It seems there are literally thousands of sites that promise to advertise and promote your website…….but for a price. The best known one is Google AdWords where you pay so many cents per click or impression depending on the competition of the keywords you want top rankings for. And while this will get your website to the top pages in Google, not everyone has the budget to fork out hundreds of dollars to do so.
But there are some ways you can promote your website or blog for free.
1.The first is to submit your websites URL to search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing. You can submit your site to other smaller search engines as well. Most of these however index their listings based of what Google has. Another big search engine you want to submit to is Baidu which is sort of the Chinese equivalent to Google.
2. Use social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Stumpleupon, and Reddit to name a few. Remember not to display the identical link to every site and not to send them all your links at once as this is considered spamming and will get your account banned very quickly.
3. Write Articles on free article sites such as Ezine, Articlebase, and Article Alley. While it takes awhile to generate traffic from articles initial, over time though articles can offer excellent backlinks as they get higher in search engine rankings. With articles other blogs and websites can pick them up and display them on your site giving you even more traffic and backlinks. A good rule of thumb when it comes to writing articles is to write at least one a day.
4. Yahoo Answers can help get you a lot of traffic by simply answering questions off their site. If your answers are chosen as “the best answer” your answer is displayed immediately below the question asked. Like articles question pages get higher search rankings over time, so make sure you display your URL address at the end of each answer.
5. Classified Ads are another source of traffic that often gets overlooked. Sites such as Craigslist and Kijiji are excellent for posting your site and letting visitors know what your site is all about.
6. Last but least is good old fashioned word of mouth, tell people you meet about your website. Print business cards that display your sites information and keep them on person to give to someone. Post flyers on busy streets or on store windows that match your sites content.
While these methods take time and patience they do work, stick with them and you’ll notice your traffic increase.