There can be many reasons to build and launch a completely new-to-the-world website. But how can you make the most of it, quickly driving traffic and building an audience? How can you make it stand out not only among the hundreds of millions of existing sites, but also the 250,000+ new sites launched every day? Here are nine helpful strategies.
Organizations may launch brand new websites for any of these or other purposes:
- To create an online presence for a start-up company;
- To launch a new brand, product, or tool;
- To enter a new market (e.g., bestcontractorMN.com may create a site like bestcontractorIL.com or bestcontractorWI.com when expanding into Illinois or Wisconsin);
- To provide industry resources independent from though sponsored or “powered by” a brand; or
- To focus on a specific market or topic (for example, Webbiquity.com covers B2B digital marketing in general; B2BMarketing.Technology addresses martech guidance specifically).
Rapidly growing traffic to a completely new website is challenging: your market doesn’t know the brand or site name, search engines have no history with it (therefore, it has no domain authority), and there are initially no backlinks pointing to the site.
It takes time to build brand awareness and visibility in organic search for brand new websites. But organizations typically seek to accelerate this process as much as possible. To that end, here are nine recommendations for strategies and tactics to get the attention of both search engines and your prospective customers or website visitors.
Bake-In SEO
Your website design should incorporate search engine optimization (SEO) from the earliest stages. Optimization isn’t something to “tack on” at the end, when the site is ready to launch.
This means doing keyword research (determining the best keyword phrases to target based on a combination of relatively search volume and low competition or difficulty); mapping the selected keywords to specific pages; then optimizing the navigation, content, URL, and other elements of on-page SEO for each page.
It’s no longer necessary to manually submit your site to search engines (or worse, pay someone to do that), as all of the major search engines will quickly discover and index new websites.
Pay-per-Click (PPC) Advertising
Although paid search or display ad clicks have no impact on organic search engine rankings, they can increase the site’s online presence, drive additional traffic, and broaden market awareness.
It’s not a productive use of budget to use PPC ads simply to drive website traffic, especially to your home page. To generate measurable ROI, make sure you are driving paid-click visitors to a clear and relevant call to action, such as downloading an ebook, white paper, or report; registering for a webinar; or subscribing to your email newsletter or blog posts.
Social Media Profiles and Activity
Depending on the nature of the site, its target market, and overall strategy, either create new social media profiles linked to the site, or at least announce the site from existing social media accounts. Share relevant and compelling content, and interact with social media users who engage with the posts.
Directory Listings
Although they don’t have as much impact on SEO as they did a few years ago, directory listings (on the most reputable, high-traffic sites) can still help increase site visibility. Here are 12 of the top directory sites to get listed on. These directories are generally best for new business websites.
- Crunchbase
- Google My Business
- Best of the Web (one-time, $397 listing fee)
- About Us
- Blogarama (blogs only)
- Yelp
- Bing Places (Bing’s version of Google My Business)
- Yellow Pages
- Chamber of Commerce
- HotFrog
- Super Pages
- Better Business Bureau
Public Relations (PR) and Events
Any type of media coverage (announcements, quotes, citations) is helpful for SEO and website / brand visibility more broadly. Links from press release pickups have little impact on SEO, but nevertheless get the attention of search engines.
Participation in and promotion of live and online events provides several benefits, from the direct benefit of generating new contacts to social media engagement to SEO-helpful backlinks from event websites.
Fresh Content
Google loves fresh content. Blogging consistently is a great way to increase the number of keywords your site can rank for in organic search, connect with prospective buyers, demonstrate thought leadership, and build up an opt-in email marketing list.
Nearly half of marketers say blogging is their most important activity in their content marketing strategy, and when combined with other SEO techniques, blogging 2-3 times a week can lead to a 177% traffic increase.
Syndication
Syndication (republishing all or part of your blog posts on another site) is a great way to get in front of a larger audience and ultimately drive more website traffic. Sites like Inc., Slate, and Thrive Global regularly publish syndicated content. B2B leaders can also publish part of their posts on LinkedIn, with a link to the full post on their website. Here’s a great example.
One of the largest and most effective syndicators is Aggregage. They publish well over 100 different segment-specific sites, from the granddaddy of all B2B blog sites, B2B Marketing Zone, to sites focused on corporate events, HR, healthcare, logistics, financial services, technology, law, education, customer service, and more.
Guest Posting
Guest posting is another popular strategy for both reaching new audiences and building high-value backlinks for SEO.
Just be sure to do it right (soooo many people do it wrong). Avoid mass outreach, visit blogs before you reach out and follow any contact instructions they provide, and never be guilty of any of the deadly sins of the deadly sins of guest blogging outreach.
Business Cards and Email Signatures
While digital marketing tactics are most common for driving traffic to your new-to-the-world website, don’t overlook old-school tactics like including your URL on all printed materials (invoices, business cards, letterhead, etc.). Of course, the URL should also be part of your company-wide standard email signature.
Driving traffic to and building authority for a new-to-the-world website can be challenging. But by incorporating multiple strategies and tactics including SEO, advertising, and blogging regularly, you can grab the attention of both search engines and your prospective customers in a reasonably short period of time.