You’ve spent the past year building a website, honing your content, and strategizing for a big launch. Now it’s time to put all that effort into action, and get the website to the point where it can pull in the traffic you’re expecting.

Online marketing is a tricky thing. You want to attract the right audience to your site, and you also want to ensure that they remain engaged with your content. Sometimes this can be hard to accomplish if you’re not using the right channels to engage with your potential customers. In this article, we’re going to discuss five methods that can help you market your website successfully.

1. Content Is King

This point cannot be stressed enough: content is king. Your content needs to be informative and compelling for your visitors to engage with you. The better your content, the greater your chances of establishing yourself as an expert in your field and gaining credibility.

The first step to creating great content is identifying your blog topic or keyword phrases that are highly relevant to your field. For example, say you’re a fitness blog. One of your target keyword phrases might be “best exercises for fat loss.”

When an individual searches for that phrase, your content should pop up in their search results. If your content is well-written and offers value, you’ll gain credibility with your target audience. When they see that you’ve provided valuable information on the subject, they’ll be more inclined to believe your recommendations on other areas of the site.

2. Use Keywords In Your Headline, H1, And H2 Tags

When you’re writing your content, make sure to include key words in your headline, H1, and H2 tags. These are often referred to as “on-site SEO” because they affect the performance of your website within Google’s search engine.

Google’s search algorithm looks at several factors to determine how well a website ranks in search results. One of the most important factors is the keywords you’ve used in your content and the presence of these keywords in your H1 and H2 tags. When individuals perform searches on Google, the words and phrases they use reveal a lot about what they’re looking for. Use these words and phrases to craft a compelling title for your article, blog post, or web page.

For example, let’s say you’re writing an article on the best baby shower gifts for a mother-to-be. One of your keywords might be “luxury baby shavers.” Your headline could be “These Are the Most Popular Baby Shower Gifts” or “The Most Luxurious Baby Shower Gifts.”

The H1 tag is the first line of text in your article. This is what your searcher’s eye will immediately focus on. The H2 tag is the second line of text in your article. This is the text that follows the H1 tag and is often the first line of a paragraph or the sub-heading of a blog post. This is what the reader’s eye will quickly scan as they’re deciding whether or not to continue reading your content. Use these tags strategically to draw the reader’s attention to the parts of the article that are most relevant to your field.

3. Create Engaging Headlines

Use enticing headings to draw the reader in. Above average headlines perform well in web searches because they’re relevant, interesting, and give the reader a sense of urgency to read the rest of the content.

When a visitor lands on your website and doesn’t immediately find what they’re looking for, you have two choices: either continue browsing the site or leave… hopefully not the latter. You can use a number of tools to analyze and track the success of your headlines.

Google’s own research studies have shown that headlines with an ending in “-ever” get the most attention and are usually the most effective. The “-ever” ending indicates that the headline is relevant to the content and will make the reader want more.

4. Customize Your 404 Error Page

Every website has an error page, also known as a 404 page. Simply put, a 404 page is the page that pops up when someone tries to access a web page that doesn’t exist. It lets the visitor know that it is, in fact, not a valid page and directs them to another destination.

While there are a variety of reasons why a page might not exist (file missing, outdated information, etc.), you have the option of using a 404 page to educate and reassure your site visitors that everything is okay. Since you’ll be providing them with valuable information on your site’s topics, you might as well make them want to come back for more.

To create a customized 404 page, click the gear icon in the upper right corner of your WordPress dashboard. From here, you can choose which error page template you’d like to use (there are several to choose from) and then enter a message that you’d like to include in the page. Once you’re finished, click the button to save your changes.

5. Build A Community

One of the most effective ways of marketing a website is by creating a community. Your community can be as simple as one or two friends you’ve asked to help you market your site. Alternatively, you can use a service like Hootsuite to connect with other bloggers, experts, and thought leaders in your field. The more members you have, the more you can accomplish. This is because there’s more than one person viewing your content at any given time. A growing community of engaged followers can help you gain more credibility and trust as an expert in your field.

Whether you’ve got a few people helping you or you’ve got a whole team working on content strategy and SEO, having a community is essential to the success of your website.