You've designed the perfect website, secured your domain name, paid for webhosting services, tweaked your meta tags, title tags, etc, carefully submitted to the major search engines, and now you are just waiting for the traffic to roll right to your site.
One day goes by, you can't resist checking the webstats about every two hours to see the thousands of hits you know that you've gotten by now...but the only hit you got was from you, when you downloaded your page to admire your beautiful work, and make sure all was okay for the millions of visitors that you expected that day.
The second, third, and fourth day go pretty much the same. By the fifth day, your wondering why you ever bothered, and you've decided that maybe the Internet wasn't the place for your business.
Your wrong! In spite of everything you've done, you have NOT WORKED for any traffic!
In the music business, of which I was a part for the biggest part of my life, they have a saying: "You've gotta pay your dues". The Internet is no different...you've gotta work for it!
Did you post to relevant newsgroups? Did you announce your site to any mailing lists or web sites that are there for that purpose? Did you use signature files on all of your outgoing mail? What about the classifieds and free for all links? Did you place any Ezine ads? Do any banner or text link trades?
If you answered "No" to even ONE of those questions, then you have NOT paid your dues.
There are millions of sites competing for millions of visitors online everyday. What is so special about your site that you are even able to be in the competition? Surely there is something, otherwise you wouldn't have gone through the trouble to build your site...now build your reputation and your online presence! Let people know you are there!
Promoting a website is a daily event..not to be confused with a chore. When I played music, I played five nights a week, every week, week in and week out. It got tedious. When we weren't on the bandstand, we were in the recording studio, or practicing...time off was rare. Tedious indeed...but still not considered a chore, or even a job, although the money was great.
It was considered an OPPORTUNITY.."I GET to play a gig tonight", as compared to "I HAVE to play a gig tonight". Promoting your site should be viewed the same way... "I GET to promote my site", as compared to "I HAVE to promote my site". You don't HAVE to do anything. But if you DON'T do anything, you also won't GET anything.
No matter how busy you are, how much work you have to do (which won't be much if you aren't promoting your site), you MUST make time everyday to promote your site. Even if it's just twenty minutes of answering e-mail with a signature file, or posting to five newsgroups per day....DO SOMETHING!
Look at the time you spend promoting your site as an opportunity to do something better for yourself...that's why your here, isn't it? You aren't doing this just for kicks are you? (well, you might be...) Look at it as an opportunity, and look at EVERYTHING as an opportunity to promote your site.
Is there a message in your favorite newsgroup, that you feel very strongly about? Reply to it, and use your signature file...that's an opportunity. Did you run across a great site, that is relevant to yours while surfing today? That's another opportunity, contact the webmaster for a banner or link exchange. Everything you do while you are online should be viewed as an opportunity to promote your site.
Now, instead of checking webstats every two hours, use that time to Work For Your Traffic, and Pay Your Dues!
Click Here to Email Bob Smith