Use your website to promote your business

Let’s face it everyone has got a website but potential customers (existing and new) will compare your website to your competitors.

By creating a relay smart, eye-catching website that is targeted to your audience you can compete with larger competitors and if your e-marketing is managed properly you can have access to a wider audience. E-marketing also provides you with trackable, measurable results, so that you can see how effective your campaign has been.

You can get information about customers' responses to your advertising, allowing you to compare different campaigns. For example, you can see how a visitor arrived at your site - from a search engine, via a banner advert on another website, in response to a marketing email, or to redeem an e-coupon.

The ways of promoting your website are

• Pay-per-click – this is paying for advertising on search engines and other websites, particularly those that will attract visitors who would be interested in your products or services.

• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – structure your site so that it appears higher up the list of search engine results. Here you will need help on the keywords or metadata (descriptive information) that you use and employ the right combination of descriptive words when you build your website and update your content.

• Use opt-in email marketing as part of your online campaigns to help drive traffic to your website. Well targeted emails can be a quick and cost-effective way of promoting your website.

• Social media and other Web can help create a community around your brand and encourage customers to return to your website. User-generated content such as blogs will also help keep your content fresh and up-to-date, which will impact positively on your website's SEO.

• Other digital channels such as affiliate marketing, online PR, viral and mobile marketing, can all be used as part of the marketing mix to help drive traffic to your website.

The message is you will have a website – so make sure that is professional, functional and delivers to you all you need.

The website is a fundamental part of the marketing you will do in your business so get professional help and invest in doing it properly.