Online Promotion: Top 5 methods to promote your website

Top 5 methods to promote your website

Written by Robin Eldred

Don’t make repparttar

mistake of ignoring website promotion. Every website is selling something, be it a product or a service, or maybe simply trust or a brand. This means you need visitors; repparttar 124775

more targeted, repparttar 124776

better. Simply creating a great site isn’t enough, although it’s an excellent first step. You need to be out there actively promoting it if you truly want to achieve revenue through your site.

1.Web Catalogs & Directories Taking out annual subscriptions in one or more of repparttar 124777 major web catalogs (e.g. Inktomi, FAST, AskJeeves, etc.) and business directories (e.g. YellowPages, Superpages) can help garner some immediate traffic for your website. Web Catalogs tend to work well for new sites, as they get you some all important links in repparttar 124778 early stages. Business directories work for virtually any business as they put a listing (or ad) for your website right in front of people looking for exactly what you’re selling. 2.Link Exchanges This is a fantastic way to increase repparttar 124779 importance of your website in repparttar 124780 eyes of repparttar 124781 search engines. The rationale that repparttar 124782 search engines use is that if other sites are linking to yours, then your site must be important. A link from another site to your site is considered a “vote” for your site. The more of these votes, repparttar 124783 better; to an extent, of course. Steer clear of such black hat techniques as link farms and free for all (FFA) sites. I recommend starting by asking your vendors, suppliers and customers if they could link to your site in exchange for a link to theirs. You could then branch out into related businesses that service a different audience (e.g. a competitor in another city that you don’t service). 3.Search Engine Submission This step is critical for any brand new website. You’ll want to let repparttar 124784 major search engines know that your new site exists, and prompting them to visit it with a search engine submission campaign is a great start. Don’t bother buying a big 1500-engine submission package – there’s only about 7 to 10 major search engines worth worrying about, and once you’re listed on these, repparttar 124785 other 1490 will pick you up (not that they’ll send you any measurable traffic…). The controversy here is whether or not to continue a submission campaign. Does it help an established site? Does it hurt it? Our research indicates that it doesn’t hurt. As to whether or not it helps – for some engines yes, for others no. A big tip to give you here is to be sure to work hard to get your site listed in repparttar 124786 important directories like DMOZ and AltaVista.

Can I Advertise My Site with a $150 monthly budget?

Written by Brian Roe

Assuming all other bills are covered; web hosting, list building, affiliate programs, your own ezine, etc., you only have $150 a month to spend specifically on advertising. What are repparttar

best ways to stretch that dollar to its fullest potential? Glad you asked.

You will find article after article endlessly covering six free ways (except for one) to advertise. They include: Submitting articles to directories, submitting your ezine (which you need to have) to directories, exchanging links, posting in forums, announcement lists, and pay per clicks. This is not another one of those articles. To read one, go here - http://www.cerebuswebmaster.com/onsite/newsletter/issue4.html (Scroll down to "A Crash Course in Website Promotion").

Some of these ideas listed below are free, while some require an investment. With a limited monthly budget (and even without one), research before you spend anything, to make sure your money will be doing exactly what you want it to. Keep track of all expenses in real time, and when repparttar 124774 funds run out, stop until next month.

The best way to compensate for lack of money is a lot of time. Think of time as your reserves. Since you do not a have a lot of money to spend, you need lots of time to research, plan, and execute. Until you have made enough money to use other forms of promotion, time is your greatest asset.

Free Ads There are numerous websites that have free advertising (of course, they want you to upgrade for a fee, but repparttar 124775 free version works just fine), and each has their own way to advertise to others. Most of them use some sort of credit system. Five are listed here. www.trafficswarm.com www.BannersgoMLM.com www.MyViralAds.com www.dont-touch-my-ads.com www.web-dawg.com

Paid Ads The problem with repparttar 124776 free advertising sites is that they promise visibility, but not necessarily traffic to your site. At www.trafficaccount.com, you pay between $1.99 and $3.99 per one thousand visitors.

Classifieds If classifieds are more your forte, www.qualitybooks.com enad.htm lists repparttar 124777 best websites to place your classifieds for free. However, usually they are not as popular as repparttar 124778 paid ad sites. If you are going to spend money at a classified site, do your homework before you pay. Many free-for-alls are only visited by people placing ads and not seeking them. When researching, find out how many hits it gets, make sure your ad stays on repparttar 124779 page and will not be pushed off when other ads come in, and that there is some worth to repparttar 124780 site and not just inundated with ads. Visitors quickly leave websites with nothing offer. You can always post classifieds offline, too. Some newspapers will not charge for repparttar 124781 ad if repparttar 124782 item you are selling is under $100.

Signatures Including signatures in everything is an often over-looked tool to promote your website to your network of friends and contacts. On every e-mail you send, forum you post in, sheet you fax, or article you write, at repparttar 124783 very least always include your business name and website, and maybe a promotional tagline. Giving your address and phone numbers makes you look more legitimate to potential customers. The trust factor between business owners and consumers can make or break your online business.

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