What are the different Methods of Promotion in Websites ?

[shalini bhalla]

[nandam v]

http://www.affiliatejunktion.com/?a_aid=c18838c2
Great source very helpful tips.. Not mine

1. Write something great about your niche and email other bloggers to let them know – there’s a good chance they’ll link to you

2. Have a signature link in forums that points to your site

3. Post links to your pages to social bookmarking sites.

4. Leave comments on other people’s blogs and link back to your site (tip: look in the digg upcoming section for blog posts about to get a lot of traffic).

5. Have the opposite opinion on everyone else on a popular topic, providing you can justify it. Everyone will get annoyed and link to you saying your wrong

6. Answer questions on Yahoo Answers - quote your website as the source.

7. Post in Yahoo and Google Groups with a link to your site in your signature

8. Make a 404 page that redirects to your homepage – no point losing visitors

9. Have an opt-in form – trade links with someone else who has an opt in form on your confirmation page

10. Review a product or company – if your review is positive email the company and ask to be featured in their press section. (this has worked really well for me)

11. Write articles and submit them to article directories

12. Write a Press Release and submit it to PRWeb (make sure it is newsworthy)

13. Use PayPerClick Traffic (e.g Adwords, MSN Adcenter, YSM)

14. Add an RSS subscribe button/link in a high profile spot on your site

15. Add a mailing list subscribe form in a high profile spot on your site

16. Add a bookmark this site link in a high profile spot on your site

17. Use a Tell A Friend Script on your site so people can email their friend about an article on your website.

18. Submit a blog to a blog directory

19. Submit you RSS feed to RSS feed directories

20. Mention your website in a post on Craigslist (don’t spam)

21. Optimize the titles of your pages for keywords people will search for

22. Buy links to your site

23. Buy reviews about your site on other people’s site

24. Buy banner space on other websites if you can get a good ROI

25. Send articles to ezine publishers with a link back to your website

26. Do a big viral push for a piece of link bait, post it in forums, social bookmarking sites like digg, email bloggers, and get a few people to vote for you on social bookmarking sites – this little push could start a viral chain reaction!

27. Have a link to your site on community sites like MySpace and FaceBook

28. Use a traffic trading system like BlogRush

29. Purchase misspellings of competitors domains and redirect your site (be careful of trademark infringement)

30. Create a freebie product to give away (ebook, software, whitepaper etc.)

31. Submit your site to the hundreds of free directories – use the viles-silencer list

32. Do a group feature where you get other website owners in your niche to participate – maybe asking them all an opinion on something.

33. Hold a competition for the Top 50 in your niche – 1 month later post the results and let everyone know who featured – watch them link back to say what there position was.

34. Pass out business cards when you go to industry events in your niche

35. If you have a product start an affiliate program and start approaching affiliates

36. Submit videos to video sharing sites like YouTube and Metacafe. Include a link in the description and within the actual video.

37. If you have a product send it to website owners to get reviewed.

38. Look at a big website within your niche and ask to write some guest posts for them

39. Create pages with links to your site on places like Squidoo and Hubpages

40. Place classified Ads on eBay with a link to your website

41. Use an autoresponder on your mailing list to keep people coming back to your site

42. Exchange links with a few related sites in your niche

43. Network! Email other site owners, phone them up, go to industry events and get yourself known. If they know your face they will likely talk about you on their site if you do something interesting.

44. Many forums have a place for you to advertise your site once – find them and do it.

45. Purchase advertising in other people’s mailing lists and newsletters

46. Create an Amazon profile and start submitting reviews

47. Create profiles on MySpace and start networking in groups that are interested in your site’s niche.

48. Conduct a survey and publish the results – make sure you let people know about it.

49. Get your hand on a load of PLR content for your niche. Add a commentary to the top, create a unique title, and post them all to your site – lots of new content and lots of new traffic.

50. Create a cartoon mascot for your site – then hold a competition for someone to create the best game for it – pay the winner a decent amount.

51. Make sure you have a memorable domain name that is short and catchy.

52. Use a well-searched for keyword within your domain name to help rank for that keyword.

53. If you sell a product ask someone else who sells a product to list your product with theirs, and you’ll do the same for them – split commissions on sales.

54. When you write a new article on your site – link to as many blogs as possible – they will likely see your site in their pingbacks, website stats, or Technorati. They will visit your site and possibly subscribe to it and link back at a later date.

55. Get your RSS feed syndicated to different sites like Zimbio and hubpages and Topix.

56. If your site is popular and has quality unique content then apply to get listed in Google’s News search.

57. Create a sitemap and submit it to Google (not great but might help)

58. Use your robots.txt file to stop Google indexing certain directories and pages on your blog (such as archives) to avoid duplicate content issues).

59. Create a couple of small 10 page sites related to your main site. Offer links on these smaller sites in return for links to your main site (this is triangular reciprocal linking).

60. Get yourself known as an expert and get featured in offline magazines, TV and radio stations.

61. Use an auto-translator service to translate your site into other languages – put it in a subdirectory and watch foreign traffic come in.

62. Make posts about sex (don’t have to post anything rude) – and watch the porn surfers find their way to your site through Google.

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EXAMPLE:
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Lets say I have a site about Pianos.

For a one off post on your blog you might find a TV advert for pianos on YouTube that has a nude woman playing piano - all tasteful - not showing anything.

Post that video on your site - write a commentary with plenty of keywords in (use a few different ones) - make the title something like:
"Nude Piano Playing Woman - Naked Lady Gets Musical On Youtube"

Now you'll likely get lots of horny people arriving at your site who searched for sex related terms in Google like
"Nude Woman on Piano"
"Naked Musical Lady"
"Nude Woman YouTube"
and so on...

even these obscure terms can bring some traffic.

It won't bring the highest quality traffic - but it can still be monetized on.



63. Post about celebrities current events if it relates to your niche – there’s always a lot of people looking up celebrity stuff.

64. Write good headlines/titles – good titles get more clicks.

65. Get some stickers with your domain name on. Go out and stick them on strangers and say “My Website Yeah, Check it out.”

[Barbie]

Methods of Website Promotion

Promoting a Website is not an easy task. New Website Developers may have the impression of building a Website and sales are generated. This is far from true. There are millions of Websites. Within those millions, there are bound to be competitors. To rise above, or obtain a portion of the market-share, developers need to utilize an effective promotion campaign.

Establishing a Website is not much different than a brick-and-mortar business. Open a Deli in the heart of a City and millions of potential customers will pass daily. In contrast, open the Deli in the suburbs, and there would be one quarter of the potential customers. Obviously, the City would be much more expensive to get started and maintain, but the revenue should provide for the added expense.

The same holds true in Website Promotion. However, the landscape is different. There are no streets and sidewalks customers have to use. Therefore, our businesses need to be found by customers in a variety of places. It needs to be brought to the potential customer, or viewable from wherever they may be lurking.

Where do we start with Website Promotion?

One of the topics sweeping the developer’s world is Optimization. The internet will naturally bring potential customers, if the site is optimized properly. Computers work hard on matching relevant information. This is a huge benefit to e-business owners.

Before promotion begins, or altering existing efforts, understand the Internet’s backbone. Why has the World Wide Web become popular? Most should agree, information retrieval rules. Internet users don’t have to sit down and watch television waiting for local weather. They don’t have to wait for news of interest. They don’t have to drive to find the best prices. They don’t have to look through cook-books to find a recipe. They don’t have to talk to salespeople for a car. Today it’s all on the, “information,” super highway.

As a developer, focus on information delivery before beginning promotion of a Website. If a page can be divided into two topics, make two separate pages. Over-use of graphics can present problems too. While it’s nice to make a Site pretty, most people don’t care. They want the information or products they are seeking. Sectors such as art could be an exception, but for the most part, lots of graphics are a waste. People read on the internet. Give people something to read, not just something to view.

Promotion Budget

If launching a new campaign, it may take time to decipher an effective budget. There are simple variables that should be considered with budgeting. Given the potential scope of a Website, advertising should be devoted to different areas of the site. For example, paying to promote the free portion of a Website is not logical. In contrast, a free forum may sell advertising. The advertising segment of the site should be exploited.

There is a simple formula to develop a budget. If a site is new, it takes some research and investment to draw an accurate conclusion. Put simply, consider the following; how many potential customers are required to make a sale? From each sale, how much profit is generated? Of the profits, how much is invested into advertising? This identifies the value of potential customers. If ten customers make one sale, and ten dollars are allocated towards advertising, each customer is potentially worth one dollar. However, room for growth could be made by reducing the value of a potential customer or increasing the advertising contribution. A competitive sector may force reduced profits rather than reduced value of potential customers.

Comprehensive budgeting could be applied to aspects of the business. Promote each aspect as a unique entity. For example, a Website that sells music and movies could have separate budgets for the segments. This could reveal vital information to the survival of a business. Implement effective models that assist in tracking expense and results. This is fairly simple with website statistics and tracking tools.

Free Traffic Promotion – Keywords and Phrases

When it comes to free traffic, it’s about information retrieval. People utilize tools that provide information accurately and quickly. These tools rely on the developer’s interpretation of a Website or page (On-Site Optimization). What is the Website or page about? What phrases are people looking for that want to use this site? Information retrieval is a complicated double-edge-sword between people surfing the web and people creating the web. When the people creating the web do not create clear and focused pages, people surfing the Web cannot find them.

Free traffic is a gift from creating user friendly pages, clearly focusing on a specific topic, and the result of promotion efforts. It stems from a good balance. While free traffic primarily comes from Search Engines, it also comes from referring sites. People will write about a Website in blogs, forums, or on their personal pages. People will add links to Sites they like.

If developers hunt for free traffic, problems can arise. Hunting for free traffic has made developers try tricks that got the site removed from Search Engines. This can present a big problem as they are a large source of free targeted traffic. Keep free traffic in mind while promoting a Website, but don’t make it the focus of promotion. It will come naturally over time. Take it as a gift and an acknowledgement that a Website has been optimized well, presents clear information, and is promoted in the right places. Although some may argue the point, don’t anticipate quality free traffic to begin immediately. It takes extensive thought, advertising, and planning for this to happen, especially within competitive sectors.

Promoting in Directories

One place to start promoting a Website is Website Directories. Most directories are organized by topic. Some are more comprehensive than others. In addition, there are, “Niche,” directories that focus on one topic. For example, there are directories for shopping, reference, art, and automotive sites. In contrast, there are general directories that provide all the niches.

Finding an appropriate place within a directory may be difficult. Directories can a large structure. However, a comprehensive structure benefits advertisers with targeting. Comprehensive directories enable developers’ to classify a Website. For example, it maybe possible to promote a site the sells speakers, for cars, but only domestic cars, and ones that are late model. In addition, some directories may implement regional indexing. Targeting an index in a directory can be complex, but it can be a great benefit too.

Don’t expect to rush from directory to directory and establish a bunch or references. Each directory is unique. Take time to understand how the directory is structured, what they expect as a title and description, and how the suggestion process works. Seek similar sites; take note of where they appear, and how they are described.

Directories are generally affordable solutions. Most Directories are indexed by search engines. They help search engines understand a sites focus. In addition, they are a reference point for some people. It may be a good idea to seek-out one or two directories a week, or as appropriate to a budget. Finding good directories will consume a lot of time. However, once a link is added, it will remain there for a long duration.

News and Media Promotion – Public Relations

Public Relations an important factor when promoting any Business. News and Media channels are the vehicles that convey information to the public. News about a business can make a huge impact on the public. Good news can make lots of people remember a business. Some developers release news about every change or added feature to a Website. Ironically, some developers never utilize this area of promotion.

There are a variety of distribution sites that will expose news releases to numerous channels, for a modest fee. In addition, most will offer free options. It may be a good idea to utilize free options for news that is not very important. For example, adding a, “Calculator,” to a Website probably will not gain much attention. However, anything that may be important to the public needs to be announced.

If it can be added to the budget, outsource public relations efforts. PR companies have knowledge of what the media likes and contacts that make them valuable. PR specialists can be found in almost every City.

Ezine Articles - Provide Rich Content

Writing articles is a powerful promotion tool. Some developers refer to this as, “Viral Marketing”. There are Websites that require content. Content brings them traffic. Traffic builds valuable ad space.

Article Distribution sites assist promoters with circulating articles. Many Ezines rely on Distribution Sites for their content. Post an article to a distribution site and the article is, “up-for-grabs,” to anyone. The article begins to circulate the internet like a virus. Everywhere it appears, reference is given to the author and their Website.

Advertising on the Web

There are a variety of reference websites. Generally, these sites consist of Forums, Article content, and Online Chats. They rely on selling ad space as the main revenue stream. While some reference developers are, “trying to rich quick,” there are sites that offer affordable solutions to promote a Website. With free traffic in mind, seek-out text link advertising venues. Look for sites that charge a flat fee. Sites that charge per click or by the impression usually mask links for tracking. This does not build good recognition with search engines.

Seek relevant opportunities for promoting the Website. If the allows people to buy tennis shoes, a sports reference and information area may be prove beneficial. Another might be a reference site