In having a website, there are two aspects of marketing to consider. The first is driving potential customers and clients to your website. The second, assuming you have a physical location, is making sure that your website drives those same people to that actual location. Coupons on your website can help to accomplish both of those items.

First off, it can drive people to your website. There are several popular websites out there that let you list your website's coupons on their site. There are also plenty of dedicated coupon clippers who check out those very same websites and look at all the coupons listed. Putting a coupon on your site and then listing it with those sites is basically guaranteed website traffic.

Second, if you have a physical location, get those people through your door! If you sell items online and in a physical location, you should have coupons available to both locations. Some sort of online discount, but absolutely take advantage of the ability to draw people in.

The only thing left to decide is what format to present the coupon in. The problem you run across is that every file format will print out a little different on everyone's printers. You want the coupons to come out looking as similar across different computers and printers as possible. For that reason, my personal recommendation is for a PDF file. If you currently don't have the software for generating PDFs, I advise using PDF995 (http://www.pdf995.com/). It is free and set up just like it's a printer. Once downloaded and installed, you just print your file, and select PDF995 as your printer, and it has you tell it where to save the PDF. Simple as that.

So now you know the why and you know the how. So add a coupon to your site today!

Tim Priebe

Tim is the owner and senior web designer at T&S Web Design. His company has developed and maintained website for dozens of small businesses and organizations. Tim also maintains a blog with free website advice for small business owners.