So you’ve built your site and you’ve told everyone you know about it and where to find it. Now you are ready to tell the rest of the world about your new venture but you’ve got a budget of, oh, nothing. Whatever will you do? You may not know it yet, but advertising on the web can be as costly or as inexpensive as you want. It all just depends on where you go and what strategy you decide to employ.
On the high end, you could opt for banner ad placement on high profile sites such as Myspace and Amazon, but one of the more cost effective solutions can be just as effective. Here are a tips for getting free traffic to your website.
Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization or “SEO” as it is commonly called, means that you are making the proper edits to your website to make it more visible to search engines such as Google and Yahoo. There are many things you can do to your site’s source code that will help improve your ranking such as the inclusion of alt tags on all images, the use of meta tags, and the inclusion of a .txt file to show search engine spiders (programs that index your site to make is searchable) around. This is important and will be one of the first ways you will promote your site for free since most people use search engines to find what they are looking for.
Yahoo Answers
Yahoo Answers is quickly becoming one of the biggest reference sites on the web. If you use your website to promote your product, then you can benefit from answering questions on Yahoo Answers and build your reputation as an expert in your field. It will give you the opportunity to flourish in your environment and entice would-be customers to visit your site and find out more about what you have to offer. You can put a link to your site in your answer or in your profile. If someone reading likes the answer you give and wants to check out your site then you’ve got a customer in the door.
Twitter
Twitter is a great resource for instant networking. Twitter is a very popular “miniBlog” site which allows you to create a profile with a link to your site. Once you join you can start posting “miniBlogs” at any time. You can use these blogs to ask your readers a question that will engage them and encourage them to visit your site. If you host a blog on your site or you need an opinion for a poll, then Twitter away and find out what people think. In the meantime you will be driving traffic left and right and oh, yeah, it’s FREE!
