"How do I get free website promotion?" is a question I'm often asked. The thing to remember about free website promotion is that nothing is ever truly free. If you don't spend money promoting your website, you're going to have to spend time. So why waste time on website promotion methods that will only bring you minuscule returns, if any? If you're prepared to work on them, these five free website promotion techniques will deliver, rewarding you with increased site traffic.
1. Website promotion through strong SEO.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and it's the best thing since sliced bread in terms of free website promotion. Search Engine Optimization is the process of making website pages attractive to search engines, and the great thing is that it's not hard to learn and apply the basics to your own website(s).
Through working on SEO, you can improve the page rankings of your web pages and drive more traffic to your site. And isn't that the ultimate goal of free website promotion? Get started with my 5 Basic Rules of Search Engine Optimization. When you're ready, move on to some of the finer points such as Applying Keyword Density.
Tip: If you are using non-text content on your web page(s), such as photos, image maps or JavaScript, include text for your image in the ALT tag so the search engines have something they can read.
2. Website promotion through reciprocal linking.
When other people put a link to your site on their site, you get free website promotion. You also get a shot at a better search engine ranking for your page. All of the big three search engines (Google, Yahoo, and MSN) use inbound links as an important part of the formula that determines a page's rank.
Be aware though that this kind of free website promotion is not a numbers game; it's the quality of the links that really matters. So you want to focus your reciprocal linking efforts on relevant quality links. The standard procedure is to search for and identify relevant sites that you would like to have link to yours and then send each webmaster an email requesting a link on their site, offering a link on your site in return.
Tip: You can check a website or Web page's ranking before you try to reciprocally link with it by using SEO tools such as Page Rank Lookup and the Link Popularity Tool. Google’s Toolbar also has a Page Rank Display feature. These tools are also handy for checking the status and progress of your own website and/or pages.
3. Write articles to get free website promotion.
The beauty of this free website promotion strategy is that once again someone else is promoting your website for you. And if you get your articles published on popular, long-lived websites or in well-known magazines, they can be sitting there giving you free website promotion for a long, long time with no further effort on your part.
However, there are catches. First, you have to be able to write well on a topic or topics that other people will want to read and/or publish. Second, you have to find the quality places for your articles to be published and persuade the people making the decisions to publish them. When you find them, send an email asking if they can use a particular piece, including your article so they can look at it right away if they're interested. Be sure your email mentions that they are welcome to publish the piece for free. Also be sure that your piece ends with a resource box or 'blurb' that promotes you and your website.
Tip: Find the websites or magazines you want to be published on first, and then spend some time reading the content to see what type of material they might want and if there are any obvious holes in their content that you could cover. Then tailor your material to that particular site or magazine's needs.
On the previous page of this article I presented three free website marketing strategies that actually work. That is, if you're prepared to invest some time in learning how to do them well and then working at them, they'll repay your investment by increasing traffic to your website - the ultimate goal of website marketing. Here are two more free website marketing strategies that are also worth your time:
4. Website marketing through social networking.
You've probably already received invitations to join one or more social networks such as LinkedIn or Ryze. Among the advantages of joining that Entrepreneurs Guide Scott Allen and David Teton mention in Crossing the Social Network Chasm is high visibility at low cost. Most social networking sites, they point out, allow you to create a profile for free.
There's no reason why you can't belong to several social networks at once (except time constraints), but for effective website marketing you will want to choose the network communities you join carefully. Some seem to be more personal chat centers than business networking groups and will be useless in terms of business and/or website promotion.
Tip: Scott Allen and David Teton recommend having your profile prepared before you join a social network. A 'master copy' of your profile information makes it easy to copy and paste and create a new profile when you join a social networking group.
5. Website marketing through blogging.
Creating a blog of your own is another great free website marketing strategy because it lets you apply several free website marketing strategies at once. By blogging about your subject, you'll get the chance to become an active member of the blogging community, building a web of relationships and links. And of course, your blog will be keyword rich, increasing your Search Engine Optimization. You can set up a blog as part of an existing website, or give your new blog a site of its own.
These Business Blogs FAQs include a blog definition as well as information on how to create a blog of your own.
Tip: Most blogs include the facility to make comments on posts. When you're reading another blog that's relevant to your topic, take the time to comment on a post (making sure that your comment says something that's equally relevant). It's another opportunity to do some free website marketing while getting known in the blogging community.
These are not the only free website marketing strategies that you can use of course. But these are the best, and if you select several of these and concentrate on them, they'll yield the return in increased site traffic that you're looking for.
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