No matter whether your business has a mobile app or responsive website, it is not possible to achieve positive results without proper marketing and promoting. The thing about enhancing your website’s visibility is that it involves a combination of clever design and development, search engine optimization, and great content to generate trust. Even if you employ the latest website technologies, engagement would still stem from a number of factors, and you cannot rely solely on one of the above factors to hook your audience.

According to an infographic from Search Engine Land, the success of proper marketing and promotion takes into account, both on-page and off-page factors including content, HTML, architecture; and links, trust, social and personal aspects, respectively. Here at IT Craft, we agree that businesses should indeed take a look at implementing these elements as well. We dissect each of these factors to help you make informed decisions on how to take your website promotion to the next level.

On-Page Factors: Content, HTML, Architecture

On-page factors involve ensuring that there’s harmony between the textual content of your page, and the website’s technical aspects. This involves making sure that you are making user-friendly, not to mention, search engine-friendly content and pages that observe existing best practices. Below are some concepts to watch out for:

• Content. Does your content strike a balance between relevance and substance? Are you writing about topics that are being searched on search engines, without having to resort to click-bait type articles? Do you do keyword stuffing (the recommended keyword ratio for all articles is 2 to 5 percent)?

• HTML. Are you supplying the right keywords and meta description for each page on your website? Are they straightforward and observe the recommended character count (below 160 characters)?

• Architecture. Do you hide keywords and links (cloaking) in your content? Are your URLs short and search engine-friendly?

Off-Page Factors: Links, Trust, Social and Personal

As its name suggests, off-page website promotion is centered on improving your site’s authority to push its ranking higher on search engine results pages (SERPs). It factors in the backlinks (links to your website from outside sources) your website generate, how many times your content has been shared on social media and other channels, the value of those shares, and the online clout of those people sharing your content.

• Links. Are you getting quality links, meaning, links from sites that host valuable and engaging content or do not spam? Are you paying third-party sites to link to you? Are you overdoing link exchanges?

• Trust. Were the links pointing to your site hosted on one that has been online for years and has been established as a credible website by others? Was this website penalized before by search engines for resorting to black hat SEO techniques (e.g. keyword stuffing, spamming forums and comments sections)?

• Social and Personal. Where are your social shares coming from? What channels are being used by users sharing your site? Where are these users geographically based? Are they reputable on the social media channels they’re active on?

More often than not, off-page web promotion also involves the implementation of digital media marketing and PR campaigns. You may have to hire consultants for these efforts, but when you do, it does pay off in the long run. Besides, these online marketing and PR campaigns allow your business to be discovered by a wider audience, and also lead to more people learning about your services through word of mouth—both online and offline.

In a nutshell, coming up with a responsive website or mobile app should not conclude your game plan. Your website’s reputation also matters, so make it a point to allot time and budget on conducting online promotional activities for it.