Promoting Your Website II: Referral Sites
This is the second of three articles that looks at strategies to promote your website. Last time we described ways to enhance direct traffic to your website. This time we’ll discuss referral sites.
Referral Sites
Referral sites are other websites that link to yours. Visitors browsing through one of these other sites may encounter the link and decide to follow it to your website. There are several ways to build up a good list of referral sites, and here are a few:
- Many organizations and companies have a page dedicated to relevant links. Ask your colleagues to link to your website and you can likewise do the same for them.
- Some businesses have an associates page. If this is the case, ask your clients to link to your page as well. Many are happy to offer this service to their favourite businesses.
- Participate in blogging. Leave comments on other websites that include links to yours and people who read your comment and are interested in learning more about you can follow the link.
- Add your information and web address to online databases such as LinkedIn, the local chamber of commerce, professional or trade associations, and so on. If you are already on these lists make sure your site is included with the existing information.
- Provide the link on your Facebook and Twitter accounts.
It is always a good idea to double check and make sure the links on these sites are working correctly, otherwise you may be missing out on a significant number of visits. Having effective referral sites can also help promote your site through search engines…but we’ll leave that for the next blog!
What are your experiences with using referral sites to promote your website? How do they compare with other strategies?
