Today’s question is, “How can a small business owner promote their website effectively?” This is a question that can’t be answered in a short video like this but let me give a place to start. When I meet with small business owners they generally approach their website as if it’s a boring pamphlet and have series of services they offer, phone number, crazy stock photos that mean nothing. Generally I try and get the small business owner think about what their goals are with their website. Is it to close a sale? Is it to get them to call? Is it simply to get exposure or to create clout? Or if somebody Google’s your business will website actually shows up and it shows that you’re a viable business? So, there’s a series of different goals a business may have with their website, but those have to be clarified before you can actually start promoting it because if you’re promoting it just to get exposure, that’s much different than promoting it to get sales of a website.

Some small business owners misinterpret the value of traffic to your website. They think, “If I can just get 10,000 hits a month then that website is accomplishing something.” The question is what is that traffic doing when it gets to your website? SEO companies are good at bringing the traffic but the website has to be good at converting the traffic or doing whatever your goals is for the website.

The best thing you can do with a website is to promote valuable content much like the video above. Hopefully, it’s valuable as I’m trying to make it valuable. But now that you’ve watched it, maybe this is your first introduction to Fiddler Online. Now, you know my name, you know the address, you know how to get a hold of me, you know what I do, which is helping small business owners design fantastic websites. That great content will hopefully translate into the goal of gaining more business or whatever goal you have. So when you’re promoting a website, first start with what the goal is of that website before you can start promoting it.