to get the best ways to promote your website for free

by ddenglk231 on 2012-02-10 15:21:37

"How do I get free website promotion?" is a question I am often asked. When it comes to free website promotion, the thing to remember is that nothing is truly free. If you're not spending money to promote your website, then you'll have to spend time. So, why waste time on some website promotion methods that will only bring you negligible returns? If you're ready to work on them, these five free website promotion techniques will reward you with increased traffic to your site.

1. Promote Your Website Through Strong Search Engine Optimization (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, and the great thing is, it's not hard to learn and apply to your own website(s) at a basic level.

By working on SEO, you can improve your webpage's page ranking and drive more traffic to your site. Isn't that the ultimate goal of free website promotion? Start with my basic rules of SEO. When you're ready, move on to some finer points, such as applying keyword density.

Tip: If you're using non-text content on your webpage(s), such as photos, image maps, or JavaScript, include text in your image ALT tags so the search engines can read something.

2. Promote Your Website Through Reciprocal Linking.

When others link to your site from their websites, 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 part of the formula for deciding a webpage's ranking.

Know that while this free website promotion isn't a "numbers game," the quality of the links really matters. So you should focus your reciprocal linking efforts on quality links related to your site. The standard process is to look for and identify relevant sites that you'd like to have link back to yours, 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 tools like SEO Tools' PageRank Query and Link Popularity Tool. Google's toolbar also has a PageRank display function. These tools can conveniently check your own site and/or page's status and progress.

3. Write Articles to Get Free Website Promotion.

The benefit of this free website promotion strategy is, again, that others promote your site for you. If you get articles published on popular, long-lasting websites or well-known 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 about a subject or topic that others will want to read and/or publish. Second, you must find quality places to publish your articles and convince people to make the decision to publish them. 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 freely publish the piece. Also, ensure your work ends with a resource box or "blurb" that promotes you and your site.

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 you can cover in their content. Then tailor your material to the specific needs of the website or magazine.