How to Double the Effects of Your Promotion in Half the Time

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Yesterday I talked about the time value of website promotion and how important it is to strive for efficiency. Today I’ll discuss some specific strategies to use in accomplishing this goal. By following these examples and guidelines to build links and increase exposure, you’ll be able to double the effects of your promotional activities in half the time. If you haven’t read the first article in this series, be sure to do so before continuing.

I mention that 20% of your actions lead to 80% of the results. That being said, wouldn’t you agree that you should focus on the promotional activities that lead to the greatest results? Otherwise, you’ll be spinning your wheels and wasting precious time.

Here I’ll share an example strategy with this goal in mind: to promote a site and gain maximum exposure while using a minimal amount of time. My theory is that if an action can’t get you more than 1 link or impact more than 1 person, then it shouldn’t be done at all.

Write key articles in the beginning

It’s important to create your best content early on. These articles will define your site and help you to develop an initial following. Since a new site is unproven and generally not trusted, your goal in this case is to wow your readers and win them over. Not only will this help you to gain an initial following but it will play a pivotal role in future promotion. Some examples of worthy content include thorough how-to guides for your niche, resource lists, revolutionary ideas, and controversial articles. These are usually authoritative pieces that readers will link to and frequently associate your site with. In a way they form the anchor of the site and your link building will be much easier if you have this in place. Provide value and your readers will reward you by promoting you without cost. If you don’t believe me, just look at the success of Dosh Dosh.

First things first - Internal linking & promotion

Most webmasters focus so much on off-site promotion that they fail to realize the importance of what they’re doing on their own site. Optimizing the way in which you display content and interlink your pages can do wonders for promotion. Below are some effective methods to accomplish this.

• Interlink relevant pages on your site. Cross sell your content.
• Send out email newsletters or utilize the power of RSS subscriptions.
• Encourage user feedback through comments or a contact form
• Create a section of your site for featured content and popular articles
• Make effective use of a sitemap
• On-page SEO. Include relevant keywords in title tags, header tags, page copy, and link anchor text.
• Social media buttons

Set & forget the easy authority links

When it comes to link building, there are some easy links that you can attain that will help drive traffic and increase domain authority. Open source links in Dmoz, Yahoo Directory, Wikipedia, Best of the Web, and Joe Ant are helpful if you can either convince an editor to add you or shell out the submission fee for a review. Also look for niche directory links that you could submit your site to. Some of these may not have SEO value (because of the nofollow attribute) but if anything they drive targeted traffic to your site.

Go easy on your social media addiction

The power of social media is undeniable. However, if you are short on time and are looking to bring up your site, you don’t want to get stuck building your social media profile. This in itself could be a full time job and your time could be better spent creating quality content that sells itself. If you have something worthwhile, the social media community will follow and promote it on its own. Leave social media buttons on your site but don’t get caught up in becoming a power user unless you truly enjoy it.

Guest posting over comments for promotion

Many webmasters especially bloggers furiously comment on other blogs in hopes that they will be noticed and readers will click through to their site. Not only is this unlikely but it is extremely time consuming for an activity that leads to such few results. Most links in comments are not followed for the search engines and therefore add little value other than a small amount of click throughs and branding exposure. Time can be spent more efficiently elsewhere.

Where you ask? Guest posts. Rather than individually commenting on blog posts written by other well known industry leaders, inquire about writing a guest post. This will save you enormous amounts of time and give you much greater exposure to a wide audience.

Combine replies to email by writing a post

As your site gains traction and popularity, it’s inevitable that the number of emails you receive will increase as well. Many of the questions asked will be similar and in some cases identical. Rather than replying to these threads individually, collect them and answer the most popular questions through a blog post or article on your site. Not only will this save you time managing your email but it will direct current and future readers to your content that better answers their questions. Where possible, bring the conversation to your site.

Link bait over reciprocal links

Although reciprocal links do still work to a degree, they are time consuming and require a lot of back and forth between individual webmasters. A more effective method to attain links would be to create content or a promotion of some sort to attain links naturally. Creative link bait might be difficult to conjure, but in the end the rewards are huge compared to the amount of time spent. Contests also work well in creating buzz and gaining links.

Signature links

Configure your email to attach a signature link at the end of every message. This way you’ll be able to share your site with everyone you contact. Depending on your site, this may or may not be a good thing so use good judgment when implementing this strategy. For example, I’m sure your boss wouldn’t appreciate a link to your Viagra site in a business email (or maybe he secretly would…).

Forums are also a great way to market your site via the signature. If you aren’t an active participant already, find a related forum in your industry and ask/pay active members to include a link to your site in their signatures. This will provide a steady stream of traffic and in many cases SEO link value.

Make some friends and link out

It’s absolutely critical to connect with like-minded people in your industry and bounce ideas off of each other. Many times these people will support you and that goes a long way in Internet business. Someone else’s opinion of your site counts for a lot more than your own. Make friends in the industry and generously link out to other useful articles on the net. People will return the favor and you may even get a business partner out of it. This is probably one of the more time-consuming activities on this list, but it’s definitely something that cannot be ignored.

Are you using any of the mentioned strategies to promote your site and be more efficient with your time? If you’re spending countless hours on your site and are getting nowhere, it might be a good time to reassess your marketing strategy. Can you think of any more effective methods that save time? Leave a comment here. I’m looking forward to the discussion.