Prioritizing Web Site Promotion

The options available to promote businesses online are numerous, and often require the implementation of a variety of tactics. Many businesses in today’s hard economic times are not in a position to increase human and financial resources and therefore, must make do with the financial and human resources currently available.
The result of limited resources is often the preferred programs cannot be implemented as desired and compromise is necessary. Therefore, the prioritization of techniques and tasks is necessary. However, deciding what technique should be prioritized can be difficult to determine.
Each case is unique
It is impossible to write a generic list of web site techniques and their specific prioritization. Every business and web site has individual requirements. It is rare to find a business apart from start-ups that do not have at least some form of a web presence. However, that being said when reviewing a clients needs often there are numerous similarities.
The options
When it comes to promoting your business online there are essentially 3 primary options, these being; Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing and Pay per Click advertising. Each of these methods has specific needs and techniques with some being inter-connected such as Keyword Research and Link Building which can be part of each of these methods to some extent.
Getting Started
Some of the initial steps, such as the identification of the targeted audience and the goals and objectives of the promotion program I’m assuming have already been completed. Once this has been done, you need to determine which promotional methods are considered appropriate when considering your business objectives.
Web Site Review
No matter what methods you proceed to use to promote your business online, your web site will be the primary host to these activities and must be able to support those initiatives. A couple of the key points to review are:
Professionalism of design and presentation
Information and processing requirements
Ease of navigation and general user friendliness of the web site
Shot term or long term goals
It is likely your business will have both short term and long term goals. How to proceed once the web site has been reviewed is likely to be determined by the prioritization of short term goals. If a reasonable quick gain in web site traffic is required, reviewing the options available in Pay per Click advertising and Social Media would be the next step as both these promotional types have the potential to drive web site traffic more or less instantly..
However, if the web site is currently achieving at least some business success as determined by your goals and objectives, the best way forward may be developing an Organic Search Engine Optimization program.
It must be noted, that a holistic approach using all available techniques deemed suitable for your requirement is recommended for optimal performance.
The key is keywords
Regardless of the type of program determined to be best for you business’s immediate needs, keyword research should be prioritized. The reason for this is you must have a very good understanding of the keywords used by the public in Search and Social environments to achieve success online.
The keywords discovered in the research process can be utilized in all areas of your web site marketing programs. To succeed with the varied programs; Organic Search Optimization, Pay per Click Marketing and Social Media Optimization all require your business to have an in depth understanding of the keywords used, their competitiveness and how they can be utilized within each program.
From Keywords to Content
Once keywords have been identified the next step is integrating the keywords into the varied content types as required by the techniques selected. In most cases this will require the integration of keywords into web site content in the form of a web page, landing page or Blog.
Keywords will also need to be integrated in both Pay per Click ads and Social Media Marketing content such as Tweets and other Social Networking discussions.
The Last Word
Determining a generic prioritization suitable for all business situations is not possible. However, with the reviewing of your circumstances and goals, the information provided should assist you to determine which technique is the most suitable starting point for your business’s web site.
This is a complex topic, please share your experience. How did you select where to start your web site promotion program? What tasks do you think need to be prioritized?


About The Author

Pete Hollier is an Information Scientist, and possesses a Bachelors Degree in Information Science. Pete is SeoWizardry’s owner and principal Web Site Performance Consultant, using a holistic approach to assist businesses to leverage the power of the Internet to improve overall business performance.