How to share your new site and get Maximum Exposure

If you’re reading this, it means you’re either about to launch your new website, you’ve just launched it recently, or are in the middle of a revamp. No matter which one it is, you’re already ahead of many of your peers and competitors, since you’re interested in maximizing the exposure and traffic that your new website will get! Follow these 12 simple steps, and you will surely notice a difference from day one!

Side note: For best results and longer effect, we recommend you spread out these tactics throughout a period of 1-3 weeks, rather than being super actively posting about your new site in the first 2 days and then let the excitement die.

Also, since many of your fans and clients follow you on several platforms at once, which don’t show posts chronologically (thank you Facebook/Instagram algorithms) by distributing your promo efforts across a few days – you increase the chances that more people will hear the news.

Enjoy the love, attention and compliments, you’re a proud owner of a beautiful new website!
As one of our clients, Gabriela Oswald, mentioned:

“Netflix has become redundant since I have my new Flo website.
All I want to do is look at it. THANK YOU.”

And now, let’s go through the 13 steps you can take to get maximum exposure when launching your new website:

Step 1

Before pushing the “Go live” button, make sure everything works well and looks perfect across all devices and browsers. Take a look at our Checklist before launching a website to ensure a smooth and correct launch.

Step 2

Get your new site on search results pages, so Google and your potential clients find you easily. The fastest way to do it, is by submitting your sitemap to Google, so its crawlers visit your website, index changes and the fresh content you’ve added. Check point #17 from our SEO guide for photographers for a step by step description of how to submit your sitemap for indexing.

Step 3

For each of your social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, etc) have a visual prepared. It can be photos of your site in various devices, it can be a screenshot, it can be graphic banners (Download our free Launch Banners Kit here). It’s really up to you. Tag those involved in the process – the designer who did your branding, the developer who helped you build your site, the friend who taught you about SEO and optimization, etc. We at Flothemes for example, love to feature our clients’ websites and work on a weekly basis, so if you’re building a site with us – tag us and we’ll sho it to everybody! *wink*

Also, don’t shy away from the idea of doing a Facebook or/and Instagram live, where you briefly present your new site, show some design elements and pages, talks about the tools used, offer recommendations, etc. Not comfortable or too nervous for a live? Fine, at least use the Instagram stories feature. A personal approach is always better received, especially if you almost never show your face on your business Instagram account 🙂

Tools: To screenshot your full homepage, you can use browser extensions. With Chrome we love these 2: Full Page Screen Capture and Full Page Screenshot. For mock ups with various devices to which you can add a screen shot of your own site, you can check out these two resources: UI8 and Mockup World.

Step 4

Are you an active member of various groups and communities on Facebook? Share your news and joy there! Your online colleagues and friends will surely offer some love, support and comments.

Step 5

If you haven’t already, add your website link to your email signature. This way, each time you exchange emails and discuss a collaboration, workshop, conference, etc – the person on the over side of the screen gets this little call to action to visit your fantastic new website.

Step 6

Are you collecting emails and sending out regular newsletters to your readers, leads and clients? Perfect, send out an announcement via email about the launch of your new site. Include some screen shots, some fun facts or a personal, warm message about the process and meaning of this milestone. Encourage them to visit your new site.

If you don’t do newsletters, you can still create an email and send it to all the clients and vendors you’ve worked with before. Add some new, recent work to your site. You will surely get loads of shares and traffic from the clients that got a fresh feature, as well as those that got a nostalgia moment while browsing through an older post about them.

Step 7

If you prefer to skip Step 6, then consider this one. Create 1-2 blog posts with your favorite work from the past year for example, or last 10 weddings/client shoots you did. These throwbacks will work exactly as the emails described above – they will get clients excited and nostalgic about their special days – some will share publicly, hence bringing more leads and viewers to your new site.

Step 8

Get listed/featured on big, popular wedding blogs, such as Junebug, Stylemepretty, etc, or any other popular online magazine from your own industry. How? Well, start by finding out what these famous blogs are looking for.

Step 9

Have you considered running some ads on Facebook and/or Instagram? No need to spend too much. Just a couple of bucks (literally) can help you bump up a few of your posts and get your new site in front of a larger audience.

If you’ve never tried paid advertising before, you may want to check out this Quick guide to Facebook Ads or section #2. The Facebook Ad from this article on How to book your first Destination Wedding in just 10 days.

Step 10

How about a contest or giveaway to celebrate your new website? Partner up with one of your favorite vendors, or perhaps if you sell presets or other goodies, offer those in a giveaway. You can have the description of rules on your website, therefore all participants will need to visit your site to enter the contest and check out the prize. Also, know that we’re always happy to offer you a discount code to share with your own community, when announcing your website launch.

Step 11

Let’s talk about the power of cross-promotional activities, where two parties mutually benefit from the common efforts. Do a guest post, or have somebody awesome and influential do a guest post on your blog. Be part of a podcast, webinar, workshop, etc. In any of these cases, you get exposure within a new amazing community, that has similar interests with you.

Step 12

And the last, most important one – track all your results via Google Analytics. Discover where does most of your website traffic come from? Which devices do your users access your website on? Which pages have the highest bounce rate, and what could be the possible reasons? Which channels (websites, social media platforms, referrals, etc) bring the most traffic in? All these metrics will give you invaluable information about your audience, their behavior, your site’s performance and of course the success of your marketing efforts.

Bonus Step

Write a testimonial on your website provider’s Facebook page. If you’ve enjoyed the process of building your new website with their product/service – share your experience, rave about it and include a link to your website in your testimonial. This offers the following 2 opportunities for exposure:

1. Other users, their potential clients who are doing research about their products, will be searching for reviews. They will read your testimonial and most definitely check out your website.
2. Your website provider will be happy to feature your testimonial on their social media platforms and site – which will again bring more exposure and traffic your way. It’s a win/win!

Alright, not you’re fully prepared!
Hope you’ve enjoyed our 12 ideas on how to maximize exposure for your new website launch. Now, it’s time to indulge the excitement and feeling of accomplishment. Don’t let it fade away in 2 days. You’ve worked hard on it, so why not prolong the moment of glory and amplify the amount of people who celebrate with you!

If you have more tips or recommendations for creatives who are just about to launch their new site, we’d love to hear them in the comments below!

Flothemes Team,
Supporting You.

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Photo credit: Nastia Vesna Photography