Website promotion
The internet (new media)
When using the internet to promote our website is contrasted with using conventional methods, using the newer of the two mediums makes much more sense.
Essentially, we are trying to promote an artifact that is actually found on the internet itself. So when using the internet to advertise, potential clients will be transported to the website instantly.
If, for instance, they saw and advert on TV telling them about the company's products, they would have to jump up, boot up their computers, connect to the internet and then go to the website. If they are already 'surfing the web' they will not have to do this and are more likely to show more interest anyway.
As with conventional measures, I believe that the internet has at least three common characteristics.
Accessibility/Ubiquity
The web is truly a global phenomenon. Making use of it for promoting our website is only a natural progression. Information about PSD is not restricted to just the local geographical area but is available to any soul who has an internet connection. This provides the company with tremendous outreach and grants any customer in the world access to PSD.
Multimedia/Interactivity
Advertising on the web can be far more interactive than more conventional methods. Due to the dynamic nature of the internet, this interactivity can help make targeting the right audience easier. Providing a richer user experience can also make a website more attractive and therefore generate more traffic. However using a lot of multimedia components can make the website inaccessible to certain users who require screen readers to browse the web.
Responsive
The use of the internet for promoting allows the company to gauge the effectiveness of the measures in use immediately. Monitoring traffic using server-side statistics before and after the implementation of a promotional measure, gives an instant empirical record of any increase in ‘hits’.
Five measures that could be taken to maximise the number of visitors to the website:
- Search engine submission
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Submitting the PSD website to all major search engines is vital to achieving our goal to maximise the number of visitors. It is a well known fact that when people want to find something on the web they make a b-line for the nearest search engine.
Great keywords, key phrases, terrific content, and having other web sites linking to PSD are all essential but will do nothing for the company's search ranking if the search engines can't access the web pages to index them. Using the methods listed below will ensure that the PSD web site is based on search crawler-friendly design and mark-up. The PSD web site should:
- Avoid the use of splash pages.
- Balance HTML text and graphics.
- Create search-engine friendly HTML text navigation and cross-links.
- Use external CSS and JavaScript whenever possible, to maximize relevance.
- Use structural mark-up, and separate content from presentation as much as possible.
So the actual design quality of the PSD website will maximise the number of site visitors.
- Mutual linking with other associated sites
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Linking to other web sites and getting them to link to the PSD site will also generate extra site traffic. The only downside to this measure is that it may draw users away from the site which is definitely not good. Notwithstanding this fact, I still think that this measure is worth considering for implementation.
- Generating regular articles for software developers using a blog
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Ryan is a keen writer and already has a blog (see his short biography). Re-locating his blog so that it becomes a vibrant and integral part of the PSD website is certain to draw more investors and customers to the rest of the site. It will also bring his regular readers to the PSD web server. Don't underestimate the power of “word of mouth” on the web.
- Advertising on very popular yet related sites
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PSD could create a banner or a small image so that associated web sites could link to it. Using multimedia like Adobe Flash or SVG is a possibility. The only downside to making banners or images like this “flashy”, restricts users with lower-spec machines from seeing the promotion.
- Google Adwords
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This well known measure creates ads and keywords which contain words or phrases related to PSD's business. These ads appear on Google when people search using one of the keywords. The advert should appear next to the search results (shown right). This could help the company's advertising campaign target an audience that is already interested in PSD's type of products or services.
A good aspect of Adwords is the flexibility it provides. Users are able to edit ads and adjust budgeting until the results wanted are obtained. Users are also able to display a variety of ad formats and even target ads to specific languages and geographic locations. There is no minimum spending requirement or time commitment. And with the cost-per-click option, users are only charged if people click ads. This means that every pound of the budget goes toward bringing new prospects to PSD.
This does look like a promising option for the company web site, but it is my belief that this should only be implemented after every other free course of action has been taken. You never know, PSD site may become the top website in it's category without that expenditure.
On the following page the reader will see which two of the above measures I have chosen to maximise visitor numbers and how I have designed and implemented them both.
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