For more information contact Professor Dan Remenyi at dan.remenyi@mcil.co.uk

According to the latest figures from StatMarket, published December 22 2000, search engines account for less than 7 percent of global referrals. StatMarket's referral statistics show that most Internet users already know where they want to go on the Web. The largest proportion of referrals, 47.01 percent, came from direct navigation (URLs typed directly into the address bar of the user's browser) and bookmarks.

Internet links, such as banner ads, affiliates, and sponsorships accounted for 46.13 percent of all referrals. Links from emails and newsgroups were not included in this category.

Off Line Advertising:  
The importance of off line advertising shouldn’t be underestimated when trying to attract users to your website. Traditional off line advertising methods are still highly effective. It makes sense to print your website address on all business literature such as business cards, letterheads, brochures, catalogs and invoices. Mentioning your website in all existing advertising methods such as television, billboards, radio and newspaper and magazine advertising will give it more exposure to your target market. Making an announcement to the press about the site or about any modifications to the site can be an effective and economical way of publicising the site, as word of mouth is still possibly the most effective of all advertising methods. It is also important to list your website on all available off-line directories such as the Golden Pages.

On-line Advertising:  
Advertising on other websites throughout the Internet is a useful method of directing Internet traffic to your site. On-line banner advertising is a useful promotional tool and there are many services that charge per number of users directed to the site such as valueclick.com.

Partner Sites and Affiliates:  
Getting other websites to link to your site will obviously increase the flow of traffic through your site. Different sites linking to each other will generate business for each other. Another benefit of other sites linking to your site is that it can boost your ranking with some of the search engines. Therefore negotiating reciprocal links with other sites can increase the findability of your site in two different ways.

Recommendations:  
Recommendations such as those through e-mail, word of mouth, articles and recommend a friend facilities on websites are powerful ways to increase traffic to you site.

A recommend a friend facility is essential to promoting a website. A user that finds a site interesting and useful is likely to have friends or associates that will also have an interest in the site. Encouraging them to recommend the site instantly is an invaluable way of attracting more new users to the site.

URL Branding:  
A site’s URL is branding and an attempt should be made for it to define the business of the site. It is estimated that 47% of all website referrals come from direct navigation (the URL typed directly into the navigation bar). Therefore the site’s URL should be viewed as a marketing tool and should be held with the same importance as the business’s address, phone number or fax number. The URL should be printed on all business literature and mentioned in all existing advertising.

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