How to get found when newly starting

Here it is in a nutshell.

Get into Google Adwords. Talk to Rob H or myself.

Drive people to a landing page offering a free report all about discovering N America and how to do it properly (via your services of course) in return for their name and email

Follow up with a sequence of emails which provide even more info to build excitement and reduce fear or anxiety.

Create a Blog. Add entries about all the different places you know to visit for anyone wanting to do it themselves.

Use the same info to create multiple articles which can be submitted to article directories with a tag line that points back to your website.

Get into Web 2.0 and use social book marking websites like Squidoo and Twitter.

Basically start using multiple prongs of marketing to get people to your website.

If you need any help with this then let me know and I'll sort it all out for you.

Best regards,
Steve.

ps. Pat, I've had a quick review of your website. It seems to be optimised for the term 'excursion personal services'. Unfortunately, looking at the search tools no on ever type in this phrase. The closest phrase is 'travel excursion' but that is too broad a term for you. But I do like your website.

Marketing will cost you time or money or both, unfortunately a new website is like a shop in the middle of nowhere - shops need passing traffic ... the right kind of traffic that will buy from that shop. So a newsagent will do well on a busy station, and a luxury goods store might do well in an upmarket shopping centre. Back to the web, you need your 'shop' to be visible to the right kind of traffic.

As Steve says, AdWords will do the trick providing you advertise on the right keywords (and not too many of the wrong ones - because wasted clicks cost you money). Some of the best keywords can be expensive, especially if you are competing with people on larger marketing budgets. You will need to spend a lot of time exploring this and managing it actively to reap the benefits. If you click my picture that tells you about some of the pitfalls with AdWords.

Steve's other tips can also make you visible to 'buying' traffic. Business networking on & off line can also help.

If you haven't got it already, put Google Analytics on your website. This tells you how much traffic you are getting, where it's coming from, and whether they are coming because they want to buy (or for reasons that are not useful to you). So if you spend time/money on your marketing you should be able to track which bits of it were worthwhile.

Good luck with it!

All good stuff. Listen to Rob and you'll never go wrong.

Couple of other thoughts...

Contribute to relevant forums with links where possible to your web pages - become the expert that people consult in your specialist area/s. Takes time and will contribute to the organic web visits (that will quickly overtake pay per click).

Promote your website offline - stationery, advertising, articles, anywhere - be creative - exploit every opportunity. Then think again - you've missed some.

The growth with develop fast and the unique visit curve will sharpen.

Best wishes

Peter Minuteman Press