Directing more Web traffic to your site by Dr. Paul Johnson

The internet is something you either love or hate. For many businesses it is a frustrating medium where it's difficult to be found amongst such a colossal mass of information. For others it is a god-send and an essential business tool that brings highly cost- effective rewards. Whichever end of this spectrum you adopt is likely to relate to the way in which your internet presence is marketed.

Yes, you can put your Web site address on all your literature, in printed advertisements and on the sides of company vehicles. If you're Easyjet, you can even plaster your Web site across the sides of aircraft, but for small businesses that don't have vast marketing budgets, by far the greatest rewards are to be gained from online promotion (as opposed to offline promotion).

Online promotion can take a variety of guises. There are a myriad of opportunities from search engines and directories through to newsgroups and Web-based discussion fora.

Search engines include the likes of Alta Vista (www.altavista.com), Excite (www.excite.com), Infoseek (www.infoseek.com), Lycos (www.lycos.com) and Webcrawler (www.webcrawler.com). Although commonly perceived as the most important means of acquiring traffic to a Web site, they account for less than 25% of visitors to many sites. There are many, many ways in which you can maximise your search engine performance, all of which are well documented in sites such as www.searchenginewatch.com but the fact of the matter is that only one site can occupy the 'top spot' for a single search on, say, the word "Cumbria". The only way you could truly guarantee being on the first page of a search engine's results for a specific search would be by taking banner advertising with keyword targeting. For most, this is prohibitively expensive.

Far greater and more cost-effective results can be gained through directories and key portal sites. Some of these are free, just requiring some of your time to complete a form online. In many cases, this would be a service provided by your Web designer. The most famous example of a directory is Yahoo! (www.yahoo.com) but there are also significant others such as UK Directory (www.ukdirectory.co.uk) and CyberBritain (www.cyberbritain.com).

Perhaps more importantly, there are many directories specific to individual business types, thus offering more targeted advertising opportunities. Typical examples for the tourism and retail sectors would be @UK (www.atuk.co.uk) and British Shopping Links (www.british-shopping.com) respectively.

Other online advertising opportunities abound. Most people see the internet as just consisting of e-mail and the Web. However, there are also newsgroups, sometimes referred to as Usenet, which provide a 'meeting point' for topics of specific interest. Good starting points are Deja News (www.deja.com/usenet) and remarQ (www.remarq.com) where newsgroups can be scoured via the Web. More experienced internet users might like to download a newsreader from a site such as Tucows (www.tucows.com). First, a word of warning though: most newsgroups have a charter which determines what you can and can't post. For example, advertising in the group uk.local.cumbria contravenes that group's charter so do tread carefully - internet abuse can result in termination of your account. Groups such as alt.travel.uk.marketplace and uk.adverts.other do allow advertisements (although there are still rules) and would serve Cumbrian hoteliers, for example, far better.

Similar 'meeting points' can be accessed both via e-mail and the Web. The recent convergence of both Onelist and Egroups - the two leading mailing list services - means their combined site (www.onelist.com) offers a huge source of mailing lists, covering all manner of topics, to which you can subscribe and contribute. A simple, blank e-mail to cumbria-l-subscribe@onelist.com will enable you to converse with over 100 others about all aspects of the County. And your advertising can take more subtle forms than simply posting a message saying "Special offer on X" - by simply creating a signature file (the small bit of text tagged to the bottom of an e-mail), you can highlight your Web site's address in all messages that you post.

Persistence will bring rewards. Just creating a Web site is not enough - you really need to work on how it is promoted. This hopefully offers a starting point but it is really just that. As the volume of information on the internet continues to grow, the need to promote yourself that little bit more also grows. Really, your online promotion targets should never be fulfilled because there are always new opportunities around the corner.

The Dedicated Partnership
Maude Street, Kendal, Cumbria LA9 4QD - England, UK
Tel: +44 (0)1539 736677
Fax: +44 (0)1539 736688