5 Ways to Get Your Website Noticed

Your website is just one of the billions upon billions of stars …er… sites in the galaxy of the World Wide Web. Chances are, you are fighting to get yours noticed.

We hear your cries little star. Here are five ways to get people clicking on to your site.

1.) Make your URL searchable by every search engine possible.

Having your URL on business cards or linking it to your family and friends might increase traffic, temporarily. Some search engines will pick up your site on their own, but consider also submitting your URL to search engines. Submitting it to search engines will make it easier for more people to find you. Search engines work as a “spider”: it crawls through your website, picking up words and information which will later be indexed in the search engine’s database. So make sure you pepper your site with keywords you think are relevant to the audience you are looking for.

Submitting your website to numerous directories can be easy. There are quite a few free submission sites likeEntireweb and Free Web Submission, which will automatically submit your site to some search engines and directories for you.

2.) Link all the things!

Partner up with other sites, bloggers, Youtubers, anyone who has similar content as yours and ask to exchange links. Design eye catching banners to be placed on other peoples’ websites, and offer the same for them on your site. Add your URL on your e-mail signature. We have a saying at Sideqik—there’s nothing like strength in numbers.

3.) Engage your readers.

Create a way for your visitors to interact with each other. Forums and message boards allows them have a community with a shared interest. It also gives them a reason to continue to visit your site. These mediums are flexible with users only having to check back every so often for replies. E-mail list can update your visitors about new developments, and always be open to feedback—that’s what will make your site even better.

4.) Your site has to look professional.

A wall of text is not attractive, and even less attractive is a website that looks like it was made and hosted onangelfire. Take the time to learn a good web design program (Dreamweaver and Ever Web are good picks), and let your creative juices flow.  If you are looking to get your site off the ground quickly, there is no shame in finding a great theme through WordPress. As long as it’s compelling, well-designed, and organized, you can do no wrong. Don’t make people CTRL+F to get the information they want.

On that note, don’t go overboard on the graphics. Eye candy and flashy intros are pretty, but the average internet surfer only waits 10 seconds for a page to load, so don’t waste your 10 seconds.

5.) Think offline.

We spend so much time online we sometimes forget that you can advertise offline too. If you want to get you website noticed write up press releases and send them to local newspapers and magazines. Design stickers and post them EVERYWHERE. Do interviews for local press. Our only advice is to do it after your site is already up and running. If you advertise effectively without delivering, you risk giving people a bad impression, which negates the advertising efforts. Once your audience is disappointed, you’ll have a hard time convincing them to give you another shot.