Coupons for Your Site

• 1). Brainstorm ideas for an appealing offer. Research carefully the most compelling wording, the image you choose and the discount or incentive that you will offer on your coupon; these components will all affect the number of people who redeem your coupon. Study other coupons, both online and offline, offered by similar businesses to get ideas on how to structure your offer and what types of images are effective attention grabbers.
  
  
• 2). Select the right software platform to create the coupon for your website. Creating a printable coupon is fairly easy with basic graphic editing software like Microsoft Paint or GIMP. However, professional looking coupons designed to be printed with a unique coupon code or bar code require special software. A number of free and low-cost coupon generators are available online (see Resources).
  
  
• 3). Design your coupon based on the ideas that you researched and developed earlier. Create an account with one of the online services or open the graphics software on your computer. Add the text and images for your coupon. All coupons should include the actual offer, an expiration date, a company logo, instructions for how to redeem it and the physical address of the company, if applicable. The online generators provide step-by-step instructions and a simple form with fields to make this process simple.
  
  
• 4). Place the coupon on your website. Add the link indicated by the online coupon generation platform or a reduced image of the custom-designed coupon you made with the graphics software. Use a website editor such as Adobe Dreamweaver or the control panel of your content management system, like WordPress, to insert the link or image in the desired location of your website. When a visitor clicks on the coupon, they are taken to a page where they are able to print the coupon.
  
  

Hosted Coupons

• 1). Join a hosted coupon service (see Resources). Some services like Groupon require no up-front fees and will create professional coupons that your customers can print or redeem directly from a mobile device. Other services such as Yowza!! have a monthly fee, but they run your coupon on a constant basis.
  
  
• 2). Fill out the contact form for your chosen platform. For sites like Groupon and Yowza!!, once your business information has been reviewed, a representative will contact you with further directions on how to complete the registration process and create your coupon. The representative will inform you about the status of your account and when your offer will appear in their database. Groupon and similar sites only run the offer for one day, though it may be redeemed for up to six months after the initial promotion, so you must keep track of when it will be offered and promote it effectively. Yowza!! and similar systems charge you a monthly fee to have your promotions listed every day.
  
  
• 3). Create a link advertising the web platform or platforms that list your coupon. Visitors that click on your link are taken to the offer on the chosen platform and have the option to print your coupon or visit the link on their mobile device for paperless redemption. Use website editing software or a content management system control panel to create the link in the desired location. Use an attractive image banner to entice visitors to click on the link.