Web Site Promotion:

Revisiting Old But Proven Ways To Promote Your Web Site

With new technology (i.e., Web 2.0) available on the Web today, there are even more ways to promote your site. You can promote using MySpace, YouTube, Social Bookmarking, and of course, Blog and RSS.

However, too many marketers today seem to go from one technique to another as soon a new technique gained some prominence. Perhaps, they feel that they have more chances of getting more visitors if they are one of the firsts to use that new strategy.

In reality, it doesn't always work that way. Most 'new' strategies are fads or worse, duds as they have not yet being time-proven and time-tested yet.

Even if it may be a gem, a new technique will normally take some time to master, and the learning curve will certainly be greater than the old techniques for the general marketers.

Instead of getting bogged down with the new techniques, or turning your back on those old but trusted ones, you should revisit them once in awhile.

The following are five Web 1.0 web site promotion strategies that are still working for most sites today, including mine:

1. Holding a contest or sweepstakes is a tried and tested way to promote your web site. You can announce your site to hundreds of web sites that list free contests and sweepstakes. Send out a press releases about your contest or sweepstakes. Ask entrants to your contest or sweepstakes if they would accept offers from your business in the future by e-mail.

2. Use online chat rooms or discussion boards to promote your web site. Find the right discussion board where your targeted audience would gather. Announce to everyone in the discussion board something interesting or free that's offered on your web site. This will draw visitors to your web site. Always be aware of discussion board rules before engaging the visitors in a sales pitch that could be considered spam.

3. Cross promote your web site with other sites. I try to find other web sites that have the same target audience, but are not in direct competition with my business. Doing cross promotions or joint ventures with other businesses increases your profits, sales, and beat your competition. You can find businesses to cross promote or joint venture all over the Internet.

4. You can easily promote your web site by using traffic generators or now more commonly termed as viral marketing. It could be those strategies of the 1990s such as offering a free e-zine, service, e-book, software, contest etc. Giving away traffic generators gives you the opportunity to get free advertising by including your ad on them. There are online directories that will also let you submit your freebie information. You can even let other people give away your traffic generators.

5. Posting messages to e-mail discussion lists is still a great way to promote your web site. An e-mail discussion list is a group of people connected together via e-mail that can communicate with one another. Nowadays because of constant e-mail spamming, these discussion groups are more web-based than before - you can post messages at a web site such as Yahoo! Group or Google Group and can opt not to receive emails. When you post a message to a list, include your signature file at the end. Include an attention-getting sentence why they should visit your web site. But check the terms and conditions of posting first so that your sig file with an URL does not considered to be spam.

Rich Adz is a part time entrepreneur and content writer, who runs several

online and offline businesses such as richADZ, a site that offers information

on how to build successful businesses on a part time basis. Rich is also

the founder of e-borneo.com, the leading Borneo travel site on the Net.

Copyright © richADZ.com

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