Website Promotion: Is Your Website Delivering? Find Out Why

You may have heard the statement, "the real Internet marketing secret is that there is no secret". I personally like to say, "the secret is hidden in plain view". Yes, the secret is hidden right in front of your eyes on your very own website.

So let's take a look at some of these so called secrets. Below are just 3 startling secrets of what is crippling your website and your chances of getting the success you always dreamed about:

1- Website promotion is a total waste of your time if your site structure is not adjusted for your desired outcome when someone visits your site. The fix is dead easy when you match the structure to your actual goal for the website and the visitors.

So your task is to work out exactly what "you" want from your website visitors. Then set the structure that channels the visitor to take that action. With that structure in place you then have to match the traffic sources to deliver exactly the kind of visitor who suit your goal and that your goal suits them.

2- Pretty much all aspiring entrepreneurs are very poor at defining what it is they want from their website visitors. You're reading this, so you are almost certainly suffering from this problem. There is no shame or stigma attached to this issue since you're looking for the solution.

You've made a good start. Now you must follow through and complete your task. You must define what it is you want to happen on your website.

Numerous tests have shown that a single purpose website or web page is much easier to get right than a multipurpose one. But the more critical fact you should note is this:

A single purpose website is often enormously more successful than a multipurpose one. Website promotion is also a breeze for a single purpose website. By contrast there are no easy or quick options for promoting a website with multiple purposes.

By "single purpose" I mean you only have one desired outcome. For example, you may want to build a substantial following of readers with whom you build a rapport and long term relationship. This might best be achieved using a blog with a very narrow and well defined focus.

Why "narrow"? It specifies exactly the readership profile you want. Why "well defined"? the readership that 'you' desire will easily identify your subject matter and of course being exactly who you want, they will respond as you wanted.

I hope you noticed the message here. For clarity: the message is, it is much easier to please a group who want one thing than to please a mixed crowd who have different requirements.

In the latter case any offering of yours will only be suitable for small portion of the crowd. All the rest will be turned off by whatever you're offering.

3- Do you know the difference between the top websites in your niche and yours? I bet you don't know the huge differences. The good news they are really easy to fix.

And no I'm not about to tell you what the differences are. How could I possibly do that, without seeing your website and theirs? If anyone offers some magical solution then you should know you're about to be conned.

What I can tell you is this: there are two broad types of factors called. on-page factors and off-page factors.

I'm not purely talking about SEO though that too is involved. There is much more to effective website promotion than just search engine optimization. You need to look at both types of factors.

So visit your greatest competitors and see what it is they're doing. Get an expert to look with you. Cast a critical eye on their website and identify at least some of the standard best practices they're engaged in. Emulate (not copy) those practices.

Right there, is a secret hidden in plain sight. Those best practices are there for good reason. As someone with over 20 years IT experience and over 15 years professional Internet experience, I can tell you this:

It is the combination of all those little differences and practices that puts your competitors right up there at the top. It is "simply" the lack of a whole list of simple items and components that is killing your website.

Just go through your site one step at a time. Fix these items one at a time. In a shorter time than you expect, yours will be the website that everyone else will see at the top of the field.