important criteria for texts. They are written not only for search engines, but also for people.

Please note that young, newly created sites are under close scrutiny by search engines. And the main task of such web resources is to prove the reliability and quality of their materials. A mistake will cost you positions, and with them orders, customers, profits.

Search engines analyze content directly. They evaluate user reactions based on time spent on a page, viewing depth, bounce rate, and returns to search.

Content is divided into two types: informational and commercial. The first provides the user with information about his request. The second is texts and materials that are placed on product pages with services, cards, sections about the company. They provide information about the product and the advantages of the company.

7. External optimization

What else is important in the guide “How to promote a website yourself”? The external link profile of the web resource. This parameter is taken into account during ranking and affects the site’s position in search results. The more unique domains, the higher the page.

Donor sites should be related to the topic of your site, and links received from competitors are especially valuable. For placement, choose authoritative sites and visited pages that rank higher than others. Common methods of external optimization:

• Creating publications on other sites to increase authority and promote the brand. This method of external content marketing shows excellent results and consists of placing paid and guest texts in blocks or on information resources. The materials must be high-quality and interesting. It is recommended to create it every month, which significantly complicates the task for those who promote their site on their own;

• Registration in directories and business aggregators. Working with the tools provided by search engines will definitely bring results. With their help, you will be able to gradually increase the link mass. Search robots will pay more attention to the web resource, which will speed up the SEO promotion process. Registration in directories is available for free and does not take much time, and you can also set up several links to the site;

• Link exchange is used to increase the authority of a web resource in search engines. When using this method, the main important task is to choose an exchange. It is necessary to make sure of its “reliability”, to increase the mass through natural transitions instead of purchased ones.

If you decide to promote your web resource on your own, remember that you need to do it as efficiently as possible. “Grey” methods will negatively affect your positions. Even if the site’s positions soar at first, be prepared to lose them.

Free Website Promotion with Content Marketing

Promotion through articles and text materials is a great opportunity for young companies to make a name for themselves in the virtual market. This method increases link and organic traffic, increases the authority of the web resource, and allows you to bring most key queries to the top. To create such materials, a good copywriter and competent compilation of the semantic core are enough. We suggest that you look into this topic in more detail.

What Business Needs Content Marketing

Content marketing is a mandatory stage in the development history of most companies. It consists of creating and distributing quality materials to attract the target audience. This type of marketing does not work directly for your brand, but makes it recognizable. The main distribution channels are: search engines, search results, contextual advertising, corporate mailings, specialized online publications on your topic, the blogosphere.

Content marketing is necessary for companies that specialize in complex services (legal, software development, etc.), stores and services with seasonal and repeat sales, HR departments of large companies, projects in highly competitive niches, news and film sites.

Create infographics

It is better to see once than to hear a hundred times, or in our case – to read. Infographics are useful visual content that is easily perceived by users and increases their engagement when reading. With its help, you can:

• illustrate key points of your materials;
• focus on the main thing;
• maintain the reader’s attention and interest by alternating infographics and text content;
• quickly and clearly convey important information;
• increase the number of content reposts.

There are many free services for creating infographics: Pictocart, Google Charts, Creately, Visual.ly, etc.

Post reviews

To promote online stores, it is very important to provide additional information about the products. The best format for this is video reviews. They have the highest level of engagement, are attractive to most Internet users and increase trust in the product.

The video should tell in as much detail as possible about the product features that the buyer is interested in. For example, in the field of outdoor products, the crash test format is especially popular – testing the product in extreme conditions.

Create instructions and guides

If you frequently publish educational content, you can use materials with detailed instructions and checklists as a lead magnet: offer a free download in exchange for contact information or registration.

You can use the contacts you receive in email marketing to attract additional sales.

Social media pages as an element of branding and promotion

Maintaining a page on social networks allows you not only to increase your reach but also to find your target audience. It is a signal to search engines that you maintain communication with your potential buyers and clients using all possible channels. Plus, you can receive targeted clicks to your website from social networks. There are three key questions here:

1. What to publish?

On the page, you can publish not only photos of products, but also involve users in the process of their creation as much as possible, talk about the advantages and features of the products, your company. Dilute the page with informative texts with useful and interesting information. Monitor the reaction of subscribers, so you can understand what they like and what they don’t. Create a content plan taking into account the interests of the target audience.

2. How to attract subscribers?

If you are looking for ways to promote a website on your own in social networks, be prepared for high competition. Each platform is hundreds of stores with different goods and services, and many of them have their regular customers interested in the users’ goods. How to attract your target audience?

First, determine who it is, think about what will be interesting to them, how to attract them. Any means are used: pictures, texts, contests, giveaways, Direct messages with special offers. You can set up advertising, collaborate with bloggers and opinion leaders. The main thing is that they have your target audience.

If you have tried all the methods, and the number of subscribers and orders does not grow, trustpromotion in social networksprofessionals. Check out our offer, order and wait for the result, while doing other promotion methods.

Targeted advertising on social networks

These ads are displayed taking into account human “parameters”. Targeting is the most precise marketing mechanism that is configured for a specific audience depending on its gender, age, and interests. Having an accurate portrait of the target audience, you will be able to reach potential buyers. At the same time, you use the budget rationally and do not waste it. 

Promotion with contextual advertising

Another effective promotion tool is contextual advertising. This is a simple way to attract customers to your site, which can be used for any business. After entering a request, users will see an ad from your company marked “advertisement”. They are similar to search results.

The tool starts working immediately after launch, allows you to use your budget rationally and hit the target audience – users interested in goods or services. Google Ads provide detailed statistics on the interaction of potential buyers with advertising campaigns, you understand what you are paying for, what queries bring customers, how long a session lasts and other parameters.

Disadvantages of this method:

• The price can be quite high;
• The position in the search results depends on competitors and the price you set (works on the auction principle);
• Shows stop as soon as the budget runs out;
• There are a number of restrictions for different topics.

Email newsletter for additional transitions

It is not always worth chasing an increase in the number of unique visitors. It is often much more effective to create a base of regular customers. The number of repeat visits is taken into account by search engines as one of the ranking factors. In addition, a large percentage of regular visitors significantly improves behavioral factors, which also contributes to more effective promotion.

With the help of the newsletter you can:

• reduce the percentage of abandoned carts in an online store;
• increase the number of regular customers and buyers;
• attract the target audience’s attention to discounts and promotions;
• gradually “warm up” leads and convert them into sales or orders;
• receive feedback from users;
• share useful content, retaining attention and increasing loyalty of the target audience.

To return interested users to the site and repeat sales, use email marketing tools. To launch a mailing list, it is important to acquire a contact address base.

If you have been providing services for quite some time, then such a base most likely already exists. If you have a young resource, then it is important to speed up the collection of leads. 

What else is important when promoting a website

This is not the end of the step-by-step plan for self-promotion of the site. We have some more useful tips and recommendations for you that will improve the result:

1. Adapt your website to mobile devices

More than 60% of users use smartphones to search for products. If there is no mobile version, consider that you have lost most of your potential buyers. In addition, search engines evaluate the convenience of the site for such users. Large, readable font, no horizontal scrolling and Flash elements, adapted widgets and windows, buttons for easy pressing, their location and clickability of links are important.

2. Check and improve loading speed

Page load time affects the site’s position in search results. Every second of waiting takes up to 20% of users away from your web resource. As a result, conversion and page view depth decrease. The optimal load time is up to 3 seconds. To keep the user engaged, you can add an animated element. Such a detail attracts attention and reduces the bounce rate on pages that take a long time to load (the maximum opening time is 7 seconds). 

3. Monitor analytics and adjust the promotion process

Analytics services provide maximum useful information about the effectiveness of promotion. By tracking this data, you can discover the most effective marketing activities, evaluate the effectiveness of external and internal optimization work. We also recommend paying attention to the most clickable pages, researching behavioral factors, and, based on the information collected, making your web resource more attractive and convenient for users.

These are the basic instructions and recommendations for self-promotion of websites. Next, you can read about the advantages and disadvantages of this method. And then decide whether to do everything yourself or use the services of our company.

Advantages and disadvantages of self-promotion

Promotion is a rather labor-intensive process. If you want to do it, relying only on your own strength, it is important to understand in advance whether the result will be worth the time and effort spent. Let’s consider the main advantages and disadvantages of this approach:

• Savings: You don’t need to pay specialists for optimization work;
• Full control over the promotion process: If you understand the specifics of SEO, then this is a strong argument in favor of independent work.

There are also many disadvantages to this approach: First of all, you lose time. If you have no experience in promotion, you need time to learn. You need to constantly develop the resource and devote almost all your attention since there is quite a lot of work.

The time it takes to obtain the first results also increases, since one specialist, no matter how professional he is, is not able to perform several aspects of the work in parallel.

The second disadvantage is that you need to master not only SEO, but also the basics of programming, link building, user interface design and many other areas that are necessary for effective search engine optimization.

The way out of this situation is to outsource specialists to perform additional tasks, but in this case you will have to spend a lot of effort to organize the work, and in addition, one of the most important advantages of independent promotion is lost – savings.

Conclusions on independent promotion

Self-promotion in SEO is an excellent strategy if your site is your main source of income and you have the time to dedicate entirely to its development. It’s also an ideal approach when working with a limited budget. However, if you’re juggling other responsibilities, such as organizational or management tasks, outsourcing to a professional SEO agency is a more effective solution.

Does this mean you shouldn’t even attempt to learn SEO or try your hand at optimization if you can’t commit full-time? Not at all. Gaining knowledge and skills in SEO will be incredibly valuable, especially when collaborating with contractors. Understanding the fundamentals of SEO will help you grasp what the optimizers are doing on your site and the objectives they aim to achieve. This knowledge will empower you to communicate more effectively with SEO specialists and maintain better control over the optimization process, ensuring that your business goals are met efficiently.

Conclusion

In conclusion, while mastering SEO on your own is beneficial, partnering with the best SEO agency can significantly enhance your site’s performance and allow you to focus on other critical aspects of your business.