You have a website what now?

It’s live, it’s fabulous!  Now what?

This is usually something everyone is faced with after the process of acquiring a website is completed.
They can see the finished result, but the momentum from the development process is lost, and figuring out what to do now that the site is live can be tricky.
 

What’s the next step?
That’s what we are going to try to sort out with this post.

I think of this as sort of a writer’s cramp, there is a basic understanding that something has to be done, but no clear path to follow or how to get from here to there.

I would consider something like this as a fairly good action plan (items are in no particular order) to start to drive traffic to the website.

• Start a blog
  And write about topics that bring value to your target audience, and that relates to your services. And get the blog posted to social networking sites, as many as possible.

• Add your site to search engines
  A good place to start is with Search Engine Submission - AddMe a free service that does just what it says adds your site to a number of search engines.
   
• Join forums
  Preferably those related to your services or products and post with your company link in the signature, not only will you build like juice but also get free promotion and build brand awareness.
   
• Get listed in web directories
  But make sure they are quality ones, because you could also be penalized if the directory has a bad reputation.
   
• Don’t participate in links exchange or link farming groups, if you get an email from unknown persons trying to exchange links, do yourself a favor and…. IGNORE IT!
   
• Give away free stuff
  People love free stuff and will link to it.
  In turn generating a wealth of link juice to your site and getting you exposure and building brand awareness.

These are a few steps one can take to increase traffic and page rank without spending more than one hour a week.
With the added bonus of getting more brand awareness at no cost aside from time.

Enjoy,
Johan