How to market my website ?

[Joss]

Hello all,

I am website designer, i work for a company but also design on the side, I all my websites are bespoke designed. i also have a design and print serivce, My question is how can i market my business. I am really struggling.

my website address in http://www.urbanwebsitedesigns.co.uk, as i am a freelancer its just a landing page

[Tommy Boy]

Good day Joss,

I was a freelance designer just like you. And I'm currently a marketing consultant in the US.

There are plenty of ways to market your business, cheaply but effectively. Have you considered social media? I'm not saying you'll get rich off of Twitter but you will attract a following and get business. Oops!! I see that you have...KEEP WITH IT!!! It's not enough to just have a social media account but you should be engaging and socializing with these accounts yourself. Participate in a trending conversation. Encourage your followers and fans to connect with you...their friends will see that (more followers).

When it comes to traditional advertising...you don't have to spend a lot of money just find a periodical that will work for you. Start with an ad in the Sunday paper. The weekly papers and "shoppers" are good, and cheap, as well.

Next, your website should be a testament of what you can do for your clients. Yours is very simple, one page, and leaves a lot to be desired. Web Site design is a tough market. The software available to consumers is much, much easier than it was "back in the day." Web Hosting services are much cheaper and very good. I use Google App for my biz but I will say Yahoo! Small Business is by far the BEST!! And many hosts will offer professional design for an extra price, but offer many, many templates and support for free.

Your website does not compete with any of that. If you were my client this is what I would tell you. From your Front Page, I would want to see four pages. A page about you and your business. A page describing the services you offer. A page showcasing a portfolio of your work. And a contact page.

Hope this helps.

(Joss, I'm going to be very blunt with you. Fellas, it's not about SEO and CSS sheets. You can worry about SEO later. Right now, that's not your problem. You're a website designer and your website is actually DETERRING business. What I tell my clients is that a website is "Virtual Office/Store", i.e., it should showcase the goods and services you offer. Your website is one page, one paragraph and a contact form. What your Virtual Office/Store shows me is that I can save the time and money and create a better website on my own in the same time it would take me to fill out your contact form. You need to work on your website. It should have a minimum of four pages.

1. The Front/Welcome Page

2. An About Me/Biz page: describe yourself and the services you offer

3. What have you done: A portfolio/gallery of your work ... even links to past clients pages (references).

4. Contact me/Follow me/Like me)

[Stone Martin]

Hi,
As you are a website designer, i suggest you to make the sites which are user friendly like use CSS style sheet. Because these style sheet decrease the loading time of the webpage. That will help a lot in the promotion of your site. Also take the help from a SEO professionals they will help a lot in the site promotion.

[Zorbis]

Promote your business on internet with the help of SEO. Just hire a SEO professional or contact SEO company to promote your business online.

[Alwin]

Hi i saw your website. Its really looking good. SEO is important to show your site in search engines. SEO can make the content of your web pages more relevant, more attractive, and more easily read by search engines. SEO is a simple technique to increase traffic and sell products or services. It helps you to get more money and it helps you build a community. Then you can get more RSS Readers, Twitter Followers, Facebook fans for your website page. In my experience SEO is the best way to increase your web traffic. There are many methods in SEO for increase your web traffic. You can get SEO for your website from many online providers. But i had experience with http://www.thewebpole.com/ . They are providing good service in SEO. Here they providing many plans to get SEO. These plans offer you great page ranking in search engines..

[julitasoup]

All good answers BUT they leave out some pretty easy things to do and things that are very obvious. First, figure out what the buyer keywords would be for your site, or what a person searching for what you have would type into the search box in order to find your services. Once you have that nailed down, make sure that those keywords are in your meta tag description and are also in 3% of the body of your site. Then, also using those keywords, make a video and post it on Youtube, meta cafe, daily motion, etc. You can use Animoto to make short videos using your stills. You can also make videos at xnormal, or smilebox, all have free limited services. Most also have royalty free music you can use as background music. DO NOT use copyrighted music. It just opens a can of worms you do not want to open. Then go to fiverr.com and search for someone who will tweet your videos to as many followers as you can There is also a back linking service that will drip good, high PR back links to your site. Also, go to a blog search and search for web design blogs and start making relevant comments on them. Start your own blog on web design and start a little community there. You can also advertise on craigs list and offer a discount design to the first 10 purchasers. Also, make sure that you have claimed and optimized a Google Places page, yahoo and bing business pages as well. Get some citations into as many business directories as you can. Go to Whitespark and do a search for citations. Oh my...there are so many resources out there. Another is SEOMoz; excellent resources on SEO and don';t let anyone tel you that it's not important. it is critical, both on page and off page. And one more thing...when you start your blog, use Wordpress. CSS really is the way to go. All of the search engines love it and there are SEO plug ions you can use that make your blog that much more friendly. Make sure it is user friendly, simple, well laid out and has a site map. Also, make sure you submit it to Google indexing. Just go to Google and type in index and it will take you to the page to submit the url.
Good luck sweetie!

[Peter Y]

This is a free online course that shows you that.
http://wauportal.com/onlinemarketingfreecourse/

You need more info though. You might get some info out there if you search but I recommend joining wauportal.com cuz what you're asking requires training and they are awesome.

[Victoria Graham]

Hey Joss,

Honestly I would just use what works which is SEO and Social Media. For social media I use http://www.thesocialcities.com. Seriously they are cheap and reach a lot of people in targeted areas.

Seo always is going to be the answer as well.

[Paul]

Produce good unique content that is updated.... Create back links to your site by asking for links form other sites.
Create a Facebook fan page to gain exposure to your site

[?]

There are many ways to market your website cheaply. It starts with using social media sites such as facebook and twitter. You can also submit articles freely to free article directories or to social network sites or blogs (web 2.0 properties). Or submit your site to free directories.