What Is Website Marketing?
Website marketing is the process of promoting your website to attract more visitors to it.
Marketing your site helps you reach more potential customers, engage with them, showcase what you offer, and ultimately turn prospects into paying customers.
Before we go over the variety of techniques you can use to market your website, let’s discuss how website marketing can help you grow your business.
Why Do You Need to Market Your Site?
Effectively marketing your website ensures you actually capture prospects’ attention, so you can build relationships that translate to business results.
Without proper marketing, even a great website can go unnoticed.
Thoughtfully promoting your site can:
- Help people find your business online: Different tactics can help your website appear in multiple places across the web
- Increase traffic to your site: Marketing your website can help you bring more potential customers to your site
- Educate your customers about what you do: Website marketing provides helpful information about your products/services, business, and industry
- Build trust with your audience: A well-marketed site shows your business is reliable and worth your potential customers’ attention, time, and money
8 Techniques to Use in Your Website Marketing Strategy
Many business’s website marketing strategies use these tactics, so they’re likely to help your website achieve growth as well:
1. Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) is all about improving your website’s visibility in search results without relying on paid ads.
When your site ranks higher, it’s easier for people to find your business. And the higher your website ranks, the more clicks it can attract.
Our research shows that the result in position 1 on Google has a click-through rate of about 22%. While position 10 is closer to 2%.
To improve your site’s SEO and rank higher:
- Write high-quality content that’s crafted around what users are looking for
- Fix technical SEO issues like slow loading times and broken links—and make sure your site works properly on mobile
- Get links to your site from other trusted websites
- Use local keywords to attract nearby customers (if you’re a local business)
One of the best ways to get started with SEO is by doing keyword research. Which involves finding keywords (terms your potential customers might use to find information relevant to your business) to craft content around.
Use Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool to find the best keywords to target on your site.
To start, enter a seed keyword (a broad term related to your business or industry), select your target location, and click “Search.”
(You can also enter your domain to get a Personal Keyword Difficulty score tailored to your site.)
You’ll get a list of related keywords along with important metrics. Like:
You’ll likely get a lot of ideas, so you can narrow down the list using filters.
For example, set the difficulty filter to “Easy” to find keywords that you stand a good chance of ranking for.
You can also filter by a minimum search volume to find keywords your audience frequently looks for.
Evaluate the terms you see. And choose ones that align with your niche and the content you plan to create.
This might include blog posts, landing pages, or product pages that match what your audience is actively searching for.
Let’s say you’re looking for terms to use in blog posts.
Look for terms with informational (I) intent. Because those terms represent people who want to learn about a topic.
For example, the keyword “best travel bags” would be good for a blog post discussing the top options with links to relevant products in your online store.
To speed up the content creation process, try Semrush’s ContentShake AI app.
You can use it to produce first drafts.
Follow the prompts to configure the tool for your business. Then enter or choose a topic the tool suggests.
Fill out the details about your audience, keywords, brand voice, etc. And click “Create Article” to generate a rough first draft.
After the draft is ready, review it thoroughly and refine it to make sure it genuinely delivers value to your audience and meets your standards.
To start editing, click “Go to editor.”
This will load the AI-generated draft inside the editor, where you can make your edits.
Creating search-optimized content in this way is great for gaining visibility in search engines. But you can see even better results by implementing some or all of the tactics below.
Further reading: 9 Tips for How to Bring AI into Your SEO and Content Strategy
2. Search Engine Advertising
Search engine advertising involves using paid search ads to put your site in front of a highly targeted audience.
Paid ads often operate on a pay-per-click (PPC) model. This means you pay a fee each time someone clicks on your ad.
And once you set up and fund your paid ad campaigns, your ads can start showing almost instantly. Which can quickly drive visibility, traffic, and even sales
Here’s an example of a paid search ad on Google:
Google’s search-related ads can appear on search engine results pages (SERPs) in a few ways. And even in Maps.
Because visibility disappears once you stop running search ads, they’re a good short-term website marketing tactic. But for it to be successful in the long run, you need both the budget for it and to see a positive return on your investment.
To get the most out of your paid ads budget, do the following:
- Run A/B tests: This involves creating multiple versions of your ads with small differences, like the headline, call to action (CTA), or visuals
- Improve your Quality Score: This score reflects how relevant and useful your ad and landing page are. It’s not used in the ad auction, but improving this value can lead to better placements and lower costs.
- Target the right audience: Use targeting options related to location, age, interests, and search behavior to put your ads in front of people most likely to engage with your business
- Take inspiration from your competitors’ ads: Analyze the ad copy, visuals, and keywords your competitors are using to improve your own ads
The Advertising Research tool lets you easily analyze your competitors’ ads to learn what’s working for them.
To start, open the tool and type in a competitor’s domain.
Pick your target location and click “Search.”
Go to the “Ads Copies” tab to view the ads they’re running.
Look at the competitor’s headlines, descriptions, and keywords. And look for ideas that can inspire your own ads.
3. Organic Social Media Marketing
Organic social media marketing involves using social media platforms to drive people to your site through unpaid efforts.
By establishing your social media presence, you can introduce your brand to more potential customers, earn their trust, and encourage them to visit your site.
For example, cookie company Crumbl uses Instagram to direct potential customers to their website’s order page.
Organic social media marketing involves:
- Creating a social media strategy that aligns with your business goals
- Regularly posting high-quality content on platforms where your audience is most active
- Engaging with your audience through comments, messages, and likes
- Tracking and analyzing performance metrics to see what works best
Organic social media marketing can help you connect with more customers. But it does require time and consistency to see results—especially if you’re trying to establish your presence across multiple platforms.
Use Semrush Social to manage your social media marketing efforts across multiple platforms from a single dashboard.
For example, Social Poster lets you draft, schedule, and post content across platforms like Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, and LinkedIn.
Social Tracker lets you keep an eye on your competitors’ social accounts, compare their growth to yours, and find opportunities to improve your strategy.
4. Social Media Advertising
Social media advertising is all about running paid ads on social media platforms to attract more visitors to your site.
These ads are typically labeled as “Ad,” “Promoted,” or “Sponsored.”
Here’s an example of a paid ad on Instagram:
And here’s one on LinkedIn:
Paid ads can show up in users’ feeds, stories, and videos (like Instagram Reels or TikTok). And even as sidebar ads on platforms like LinkedIn.
The format depends on your campaign and the platform you choose.
To get the most out of your social media advertising efforts, make sure you:
- Choose the right platform: Pick platforms where your target audience is most active. For example, LinkedIn is great for B2B businesses, while Instagram and TikTok for teens who are prepared to make low-cost purchases.
- Test multiple ad variations: Run A/B tests with different visuals, headlines, and CTAs to see which variations drive the best results
- Pinpoint your target audience: Use targeting options like age, location, interests, and behaviors to put your ads in front of people who are most likely to engage with your business
- Run retargeting ads: Connect with users who’ve interacted with your business but didn’t convert. For example, you can show social media ads to people who added items to their carts on your website but didn’t complete the purchase.
5. Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of the best ways to connect directly with your subscribers and drive traffic to your site.
This direct communication lets you share valuable content, build relationships, and encourage actions like visiting your site or making a purchase.
Check out this email from Cordelia Cruises, a luxury cruise line based in India. It presents an attractive offer and encourages recipients to book a cruise directly through their website.
Unlike organic search or social media, email marketing isn’t bound by algorithms.
Your emails go straight to subscribers’ inboxes. Which gives you more control over how and when you deliver your message.
Use email marketing to:
- Keep your subscribers engaged: Share blog posts, guides, or updates to engage with your potential and existing customers
- Announce product or service launches: Build excitement with updates on new products or services
- Promote discounts or offers: Encourage your subscribers to purchase from you with exclusive deals and promotions
By sending these emails, you can easily guide your subscribers to your website. Whether it’s to read a blog post, check out new products, or grab a special deal, email marketing can help bring more people to your site.
6. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing (when you pay people a commission for driving desired actions) can be a hands-off way to market your website—especially products or services on your website.
It’s also cost-effective since you don’t pay anyone until they bring you something valuable like a conversion or sale.
Here’s how it works:
Say a blogger writes a review about your business. Their review includes an affiliate link (a URL with tracking information) to your website.
When someone purchases through this link, you pay the blogger a flat fee or a predetermined percentage of the sale.
You can create unique affiliate links a few different ways:
- Through plugins like AffiliateWP
- With affiliate networks like ShareASale
- With custom software built by a developer
You can also track purchases through coupon codes. Just like this post between an affiliate and Rogue Energy:
The key to successful affiliate marketing campaigns is to select affiliates who align with your target audience.
7. Online Reviews
Online reviews and testimonials build credibility and can be a vehicle to market your website, too.
People often read reviews when they’re searching for a product or service. Including Google reviews.
If users see good reviews, they’re more likely to click through to your website. And may even buy from you.
So, consider setting up an email campaign that automatically asks customers to leave you an online review on Google or Facebook.
Make sure to reply to those who leave reviews—even if they’re negative. Because it shows you care about what customers have to say.
Use Semrush’s Review Management tool to keep track of your reviews.
It shows you an overview of your ratings.
And you can respond to Google reviews by writing your own responses or having the tool generate them for you.
8. Guest Blogging
Guest blogging—publishing a blog post to another website in your niche—is an effective way to reach a wider audience and drive them to your website.
As a guest blogger, you’ll often receive an author bio with a link to your website. Some websites might also let you promote your content within the guest blog. Both can help you grow brand awareness and boost referral traffic to your site.
Here’s an author bio on Forbes that includes a link to Tomoko Yokoi’s website:
It’s essential to find authoritative websites in your niche to ensure you target the right audience.
Search a query like this to find relevant websites to guest post on: “guest post” OR “guest column” OR “guest author” OR “become a contributor” OR “write for us” AND keyword.
Go through the search results to find websites that accept guest posts.
Next, run a site through Backlink Analytics to check if it would be good to guest post on.
Enter the site’s domain and click “Analyze.”
Pay attention to the “Authority Score” section.
You’ll learn if the site you’ve earmarked gets good organic traffic. Among other things.
Avoid publishing guest posts on sites with signs of spam. It could damage your reputation and result in links that aren’t as valuable.
How to Choose the Right Tactics for Your Marketing Strategy
There’s no single “best” website marketing strategy—it depends on your business and your audience’s needs and wants.
So, think about your:
- Goals: If you want quick results, search engine and social media advertising can get you traffic fast. For long-term results, focus on SEO and email marketing.
- Budget: Paid ads need a steady budget, while SEO and social media take time but typically cost less. Find a balance that works based on your budget.
- Audience preferences: Think about where your audience spends time online. Pick platforms that help you reach these specific groups of people.
If you need help learning more about your audience’s preferences, use Semrush’s One2Target tool. It provides insights into what platforms your audience uses, the devices they prefer, and more.
To get started, launch the tool, enter up to five competitors’ URLs, then click “Analyze.”
You’ll see a detailed “Demographics” report for your target audience. Including useful data like age and distribution by country—all useful for forming targeted paid ad campaigns.
Go to the “Behavior” tab to see your audience’s interests and (importantly) which social media platforms they use most often.
Use this data to understand which platforms you should focus on when marketing your website. To ensure you spend your time (and your budget) effectively.