"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 truly free. If you're not spending money promoting your site, then you'll have to spend time. So why waste time on some website promotion methods that will only give you negligible returns? If you're prepared to put in the work, these five free website promotion techniques will reward you with increased traffic to your site. 1. Promote your site through powerful SEO. SEO stands for search engine optimization and it's the best thing since sliced bread when it comes to free website promotion. SEO is the process of attracting search engines to your web pages; the great thing is, it's not difficult to learn and apply to your own website(s). By working on SEO, you can improve your webpage's page ranking and drive more traffic to your site. And isn't increasing traffic the ultimate goal of free website promotion? Start with my basic rules of SEO. When you're ready, move on to some finer points like applying keyword density. Tip: If you're using non-text content such as images, image maps, or JavaScript on your webpages, include text in ALT tags for your images so the search engines have something they can read. 2. Promote your site through reciprocal linking. When others link to your site from their sites, you get free website promotion. You also gain a better search engine ranking for your webpages. The top three search engines (Google, Yahoo, and MSN) use inbound links as an important component of the formula to decide a webpage's ranking. Note that although this kind of free website promotion isn't a "numbers game," the quality of the links really matters. So focus your efforts on quality reciprocal linking relevant to your site. The standard process is to look for and identify relevant websites where you'd like to have links to your site, then send each webmaster an email asking for a link on their site in exchange for a link on yours. Tip: You can check a website or webpage's ranking before attempting reciprocal linking by using a PageRank query and link popularity tool like SEO tools. Google's toolbar also has a webpage ranking display function. These tools can conveniently check your own website and/or page's status and progress. 3. Write articles to gain free website promotion. The benefit of this free website promotion strategy is, again, others promote your site for you. If you get your popular, long-lasting articles published on other well-known websites or magazines, they can sit there for a very long time giving you free website promotion without further effort on your part. However, there are catches. First, you must be able to write on a subject or topic that others will want to read and/or publish. Second, you must find quality places to publish your article and convince people to make the decision to publish it. When you find them, ask if they can use a specific piece including your article so they can see it right away if they're interested, and send it via email. Make sure to mention in your email that they're welcome to publish the piece for free. Also, ensure your work ends with a resource box or "blurb" that promotes you and your website. Tip: If you want to be published on a website or magazine for the first time, spend some time reading their content to see what type of material they might want, and if there are any obvious gaps in their content that you can cover. Then tailor your material to the specific needs of that website or magazine. What other free website promotion techniques are actually worth spending time on? There's more on page 2 of this article... Related thematic articles: The winner Cruz dance of New York Giants enters the spotlight before the Super Bowl Newly built article 1 EU investigates Samsung's network patent licensing practices Understand free website promotion tutorial methods Latest women's perspectives