Setting up your e-commerce site may well have been hard work, but unfortunately the problems aren’t over: now, you need to promote your site in order to generate traffic and start making some sales.

First things first: you’ve started your site to sell your product or products, so whatever you have for sale, it needs to take centre stage. Unlike in a shop, customers won’t have the opportunity to pick up and play with a product they’re interested in, so you need to provide them with photographs showing as many angles as possible, as well as close-ups of details and small parts where applicable. Label images if you think it will help your customers to understand. Software like Photoshop, Illustrator or Paint Shop Pro can be invaluable for adding professional labels to your images. You also need to make sure that you offer a clear, detailed and concise description of the product, perhaps including the answers to any questions you often get asked about it. Between 250 and 750 words is plenty: any less, and search engines won’t take much notice of your site (they can’t see pictures!); any more, and your customers probably won’t bother to read it all. Make sure your copy is keyword-rich, as this is also something that search engines will take note of.

The next thing to do is to submit your site to the major directories such as DMOZ and Yahoo!. Because your site is reviewed by a human editor before being listed, a listing here lends your site credibility. Even more perceived integrity can be gained from a listing in a specialist or local directory.

Promote your site offline and online. Get your URL on all your stationery, business cards and so on, put it in your email signatures, and make sure that your telephone staff know to mention your new site to anyone who calls. Join some forums specifically related to your business, and put your URL in your signature; then, gain some credibility for you and your business by posting regularly and sharing your expert knowledge on the message boards. Forums can be wonderful places to read tips as well as write them. Also, Google crawls forums regularly because they are so frequently updated, so they’re great places to post an URL. External links in make your site more "important" to Google’s PageRank algorithm, so try to generate as many as possible.

Consider link-swapping with complementary sites. You might be able to find suitable candidates on forums. Also, if your site offers interesting content such as articles or news, you may well find people link to you of their own volition – it’s worth making your site as interesting for human visitors as possible, so that search engine traffic will follow.

By Natalie Catchpole

For more information on domain names and domain name registration questions please feel free to contact Domainmonster.com support team who will be happy to assist you.