You just launched a nice, shiny, new website. The process of getting there was undoubtedly a fair amount of work and now you can’t wait to reap the benefits of your fresh online presence.

Should you stop there? Is just launching your website enough? Not usually. But don’t worry, there are things you can do to make sure your customers really do get to see fruits of your labor.

(1) Announce, Rinse, Repeat - Let the world know that you have a new website in your everyday communications. How? Just incorporate it into all of your current forms of communication to spread the news. Do you send email? Add a note (and of course a link) to “Check out our new website!” in the footer of every email you send. Do you send out invoices? Add the same message to those. What about voicemail? If you use an ‘out of office’ message, include your web address as a possible resource for information in your absence. Small (and most important, free!) actions that can drive people to your website, even if just out of curiosity!

(2) #BeSocial - Do you use social media for your business? Then use it to promote your new website. Tweet it, Share it, Pin it...whatever channels you normally use are great opportunities for letting your audience know that your site is worth a visit. And don’t stop at the announcement of the launch, pull your audience back to your site in your posts whenever it makes sense.

(3) S to the E to the O - There, we said it. SEO. If you have the means, investing in an official SEO campaign is your best bet for driving traffic to your site. And actually, this is something that you should have started in tandem with your development project, to ensure that when your site launches, your campaign does as well. But even if you’re not thinking about it until after, you can reap some great benefits from it. An organic SEO effort is going to let you keep your website in a place where search engines can rank it favorably, and hopefully keep you near the top of the results page. That, though, requires a longer time investment to see results. If you want immediate results, go for a paid advertising campaign. Pay-per-click will get your website right at the top of the results, and keep you there as long as you have the budget for it. When you have a new site, it’s one of the fastest ways to drive traffic to it.

Once you start seeing traffic to your site, you are going to want to keep the momentum so your rankings can continue to climb. Don’t assume you can stop once you launch your site and let the world know about it. You want repeat visitors, so if it fits with your business model, send people to it as much as you can. And when they get there, make sure they are greeted by fresh, updated content. If your budget allows, continue with some level of SEO campaign. But whatever path you take, just remember that once your site is live, it’s just that...a living, breathing, dynamic part of your business that needs your attention to stay healthy.

If you just launched a new site, or if you're just thinking about a new site, let us help.