Its easy to forget the fundamental components of Web site promotion. Winding back the clock to the days when many Webmasters couldnt afford prolonged advertising campaigns, the majority of people starting out with a new Web site were forced to discover the art of free Web site promotion. In recent times, however, with pay per click advertising becoming less expensive and various other marketing activities becoming increasingly cheaper, the art of effectively promoting your site for free appears to have been lost. The purpose of this article is to act as a refresher course for any Webmasters who are keen to keep their promotional activities down to a shoestring budget.
The practices you perform when promoting your site for free are just as important as any paid advertisements you might run. Indeed, drawing a steady flow of visitors to your Web site neednt be an expensive affair. So, what things really matter if youre serious about increasing your sites traffic for free
1) You should ensure your site is easy to link to. Even Webmasters who enjoy what your site has to offer may not consciously think to link you. In any case, you should remind your visitors, preferably on every page, how to go about adding your link. Not only will this bring extra visitors, it will improve your sites relevancy for the search engines. Additionally, establishing link exchanges with similar-themed sites as yours is a remarkably popular and effective way of boosting your traffic levels for free. Your aim should be to establish as many relevant link-backs as possible.
2) You might like to consider adding a hyperlink to your Web site in your e-mail signature. If youre feeling creative, you could do what some Webmasters do and add a small slogan, too. As well as this and within reason, you should respond to every legitimate e-mail you receive so that your Web address sticks in the mind of your contacts.
3) You should utilise search engines since theyre an ideal form of free traffic. Ensuring your pages are search engine friendly is crucial. The majority of people find information on the Internet via search engines and its important that you correctly research how to optimise your site. A good listing on a popular search engine can works wonders for traffic levels, so try spending some time optimising your pages. If youre unsure and need some guidance with the technicalities, there are numerous sites and forums on the Internet that can help you out.
4) Entering your site for awards is an excellent way to gain recognition. However, when suggesting your site for review, be sure to avoid automatic award submitting services, since these can significantly lower your chances of winning. They dont generally fare too well with the judges either.
5) Although not entirely free, you might like to experiment with running competitions on your site. Even if the prize is inexpensive (e.g. a t-shirt with your Web address on the front), its a sure-fire way to reel-in interested visitors. Besides, directories specialising in listing competitions may also link to your site and send you additional visitors.
6) Submitting your site to the Open Directory (dmoz.org) is a free necessity for generating more site visitors. Not only will a listing here help to increase your sites relevancy (for search engine purposes), it will be accessible via countless other Web locations who use the Open Directory to power their own sites.
7) If you want to instantly draw some attention to your site, then tell all your friends about it. Word of mouth advertising is the best possible form of promotion anyone can muster, and incidentally, its completely free!
8) Try telling visitors how to bookmark your site. There are still many Web surfers out there inexperienced with the Internet. Youd be surprised at how many also dont know how to bookmark a Web site theyve found. That said, when designing your pages, its a good idea to tell visitors how to add a bookmark. Alternatively, you could add a click here to bookmark us hyperlink.
9) Newsgroups are perfect for gaining site recognition. Recklessly promoting your site in newsgroups, however, is frowned upon. The key to promoting your site in newsgroups is to participate in newsgroup discussions that interest you. To promote your Web site (and to avoid any behaviour that may be deemed inappropriate), simply include your Web address in your signature. If readers appreciate your point of view, then its likely that they will take some time to visit your Web site.
10) You should endeavour to update your site regularly. Fresh, regularly-updated content will enable you to gather a keen audience, and whats more, it will keep visitors returning. Its far easier to retain existing visitors than to find new ones. Therefore, your content should be structured in such a way that it entices people to return.
11) You may not have realised but how a person finds their way around your Web site is a make-or-break scenario for traffic levels. If people cant find what theyre looking for then they wont view your site in a favourable light - and chances are they wont return. Therefore, when designing your sites pages, keep site navigation in mind, since consistent traffic levels are swayed by your sites user-friendliness. All your content should be easy to locate within three mouse clicks. Think simple navigation. If visitors can find what theyre looking for within the shortest amount of time possible then by and large, they will keep a mental note of your site and may pay a visit in the future.
12) Sites that are fast to load keep visitors visiting, and theyll undoubtedly help to increase your Web site traffic flow. Keeping site loading times down is a free and sensible way to indirectly increase traffic. How many times have you visited a Web page, only to find that it takes an age to load My guess is that you didnt bother waiting around. On the Internet, if you want to be successful, then your site should (ideally) strike a balance between presentation and loading time.
Summary: A massive, targeted advertising campaign is the ideal solution for quick traffic. However, most ordinary Webmasters are not working for large corporations who can afford this level of promotion. The fact is you dont necessarily have to pay for high traffic levels, although if you are opting for the free route, you will have to work hard if your endeavours are to be successful. Remember: some of the best and most effective ways to increase traffic do not always require a wallet!
These tips are courtesy of Andy Varley, owner and Webmaster of FreebieList.com ( ), a site dedicated to reviewing only the best quality freebies that can be found over the Internet. FreebieList.com provides a great mixture of consumer freebies and free Webmaster resources.
The answer to the first question is simple, the difference between spiders and visitors is dollars. Good old fashion sales, cha ching! ring the cash register. Without quality visitors all of your SEO, website analysis, and keyword ranking nightmares, not to mention the 1000s of hours you spent changing and tweaking the look of you website, everything, was a waste of your precious time.
Dont get me wrong, you do want the spiders to visit your website and without all the work mentioned above they wouldnt stay very long or come back. But remember search spiders are very, very small and hopped up on caffeine go pills. They are faster than an F-16 and make more stops in one hour than Santa does on Christmas Eve. They have no time to stop and shop. Even if they did where would they carry the plastic They dont have any pockets or purses to carry a wallet. Their only job is to take a quick look at your site and split to the next URL in the queue. They are mindless robots with one mission.
Secondly, Even if you do your SEO job as good or better than 95% of the webmasters out there you still arent going to make the first page! Figure it out, do the math. Between Google, MSN & Yahoo there are only 30 first page spots per given keyword or phrase. Thats out of what 6 quad trillion pages! The shear size of the web spun by these spiders is staggering! MSN alone reported today it has 6 billion pages of data in there three month old search index. Add to that Google, Yahoo and AOL and, well you get the picture. For you or me to get to the first page is almost impossible. Can you change the way things are No Way baby, it isnt a reflection on your optimization work its just the way it is.
To quote a true expert in the field, Dean Philips
. . . Because when you stop to consider that Google, DMOZ and Yahoo! have millions and millions of pages in their directories, youd really have a better chance of winning the lottery, than getting high enough in the results pages where its going to make a significant difference in your traffic.
The answer to the second question, How do I get more visitors to my website is a little harder to give a definitive answer to. There are as many opinions available as there are SEO websites and so called Experts. But the bottom line is there are ways.
You have the tools, use them
If you are a website owner and/or you have a good webmaster you have the tools at your disposal already. Most people would think that link exchanging is one way but its as old and worn out as that pair tennis shoes you have stuffed under your bed that your wife has been telling you to throw away. Paying for banner ads on other same type content websites will work to some extent but the best website choices are usually your direct competitors and giving them your hard earned money makes no sense at all. Google AdSense blocks seem to be on everyone website maybe that will work to bring in some income. Maybe, but it doesnt move your stock off the shelves and it wont pay your employees or truck payment. Lastly, you could try Google AdWords advertising, I know first hand that it works to bring in traffic. But watch out, if you dont manage it right it will get expensive quick.
Heard enough All of those ideas at one time or another were very good and a couple still work if used sparingly in conjunction with a good overall marketing plan. The spiders have spun this web so big and so tight that if you dont have a good marketing plan you will get stuck and lost. You simply just have to have a plan and find alternative ways to attract real traffic to your website. More traffic will turn into more sales and that is what we all need.
If you have been looking around the web for an SEO expert to help you bail the water out of your leaky dingy I am sure youve noticed the same trends I did. Virtually everyone, not all but close, has taken the Lemming approach to there SEO work, Follow Google. First its we need to fill your meta tags with crap then its you need a Reciprocal links index no wait now you need only one way links Enough already. Thats fine for the big corporations, they have huge advertising budgets and enough bank to finance $10,000 per month, go in every direction optimization projects. Thats fine for those SEO firms that currently have these big bucks corporate clients under contract. What about you and me How do we get our fair share of the visitors and give us a fighting chance to make a living
The answer is Forget everything youve read and go back to what you know!
The reason you got into your business in the first place was because you had a product that you knew a lot about and had good success selling it to the neighborhood. In fact, before you mortgaged your house and spent your kids first year of college tuition to get involved in the WWW you knew EVERYTHING about that product. You were the Guru, the expert. Ive got news for you friend, you still are. No matter what Google says.
Now all we have to do is prove it. I say we because from this point forward were partners. Youre still in charge, you still pay all the bills and spend all the profits, but together we are going to get the word out about your great website.
Thats great Michael, but how
With a great overall marketing plan using todays SEO techniques coupled with the old school marketing that you used for so many years. Add that together with a few new ideas and we will be back on top in a few short months.
First off you need Content! Anyone who has known me for long knows that I believe Content is King. Even if you are a product sales website with 1000s of skus you still need good solid content to bring your customers in and keep them on your site. Long enough to hear about your products and see your great prices. In fact if you have half that many products the content articles are the most important part of the equation. Content holds the key to breaking free of the cocoon and making the spiders pay attention to your website again. So many good things can be said about content that I hardly know where to start.
Well written product articles, featured reviews, test drives, product comparisons, almost any written content will give you untold opportunities to flood the spiders data bank with keywords and phrases. Not just 10 words or 30 words but hundreds of keywords and phrases. Articles will help educate your customers before they buy saving your customer service reps countless hours. These educated customers will come back and tell their friends about your great site. Other webmasters will hear about your website resulting in links and possible affiliates. The benefits are endless.
Discussion boards used to be the big thing. Now, unless you have a tremendous amount of traffic they arent worth the time it takes to maintain. Blogs or weblogs on the other hand are reasonably new and easy to maintain and a great way to pass on information to your prospective customers and the search engines love them. In fact if you start one, your product weblog may be the first of its kind, I dont think I have ever seen a blog about widgets
The point is you have the knowledge to make this work. You dont need someone to do all the work you. Like Santa you just need a good helper. If you are not a good writer then practice or hire someone who is. If you need help getting this project started give me a call. Just do it!
Michael Klasno is an Assisted SEO Marketing Specialist and CEO of Net Performance Group Inc. Net Performance specializes in fishing and outdoor website design and marketing. For more internet marketing articles by this author please visit: