10 Top Strategies to Help Increase Your Visibility Online

Increasing online visibility is the goal of almost every online business owners. After all, without visibility, you have no traffic and thus no business. It's really important to keep in mind that successful online businesses usually do not solely rely on just online marketing. They create a well rounded approach through various different media. When you start to research how to improve your online visibility, you will likely discover many options, but find that it is a daunting task and rather overwhelming with the actual implementation thereof. Where does an online business owner turn first to get the visibility (and traffic) to promote a web site?

New tricks and gimmicks come out every day, but unfortunately, most of them are like so many recording artists and become one-hit wonders. In our industry, we've discovered that there are a handful that can hold up over the test of time. Some have been around for as long as web sites have been around, while others are newer ideas.

Here are what works for most businesses and considered to be the 10 most effective strategies to massively boost your visibility online:

1. Press releases. Press releases are a well-known and worth while marketing strategy that have worked for years with print and broadcast media. In recent years they have found new life as an online visibility tool. Your release should carry some newsworthy angle and be sure to include a few keywords by which you want your business to be found. Don't waste your time submitting your release to the free press release sites -- the release simply sits on the site and goes no where else. Instead, invest in a fee-based service (checkout - PRWeb.com), which will ensure your release gets the recognition it deserves.

2. Social Networking. Social networking is now one of the newest forms of attracting visibility to your business for a very low cost. If you don't yet have accounts on the two most popular social networking platforms, Facebook and Twitter, take time out today to sign up and begin to network. Choose where your target market is present, and then begin to work that area by making connections, joining groups or networks, sharing resources, and asking questions. Dedicate about 30 minutes each day to your effort and you'll likely begin to see results.

3. Article Marketing. Writing and submittíng articles to major article directories is an old technique for gaining online visibility. Article marketing has tremendous possibilities of driving traffic to your site. You will want to establish yourself as an expert in your target market's eyes, and give you valuable content to repurpose into information products. For maximum effectiveness, be sure your article contains a strong author's bio that links traffic back to your site. It's important that your article contain useful content that solves a problem of your target market, and be written in a tips-based fashion, like this one, since it is the easiest format for a web site visitor to read and digest.

4. Blogging. Business blogs (a web journal), have gained loads of popularity over the last few years as a viable online visibility tool. Blogs can use RSS feed technology to immediately get new posts and updates out to your blog subscribers through a feed reader. Unlike ezines or traditional web sites, search engines index blog posts almost immediately, which can help you to generate traffic to your web site. The most effective use as an online visibility tool, is to post at least 2-3 times per week to keep your reader's interest so they continue to come back.

5. Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Optimizing your site for routine searches has been around from the beginning of Internet marketing. It's a good idea to use a keyword research tool so that you create a listing of keywords applicable to your business. It's very important that your site have what is termed as RELEVANT content. That means you need to be sure if you are directing people to read about "widgets" they read all about "widgets" and not something else that is not relevant to that subject matter. Don't forget to add things like "how to", "tips", or short descriptions of things that would be considered as problems that your target market runs across. Then, be sure that your page titles, page descriptions, page headlines, and formatted text on a page (bolding, italicizing, underlining) and include your keywords in those areas, as well as inserting 1-2 keywords throughout the body of your page content. It's important that you try to make the SEO appear as natural as possible and not forced, and by doing that the search engines as well as your visitors will love you.

6. Email Newsletter (Ezine). Regular publication of an email newsletter (weekly is the most effective) will enable your prospects to get to know, like and trust you. By doing that, your prospect will have you front and center in their mind when they are ready to solve the pressing problems that fall within your line of expertise. If your goal is to send your ezine to primary make a call to action on your web site, you will continually build your list with prospective customers by continuously sending out information that is helpful to your prospects. More than that, if they like what you write, they are more likely to pass along the email newsletter and even your web site link to their contacts, thus increasing your visibility yet again.

7. Signature Teleseminar/Speech. This can be a powerful solution. Have you thought about creating your signature speech or teleseminar that you can present whenever you're asked to speak to any type of group (face-to-face or virtual)? If not, you should consider designing a signature speech or teleseminar that demonstrates your knowledge and expertise in your area without giving away the trade secrets or information that the prospect can go off and do without you or the assistance of your company. Focus on the what and the why but not the how and this will compel your listeners to visit your website or request your assistance either through one of your web forms, calling or emailing you, including but not limited to asking to be put on your mailing líst. Then, begin to research groups that contain your target market both in your geographic area and online. Once you've obtained a speaking gig, take time to formulate your best call to action for that target group -- do you want participants to sign up for your e-newsletter, purchase a product, or schedule a consultation? Add that call to action to your presentation.

8. Videos. In today's market, it's much easier for almost anyone to view online video these days. Today with high-quality yet low-cost web cams, video cameras, and screen capture software being readily available, just about anyone can make a video pretty easily. You might think about recording a live Q&A session on UStream.com and post it on your site. Or, perhaps you want to record a "how to" tutorial using screenshots from your computer and upload that to your YouTube.com channel. Remember to include your call to action in your video so that you drive traffic back to your site. It's possible that your video may cause you to become the next YouTube star!

9. Expert question sites. A lot of people conduct online searches to find free information to answer their questions. Many online business owners are registering as experts on an expert or answers site, like Yahoo Answers or AllExperts.com, in an effort to get more visibility online. To be an effective expert on these sites, you need to seek out questions that you can knowledgeably answer as an expert. Your answer needs to be very detailed and as specific as possible. The more thorough your answer, the better chance you'll have of getting chosen as the "favorite" answer, which is the one rated highest on the site and in the search engines.

10. Viral marketing. Viral marketing involves creating a marketing piece (ebook, video, software) that gets passed along free of charge from person to person.

You've really got two options when you try to get online visibility: the "steady and effective over time" method or the "quick and short and probably get blacklisted or removed" method. It's preferred to use methods that have been used successfully over and over again and won't result in a site being removed from the search engines. Use one or more of these successfully used strategies to get you the visibility you deserve online.