Offline Website Marketing and Promotion
By, Rhonda Bartlett

Be sure to include your web address on these suggested locations. Get creative! Any place your web address can be made visible to the public will mean increased traffic to YOUR site!

• Web address (also known as "url", or "uniform resource locator) on business card! (As simple as this sounds, it is often overlooked)
• Letterhead AND envelopes
• Personal brochures about you and your company
• Your resume
  
• Do you send a newsletter to your clients (either email or in print)? Include your web address!
  Add your web address to the signature tag of all email messages (no matter to whom they are sent. friends, family, colleagues, etc.)
  
• At the end of your voice mail/answering machine message (i.e., .. "and be sure to visit my website at www.yourdomain.com". Just be sure to change "yourdomain" to YOUR actual domain name!)
  
• Fax cover sheets (many people forget this one!)
  
• Flyer on free local bulletin boards (grocery stores, discount chain stores, shopping malls, laundromats, dry cleaners, etc.) - print a flyer on bright yellow paper detailing your web address and your company. BE SURE to include your email address as well as your telephone number! Tack the flyer to bulletin boards all over your town. Keep a supply in your car for handy access.
  Magnetic car signs (many office supply companies will make these for you at a very reasonable rate)
  
• Neighborhood directories
  
• Bus stop benches
  
• Have your web address printed on mouse pads (give one to your clients at Christmas or on their birthday instead of sending flowers)
  
• T-shirts (white T-shirts can be imprinted with a one-color design for a nominal price). Think about how great it will make you feel to see YOUR web address "walking around town".

Search engines are NOT the "golden egg" these days as to how people will find your website (as was the case five years ago)! Many more people are visiting websites where they have seen the web address in writing. Why do you think so many television commercials these days always include the web address of the product they are promoting?

These tips will do wonders for increasing the amount of traffic to your website, which of course, is what we ALL want to achieve!

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Rhonda Bartlett is owner of RB Design Studio, LLC. She works out of her home office in Kentucky and has been building, servicing and marketing websites since 1996.