Go4Expert - 20 Different ways to promote your site

Search engines are the best method to promote your site. Statistics shows 92% of total internet users use Search Engines to find the resource they are looking for. Out of this 92%, 85% use Google. So Search engines, especially Google, are the best place to start the marketing of your website.
Directories don’t bring any traffic to your websites but they are also one of the unavoidable options for promotion as many of the Search engines are powered by the available directories.
Following are some of the Directory submission pages
- http://directory.google.com
- http://dmoz.org/add.html
- http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/
- http://www.zeal.com
Off line promotion is often underrated specially: Word-of-mouth and business cards. If your current members are happy, they'll tell somebody.
- You can place a sticker on the rear window of your car.
- Make T-shirts with a logo of your site on it and be in it when partying.
Put a link to your site everywhere you can without having it considered spam: signature lines at other sites especially of your competitors and on newsgroups, at the bottom of your emails, etc.
Organize a contest or two and then get the word out about that. People love "free" stuff and if you've got a site worth coming back to, then they will remain around after registering to win something.
Sponsor a contest on another site by agreeing to provide a prize in exchange for a listing as a sponsor. Sponsoring this type of contest should be done after taking into account the target audience.
Advertise the site and put them in the box with every eBay sale.
If you have some free codes or some tips and tricks or other resources, put the codes in famous sites like www.hotscripts.com with each file containing the URL, title and small description of your site. Apart from URL, Title and Description is important so user just doesn’t consider it as some copyrighted text but knows what the site is about and may wish to join.
Submit your site to some sites that organize something like “Site of the week” contest.
Send mails to other webmasters for a link exchange can work for promotion also. They will visit the site see the contents and may wish to be a part of it also.
Use affiliate marketing or referrer scheme and arrange contest for maximum no of referrers.
Put “Tell a Friend” page that sends an e-mail to an address user enters. Try using custom mail programs rather than a form on your site. This helps because user has access to his address book and so may wish to CC it to some other guy also. Try also putting the Subject and some body to the mail so users don’t have to type all by themselves. Just a line by the user should be enough.
Make available some free and entertaining content like screen savers / code snippet / MP3’s / wallpapers for registered users, or at least have their contact details before allowing them to download.
Also "Send this screen savers / code snippet / MP3’s / wallpapers to your friend"...etc. Would lead to new and fresh visitors where your site's visitors would be your promoters!
Try putting a newsletter to your site and though most people prefer a popup menu for the newsletter subscription offer, avoid pop ups for 2 major reasons
- People don’t like pop ups and hardly anybody reads it. [Not me at least]
- Almost all browsers by default have some popup blocker or some added plug-in to provide the same functionality.
- I would prefer putting newsletters on one corner especially on top right because that’s where every one takes his mouse pointer to at least close the window.
Try to become member of the BBB or some other certifications which helps in building trust.
Write articles and submit them to places such as www.go4expert.com, 123Webmaster, devarticles, prweb and other similar sites.
Advertise in internet radio stations like requesting a song and with a message “this next song goes out to everyone from the staff at "www.yoursite.com".
Show the ads relevant to users and have an option of removing the ads or have an option of close button that are not willing to see them.
After all these Do’s the don’t is: never ever get involved in a FFA (Free for all) and if you have a referrer system then inform the users also to avoid the FFA.

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This Article is written by Shabbir Bhimani for www.go4expert.com

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