Launching a Brand New Website? Here's How to Get It Noticed

So you've just hit the "publish" button and launched your shiny new website?

That's great, but the battle is only half-won for now. Your next task is to get people to actually visit the thing! No matter how well-crafted your website is, it's useless if nobody sees it.

Follow these top tips to help you get more website traffic & more business!

Get on social media

These days, having social accounts for your business isn't optional—it's expected. People will think something is wrong if you're not all over Facebook & Twitter.

Setting up a business page is easy and only takes minutes. There's a guide to getting on Facebook here and a similar guide for Twitter here.

Once you're up and running, be sure to fill out your profile information and add a link to your homepage. Facebook gives you space to add your phone number, physical address, email, web address, founding date, and a lengthy "about us" section. Twitter allows a short description and a link to your website.

Be sure to invite your family, friends, colleagues and potential clients to "like" your page and make sure you post links to your website and product pages often.

Depending on the nature of your business/brand, you may also want to get on LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube.

Participate in forums

A forum is a place on the web where users can post comments or questions, and other users can respond and generate a discussion. They're also known as message boards. Whatever your industry or niche, you can probably find a forum to match.

For example, if you operate in the finance industry, then the Money Saving Expert forum would be a good place to start; or, if you work in the motoring industry, you could try PistonHeads.

You get the idea. Try doing a Google search for "[your industry] forum" and see what you get.

Reddit and Quora cover a wide array of topics and interests, and are two of the oldest and most popular forums on the web.

A word of caution: Don't just charge in and start spurting out marketing messages—doing so will swiftly get you banned! Instead, be helpful, share your expertise and make genuine contributions to the conversation. When the time is right and it feels appropriate, you can share a link back to your website.

It's a slow process, but actively participating in online discussions builds up trust and goodwill towards your brand.

Become a guest author

Nobody's visiting your website yet? Find a blog within your industry that does get traffic and offer to write a guest article for them.

Guest posting is a win-win—you get exposure and publicity, and the host website gets some free content that they didn't have to write or pay for. Most sites that accept guest posts will also allow you to mention your company and include a link back to your own website/blog.

How do you find suitable blogs? Get on Google and search for "[your industry] blog," compile a list of websites, and start emailing them.

Don't be too obvious in your pitch—explain that you're an expert in your industry who can add something valuable to their website.

Some websites openly state that they accept guest articles. Once again, Google is your friend here—do a search for phrases such as "write for us" or "submit a guest post" and see what you find.

There's a more in-depth guide to guest posting here.

List your site on local directories

The slightly older amongst us may remember searching through the phone book to find a company or a service that you needed. Well the web directory is the modern equivalent.

Yell (the online version of the Yellow Pages) is a good place to get started. It gets a lot of traffic and there are free and paid advertising options.

There are plenty of industry and region-specific directories out there too, such as the Construction Directory (which as the name suggests, specialises in construction companies) or the Business Wales Directory (which caters to Welsh businesses).

Do a search for "[your city] web directory" or "[your industry] web directory."

Send out an email campaign

This only works if you have an existing database of customers and their email addresses. If you do (and if they have opted-in to receive marketing messages) then why not email them and tell them about your brand new site?

We strongly recommend using an email service such as Mailchimp. It will help you manage your email list and stay on the right side of GDPR rules, plus they make it incredibly easy to design professional-looking emails.

Send out a press release

In the world of traditional marketing, a press release is a document that you would send out to newspapers and media outlets to make them aware of a story—for example, a new product launch.

There are plenty of online press release services that you can use to get your story in front of thousands of people. Write a press release announcing that your new website has launched and include some information about your company.

Here's a good guide to writing your first press release with examples and templates.

Do it the old fashioned way!

Last but not least, let's not forget the power of "offline marketing!"

Get your web address printed anywhere and everywhere you can—on the side of your van, on a building, on your uniforms, on your business cards, etc.

The more people see it, the more people will look up your website!