Faint At Heart

Many website owners start a website and find they only have a limited budget, if any, to spend on advertising. This is not necessarily a problem, however, because there are several ways of promoting your site for free.

The most obvious way is to submit your site to sites offering free classified ads. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of these sites on the internet. Start with some of the more popular ones and begin experimenting with different ad copies to see which ads attract the most readers, and stick with them when posting on other free classified sites.

You can also sign up to various traffic exchanges, and promote your site to other users. This is a great way of getting guaranteed hits to your site, although it is untargeted traffic. I recommend manual exchanges over automatic because this way people have to physically click on ads themselves, so more people will actually see your site. For optimum results you should join 8-10 of the largest traffic exchanges, and download a browser such as crazybrowser, which will allow you to have upto 10 windows open in the same page. Therefore you can surf them all at the same time, and quickly amass hundreds of hits to your site.

Submitting your site to directories is also a good way of getting free traffic to your site. Plus not only will you get a small steady stream of traffic, but it will also benefit you in terms of search engine rankings. You want to target high pagerank (from the downloadable Google toolbar) directories, and those where your site will be listed on a high pagerank page. This will boost your own pagerank, and help you achieve higher rankings in the future, allowing you to get subsequent free traffic from the search engines.

Similarly getting links from other related sites, either one-way or more commonly reciprocal links, will also improve your pagerank, and search engine rankings. If you are able to get links from popular sites, or get prominent links, for example from a home page of a popular site, then you can get a lot of free traffic from these sites.

Safelists are a traditional form of free advertising, and although not as effective as they once were, they can still deliver reasonable results, particularly if you are building a list of subscribers. A safelist is essentially just of list of opt-in email subscribers, who are free to send and receive emails to and from each other. You should make sure you use a free email address as your inbox will be filled with hundreds of emails.

Posting on popular forums that allow sig files (external links at the bottom of each post) can be a very effective way of receiving free traffic to your site. You should create a compelling link in your sig file, and the link should use anchor text which contains your main keyword(s) for SEO purposes. You should then make helpful and useful posts to these forums, which will build your reputation and get your link seen of course. Just make sure you don’t post worthless posts, just so you can promote your sig file.

A truly viral way of getting lots of free traffic to your site is by writing and creating your own free report or ebook, based on the subject of your site. This should include links to your site embedded within it. You can then contact popular related sites, free ebook sites, ezine owners or people with large lists, etc, and offer your free ebook to them, and tell them that they have permission to freely distribute it on their site or to their subscribers.

Finally, another great viral advertising method which can also result in a large increase in traffic over time is by writing articles. Simply write informative articles related to your site and submit them to as many article directories as possible. Each article should contain a resource box which tells the reader about yourself and also includes that crucial link (using keyword rich anchor text if possible) to your site. For even greater results you can track down ezine owners with large lists who accept article submissions, and submit your articles directly to them, offering you immediate access, if accepted, to potentially thousands of readers.

As you can see you don’t necessarily need to pay out lots of money to promote your website successfully. There are some equally effective free methods that can deliver excellent results, particularly those last two methods that I mentioned, writing free reports and articles.

Whatever methods of advertising you choose to persue, you should make sure that you use some kind of ad tracking software to track your results. This will tell you which methods of promotion are delivering results, and are worth continuing, and which ones are simply not worth wasting your time over.

James Woolley is a successful marketer who has several money-making sites in various niches. His latest site is a free internet marketing resource guide, which also includes a newsletter filled with free tips and bonuses:

http://www.jimsmarketing.com

A directory is a site that lists other sites. DMOZ is one of the largest, but there others, such as Yahoo’s directory, as well as other more specialized directories. The advantage to having your site listed in a directory is that potential customers can find your site easier, and search engines can crawl your site and list it. Here are some basic tips for getting your site in the directory.

1) Submit your site.
Most directories have a means your to submit your site; take advantage of it. This is the easiest and most effective way to get your site listed, and it allows you the most control over how your site is easiest. Just be advised that it may take some time before your site is listed; some directories take up to two months.

2) Have fans.
If people like your site, then they submit the site to directories that they use. This is great as there are a lot of directories that you will never hear about, and your fans will be more than glad to list your site for you. You don’t have any control over how your site is listed, but it will get listed.

3) Belong to a group.
There are two general types of groups: rings and drop-downs. Both are people that have decided to ally together in order to better publicize their sites, and automatically enter their members in their directories. Drop-downs have a piece of code that allows you to go to any members’ site, and a ring sends you to the next member, the last member, or a random; there is otherwise no real difference between them.

4) Host your site in a place that features a directory.
Some Web hosting companies and marketing sites (such as CafePress) put everyone that they host in a directory. This is a great way to market your site, especially as it may bring customers you didn’t even consider to your site.

There are some other ways to join a directories, but these the best ways to join a directory. There are some directories that actively seek out new members, but, due to the randomness of which these work, these are not effective ways to join a directory.

It should be noted that joining a directory is advantageous to your site. As directories are used as ways to see if a site would work for the person looking for something. Because directories are increasingly being used, using a directory could be a major advantage to your site.

Get expert answers and more information on Search Engine Optimization services as well as other expert advice the latest Internet Marketing topics at Marketing-Helpers.com . Marketing-Helpers.com is a resource for business owners, managers, and marketers find the answers and services they need to operate a highly successful Web site. Get advice from experts like Bryan Hornung and we’ll show you how the best way for you to connect with a search engine optimization specialist or search engine optimization company to increase web site traffic with a managed search engine marketing services.

Advertising is a very messy job for any business. It can be taxing and financially speaking, very demanding and draining.

Internet Marketing is no different from the traditional advertising campaign that every business launches. Most marketers who realized that technology is a powerful ally in advertising have made use of it but many actually failed.

The key to a successful internet advertising is to attract users to possible visitors in your site called traffic and hopefully purchase your product. But before converting visitors to customers, you first have to create your own traffic. Traffic is said to be the lifeblood of a site or an online business. Without it, it is impossible for you to sell anything on your site.

Of course, the key is still investments! But with the power of internet technology, advertising now allows minimal financial investments. That is a breakthrough! You just have to have an effective plan, practical marketing strategies and a good technical support. Above all, you should be able to practice ways on how to increase your business profits by exploding your website traffic.

First, learn the technical ways on how you can maximize the technology for free.

Be aware of online promotional tactics and learn them. There are several ways to do this: 1) submission of your website address to search engines like Google; 2) apply an effective reciprocal link program by searching for sites that maybe related to your site and link them; properly inform the web masters of the sites you link up with and request if they could also link up with your website.

Search Engine Optimization Use of effective keywords. Before submitting your website address to search engines, you should have tested the keywords and phrases you will submit in order to get you the traffic you need to advertise your product and services. These are the words and phrase that users type in the search engine to look for information. If you want visitors to come to your website, be sure that your keywords are precise and link it directly to the right page. Remember, your keywords is your link to people; this is what they use to find you.

Website Popularity Test The level of website popularity is dependent on the relevant information that the site can provide. This is something that major internet marketers should work on. The internet is created to serve as an information highway, therefore, the users are expecting to get the right information they need.

Do Internet Marketing Seriously Write Articles for Submission to boost your traffic. Most internet marketers have already proven the power of having related articles posted on their sites. This gives additional, valuable information to those searching visitors for the right products and services they need which maybe what your site offers. Be sure that your article is helpful with tips, ideas and suggestions than a mere, blatant advertising piece. Have your articles submitted to directories and ezine publishers with your link below every article.

Viral Marketing Make use of ebooks to spread the word. Writing a short ebook is very helpful to inform people about your products and services in the most informative way by including hard facts like facts and figures, features and benefits and most of all a link back to your site.

Paid Advertising Try Pay-Per-Click Ads. There are paid ads you can choose from based on what you need for your site like email lists, classified ads, ezine, banner ads, newspaper and popup ads and pay-per-click ads. These pay-per-click ads are more practical to use not to mention effective too. With this, you only pay the number of click your ad gets.

After exploring the best ways that technology may help you in marketing product, here are some additional tips you can still use to boost the traffic.

Make full use of your website. The best is to go back to the basics. Websites, which serves to advertise goods and services, should be designed for easy navigation. Be sure that buttons, text links and other important tools to link visitors to your products are recognizable and user-friendly. Underlined and highlighted words should be present for easy clicking. And remember do not leave your site cluttered. Leave white spaces in between to make it appear open. Do not put in animated graphics because they cause too much distraction.

Be sure that your website helps in making buying a great, easy experience. Buyers should be able to find the product they want, order and pay for it in an easy transaction. How to do this: classify your products well, provide basic information and price, money back guarantees for faulty products and enumerate returns and refunds policies. Practice all these and you will build your credibility.

Bring back customers to your site by giving them reasons to. Freebies and gifts are good rewards everytime customers purchase your product. You can also create a savers club for your customers and give them discounts of 10% in future purchases. Point system is also good for redeeming prizes from the points earned. Special prizes too can be given to them upon entering their name everytime they make a purchase. Vouchers, money off coupons and other gift certificates can create loyalty too among customers.

Start a clean and healthy relationship with your customers by getting in touch. You can do this by creating a mailing list of your customers name and email addresses by providing them short online forms where they have to leave personal information and ask them to create a username and password. With these all these information, you can maintain contact and send them regular updates and special offers or you could create a newsletter where all pertinent information about your product are written. You can ask your customers too to subscribe in exchange of discounts and free stuffs with links directed to any part of your site.