Viral Marketing

Many people are creating their own web sites, both for fun and for profit. And one fact is true of just all of these sites - visitors are needed. I mean, without people, and lots of them, visiting your web site it's a pretty futile effort, isn't it? Why bother to put all of the effort, sweat and time into a site only to have no one read it?

Most people understand that to be seen they need to submit their sites to search engines. Many others use email signatures, postings to FFA lists and other similar methods to get people to get to their site. Some even use classified ads and perhaps even ezines to promote their hard work.

One of the best and most often overlooked method of promoting a site is called viral marketing. This is the technique that has been successfully used by the largest web sites over and over again. Sites with familiar names like Amazon.Com, Bluemountain.Com and even Yahoo.Com.

So what is viral marketing? It is exactly what it sounds like ... you create something that people want and add some links to that thing. Visitors to  your website like what you've got and add it to their own web sites, send it to their friends and load it onto their own computers for future reference!

And then those friends and visitors to their web sites do the same thing. They download it to their own sites, send it to their own friends and load it on their own computers.

Thus, it works just like a virus! And believe me, a good viral marketing campaign can spread fast and furious, all over the internet. You got a great free give-away with your links, and other people will do the rest for you.

Compared to a good viral marketing program, the search engines are a small drop in the bucket.  Great sites like Yahoo.Com would die in a minute if they depended upon search engines - they depend upon millions of other people advertising for them.