Gary Eckstein

Many people believe that attracting visitors to a website is as simple as setting up a few pages and then sitting back whilst vast numbers of visitors come along. This article explains how to get visits through some of the various free promotional mediums e.g. social media and search.

Promotion, in the context of this article is not about hard-selling (If you want to do hard selling then it’s a far better idea is to pay for advertising such as Google adwords). Promotion in the context of this article is getting your name (and your websites name) in front of a wide but targeted audience however is not about forcing information onto someone!

Promotion is essential in getting visitors to a website however the content and ‘look and feel’ of the website are by far the most important aspects to any website. If your content isn’t relevant or appealing then you are wasting your time promoting your site. Sites that generally get the most referrals from search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Live are those where content is updated frequently and where the content is original and appealing to viewers (i.e. viewers visit repeatedly or spend time looking through the site contents). People are becoming ever more selective in what they notice and read on the Web therefore your content and ‘look and feel’ must instantly grab the viewer’s attention. News sites and Blogs score well in search results returned from the search engines because they both generally have frequently updated content (content may include new posts or stories and even new comments). Before spending time on promotion ensure that you are prepared to keep your site updated!

Web site promotion requires a medium to long term strategy. It is extremely seldom that someone sets up a website and has hundreds of visits within a few weeks. Promotion takes months (if not years) of consistent hard work. Decide how you will promote your site and then keep at that strategy; don’t try various promotional activities or mediums for a few days then try others and keep changing. Consistency is the key however if your strategy isn’t working after a few months then change the strategy.

There are many promotional channels available. The use of the various channels has a lot to do with the time you have available and your target audience. As an example I just don’t have the available time to create videos to promote my site. Many sites use videos posted on YouTube very successfully but this normally takes considerable time.

Twitter Twitter is extremely popular and is proving its worth as a promotional tool. Twitter is simple to use and it’s just so easy to find people or conversations which are interesting. As with other social media sites, participants often forms and join communities with others who share similar interests. This encourages participants to learn more about others with similar interests and this is where visits to your website may originate. As an example, with the bushfires in Australia we were concerned that, because we live in a rainforest, we would be affected by fires nearby. Twitter proved extremely useful as others in the area had been commenting on the fires so up-to-date information was available. One of the people involved in the ‘twit’ was involved in pest control and next time I need the house sprayed for spiders I’ll be calling the person from the twit.

Social Media and Voting Encouraging readers to vote for your site or post serves two valuable purposes; it makes search engines take notice of your new content (as search engines index/crawl the social media sites very frequently) and the sites list the content for others to view. As explained in the section about Twitter, the linking of people with similar interests is often the source of many site visits. Mixx and Digg are examples of these voting sites.

The Mighty Ping Many blogging platforms such as WordPress use a ‘ping’ mechanism to notify blog directories that new content has been published. The directories love receiving pings as they then are able to list new content very soon after it is published. Pings are great for blog owners because the directories assist in attaining visitors.

Various ping services are available where the blog pings the service which in turn notifies multiple directories that new content is available. The ping services remove the need for the blog owner to keep an updated list of blog directories as this becomes the task of the ping service. For this site I use ping-o-matic and King Ping however there are many others out there. Feedburner now also offers a service where, when a new article is available via RSS, Feedburner notifies various blog directories of the new post.

My strategy involves the following: 1. A ping is sent to ping-o-matic and King Ping whenever I publish a new post. 2. I use and list my site on the following voting social media sites; mixx, digg and Propeller. 3. I use a WordPress plugin that advises Google, Yahoo and Live that my sitemap has changed whenever I add a new page or post. 4. Commenting on others Posts is just ‘good practice’ and it does prompt others to visit your site. 5. I post at least once a week.

There are many strategies available for web promotion using free resources. As explained previously, promotion is not a once off activity but rather a sustained effort. Choose the channels you will engage and start your website promotion. Just remember that even the best promotion doesn’t replace the need for great content!

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Although many organizations treat it as such, Social Media (Web 2.0) is not only for non-work activities. Social Media has a huge role to play in enhancing internal organizational effectiveness in the form of heightened Knowledge Management and communications. Below are listed three Social Media technologies which organizations may use to enhance internal operations.

Blogs are inexpensive to set up and maintain and are excellent for knowledge sharing. Organizations often use Intranet pages to convey communication on specific topics but Intranet pages aren’t normally collaborative in nature nor kept up to date. The advantage of a Blog is that people actively engage through posting comments or posts rather than being passive viewers of information.

Blogs are generally best used for Knowledge Management when they focus on a specific activity or project. For example, if an organization is bidding for a specific piece of work, it will be of huge value if a Blog is set up in the early stages. As the Bid progresses to, hopefully, an operational piece of work, the knowledge from the Bid won’t be lost as it will all be captured in the Blog.

Organizations generally just doesn’t ‘get’ Twitter. Twitter is incredibly popular and is growing in size rapidly. Twitter has captured the imagination of many individuals but organizations still have to adopt Twitter in any sizeable way. Twitter is about sharing information quickly (tools such as Twitter are generally termed microblogging tools). Twitter is much like SMS via your mobile / cell phone where the messages are short and quick to write and transmit (A post is called a Tweet in Twitter ‘speak’). Twitter goes one step further by enabling conversations of these microblogs to take place between multiple interested parties and is accessible via various mediums e.g. RSS, SMS, Instant Messaging, Twitter home page etc.

I was recently at a technology conference where most of the audience were engaged in a conversation on Twitter whilst the various speakers presented. In essence there was a conversation occurring on Twitter as the presentation was happening meaning that the audience was discussing the presentation content in real-time. Via Twitter it is possible to share information very quickly among interested people. Business is speeding up and micro-blogs (of which Twitter is the most popular) is a key component in this regard.

Wikis are essentially Knowledgebases where people are able to publish, edit and share information. They are collaborative in nature and differ from blogs in that other contributors content may be edited. Wikis are hugely advantageous in organizations where the culture centres on knowledge sharing. The most popular Internet Wiki is Wikipedia however the majority of Wikis are internal to organizations (i.e. not visible via the Internet). As with Blogs, Wikis are inexpensive and simple to maintain.

It doesn’t cease to amaze me how organizations complain how difficult it is to find information. Wikis are the simple and logical solution to this common complaint

Many decision makers within organizations doubt the benefit and effectiveness that tools such as those described above will offer. These decision makers generally haven’t used the tools and therefore aren’t aware of the incredible possibilities available (how many decision makers in your organization really understand the opportunities afforded by collaborative Web 2.0 tools?). I recommend that organizations start to build capabilities in knowledge sharing as described above. The tools are inexpensive to implement or engage with and are very simply trialled. Sooner or later your organization is going to have to start to use these or other similar tools so why not get the advantages as early as possible?

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A Blog is typically a web page containing articles (often called ‘posts’). Articles are added periodically and most Blogs encourage viewers to comment on the article. The vast majority of Blogs are maintained by individuals (such as this Blog). Blogs are part of what is known as Web 2.0 or Social Media.

You read Blogs (this is a Blog post you are reading right now) as well as the majority of people who access the Internet. There are well over 200 million Blogs out there and this number is growing rapidly! Although Blogs started ‘life’ as informal and often very personal, that has changed with major media outlets (e.g. CNN)  recognising the benefits of Blogging (see this post for more about mainstream media and Social Media). WordPress.com (who host only approximately 3 million active Blogs) received nine and a half billion pageviews in 2008 (that’s 18,000 pageviews a minute!!!).

If you search the Web using Google, Live, Yahoo or any other search engine you are already searching Blogs (as well as ‘static’ web pages). There are a number of Blog directories which only return search results from Blogs e.g. icerocket.com and technorati.com.

As noted previously, most Blogs are written and maintained by individuals. Some Blogs which started with individuals publishing posts have become extremely popular (e.g. perezhilton.com) and the value of Blogs is increasingly being recognised by large corporates. Blogs are being seen as a formidable Public Relations tool as well as a great means of engaging consumers (some companies even use Blogs to do market research). Dell has been extremely effective in raising its corporate image through it’s Blogging as has the Royal Navy in engaging potential recruits.

Blogs are simple and inexpensive to set-up. Common blogging platforms include WordPress (free hosting at wordpress.com), Typepad and Blogger (comparing the various Platforms needs a whole new post so won’t be covered here). The great thing about blogging is that it doesn’t have to be ‘right’ from the start. If you are an individual you can always change your Blog (obviously if you are a corporate you must get it right the first time!!).

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Just what are Digg, Mixx, Delicious, Reddit, Furl and the multitude of other ‘sharing’ and ‘bookmarking’ services? And more importantly, why should a website owner pay any attention to them? Often sharing and bookmarking services, and the ability to post to the services are combined such as with the tell-a-friend, add-this and ShareThis services (see the end of this post for the badges for these services).

Sharing services such as Digg are typically Read the rest of this entry »

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The lyrics ‘impending doom, it must be true’ as sung by The Killers seems to be the general approach taken by mainstream media in response to the explosion of Social Media popularity. Suddenly many media outlets are battling to figure out just where their competitive advantage lies.

This morning on television a Sky News reporter based somewhere in the Middle-East was bemoaning the apparent fact that the Israeli military had dissalowed him to enter Gaza to report. Unfortunately what followed was a deluge of anti-Israeli retoric (should the media ‘punish’ any party whether Israeli, Gazan, Palestinian or anyone else with negative media publicity just because they don’t get what they want?).

It is understandable just why this reporter was so angry. This reporter had realised that his competitive edge was lost. He no longer had immdeiate access to events as they unfolded. News can no longer wait, it has to be reported and published as it happens (we saw this recently with the Mumbai terrorist attacks). While this particular reporter was ranting about his restricted access, many people in Gaza and Israel were reporting via Blogs and other Social Media (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Mixx, WordPress.com etc.) just what was happening. Mainstream media is really battling to find out what it offers as opposed to Social Media which is usually content published by ordinary, everyday people. Read the rest of this entry »

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