Site Contents

Advertising In General

The secrets of how to advertise your web site You've worked hard and long to create a beautiful, hopefully profitable web site. Now, how to you get people to visit it? You must advertise it! You can enter it in search engines, FFA lists, award programs, webrings, email lists, and newsgroup signatures.

• Autoresponders Be sure that an email is sent out whenever possible to acknowledge any submission by your visitors. An autoresponder is perfect for this.
  • Thank you or confirmation autoresponders When you visitors apply for something, submit a poll, sign up for anything or give you their email address for any reason, be sure to send a thank you confirmation email.
  • Autoresponder services Here is a list of autoresponder services which can help you generate return traffic. Autoresponder technology automatically follows up with your visitors, which reduces the amount of labor you need to perform to get them back to your site or to make a sale.
• Include your URL on anything you print One very effective way to advertise your site is to be sure that your web site address is printed on everything you have including business cards, stationery and even pencils.
• Send out an email newsletter Be sure to send out a monthly (or even weekly) newsletter to visitors to your site.
• Classified advertising on the internet
• FFAs Add your links to an FFA for additional exposure of your web site
• Hit Trees - Are They Effective? Have you run across something called a hit tree? They are somewhat popular and they are supposed to get millions of hits. Do they work?
• Join communities to get even more exposure
• Link Exchange can improve your hit count Exchange links with a site of similar tastes or subject to gain additional exposure.
  • Link Exchange Services Should you simplify your life by using link exchange services? I would not recommend it.
  • Quality Link Exchanges If you are going to create a link exchange, be sure you have the correct motive and do a good job.
  • Is Zeus A Good Product For Building A Link Exchange? There is a product with a great idea. It's called Zeus and it's supposed to automatic link exchanges. Is it worth the money and time?
  • Why Do People Link To Sites? There are lots of reasons why people will link to sites. Here are some of the more common ones.
  • How to get links to your site A long article which ideas and information about getting links to your site.
• Put a signature on your emails and increase traffic Be sure you have a signature file for email and newsgroups so that every person who receives a communication from you also gets an advertisement of your site.
  • Target your signatures to the appropriate audience Be sure your email signature targets the audience of your email message for maximum effect.
  • Using Signatures An accepted way to promote your website is with email signatures.
• Send out some press releases to get even more exposure Put together quality press releases whenever you can and email them to every online publication and newsletter as you can.
• Submit your site to awards sites to get more exposure Submit your site to award sites to get more exposure. While many webmasters have doubts about their value, winning awards can boost your ego, improve your traffic and impress your visitors.
• The ins and outs of banner advertising Join a free or for pay banner exchange program to get people to visit your site.
  • Popup Advertisements - Good or Bad? Okay, so you are considering using popup advertising on your website. Is this wise?
  • Banner Creation You have many tools available to create banners
  • Banner Services You need to create some banners? Here are some services (free and paid) for you to check out.
  • Banner Sizes Here are the standard sizes for the various banners. This is a general agreement among advertisers.
  • Banner Tips This page includes some tips to help you with your banner campaigns.
  • You Can Do Better Than Banner Exchanges Think you want to join a banner exchange to get people to visit your site? Think again.
• Use bulk emails with caution You can send out bulk emails if you want. Usually this is for pay, often just a small fee.
• Use site submission services wisely to improve your traffic You should use site submissions services wisely to generate more traffic to your sites
• Watching and Posting to Newsgroups Create a list of newsgroups that you watch on a regular basis and respond to postings to those groups.

Autoresponders

Autoresponders You've received them, probably without even knowing it. Now you will learn what they are good for.

• What Good is an Autoresponder? A term that confuses just about everyone is "autoresponder". When I mention that to friends or associates, they almost always reply with a blank stare, a "what the heck is that", or "I don't like those at all". Even though the concept is very simple, autoresponders are very, very powerful if properly used.
• Attributes Of A Good Autoresponder This is a list of some of the things that you should demand from a good paid autoresponder.
• The autoresponder course Do you want your visitors to come back to your site again and again? How about offering an autoresponder course?

Ezine Tips

Ezine Tips Want to get your visitors back to your site over and over? Create an ezine, publish it regularly and have fun.

• Ezine Tips - Format and structure You want to create an ezine? Here is a list of some of the decisions that you need to make.
• Ezine Tips - Titles One of the most important things about a ezine is the title. This determines whether or not it will be read at all.
• Ezine Tips - Creating Your Own The most valuable people you can get are those that come back to your web site time after time. And one good way to get them back is with an email newsletter.
• Ezine Tips - Hosting Your Ezine Where you host your ezine is important. You want to spend your time creating your ezine, not handling the mechanics of the list.

Free Stuff

Free stuff Headquarters Get your free stuff here! Free guestbooks, counters, homepages, web sites, and everything else under the sun.

• Free stuff Headquarters - Webmaster Utilities Here is the place to find lots and lots of add-ons to make your website attractive to your visitors.
  • Free Banner Exchange Programs Banner exchanges are a way to get your banners displayed for free on other web sites.
  • Free Chat Rooms You want to add a great feature to your site? Consider adding a chat room.
  • Free Counters You will want to include a counter on each page of your web site in order to get valuable statistics about your traffic.
  • Free Email This is a list of free web-based email.
  • Free Graphics and Clip Art Want some free clipart, graphics or other images? Check these out.
  • Free Guestbooks Guestbooks are a great way to get your visitors to leave you messages about your site. This can be used to help promote your site, get testimonials, or just to get feedback.
  • Free Message Boards Message boards are a great way to add value to your site and to get visitors to come back again and again.
  • Free News Feeds With these services you can get news delivered directly to your website.
  • Free Polls And Surveys You can add surveys and polls to your site to get visitors interested and returning for more.
  • Free Redirection Services Do you need to hide a URL or make it simpler for your visitors? You may want to use a redirect.
  • Free Search Utilities These services allow you to add a search box to your site.
  • Free Submission Services Need to submit your site to the search engines? These services can help you automate the process.
  • Free stuff Headquarters - Translation Services Surfing the web can be a frustration experience when you run into sites in different languages. These services can help you out.

Message Boards

Message Boards A way to make a very sticky site is to have an active message board

• Message Boards - Moderator The best message boards are wonderfully and expertly moderated. The worst are frequented by nothing but spam robots.
• Message Boards - Contributor Message boards thrive on contributions. In fact, without contributors there is no board at all.
• Message Boards - Ethics Nothing is more sad than a once proud message board being reduced to rubble by a malicious moderator.
• Message Boards - Promotion Message boards are very useful in getting people to return to your site, but they must be promoted in order to be of maximum benefit.
• Advertising on Message Boards Afraid to use a message board to promote your site? There are ways to do it, but there are some rules you need to follow.
• Why Would You Add A Message Board To Your Site? You want people to come back to your site over and over? Give them lots of ways to communicate and they may return more often.
• Message Board Spamming Some people consider message boards to be just another way to promote their products and sites. Moderators call it spamming.

Search Engines

Submit your site to search engines Be sure to submit your web site to as many search engines as you can.

• Are The Search Engines Censoring The Internet? It seems everyone wants to be listed in the search engines. However, the are apparently some concessions to be made.
  • The Problem With Search Engines Search engines are the most used and least trusted way to find information on the web. Use them to promote your site, but be sure and build up other ways for people to get to you.
• General Search Engines There are just a dozen or so big general search engines to concentrate on.
  • AltaVista AltaVista is one of the busiest search engines. It is also one of the best places to get your site listed. Their Scooter spider flitters all over the web looking for sites to add to their index.
    • Scooter Scooter is the spider for the Altavista search engine
  • Direct Hit Direct Hit is a good search engine that spiders about every 30 days
  • Excite Excite is one of the hugest search engines on the web.
  • Google Google is the hugest search engines on the web.
    • Googlebot Googlebot is the spider for the Google search engine
    • Google And Duplicate Content So does Google penalize for duplicate content? Or is it just another urban legend?
    • Google's Search Options Google has many different search options. This table lists them all.
    • Google - Page Rank Explained What is this thing called Page Rank? Does it really matter?
    • Frequently Asked Questions About Google (For Surfers) Some of the questions commonly asked by surfers appear on this page.
    • Frequently Asked Questions About Google (For Webmasters) Many of the questions commonly asked by webmasters are listed and answered on this page.
    • How Did I Get Listed in Google? Sometimes you get listed in Google evem though you didn't even try. Here are some of the ways.
  • HotBot HotBot is one of the most popular search engines. Getting listed here is always a great idea.
    • Slurp Slurp is the spider for the Inktomi search database. This is used by Hotbot.
  • InfoMak Infomak is a great search engine to be listed in.
  • Lycos Lycos is a great, heavily advertised search engine.
  • WebCrawler WebCrawler is another great search engine.
  • What-U-Seek What-U-Seek is another great search engine.
• Directories are great places to get your web site listed A directory is a list of web sites which is usually maintained in some manner by human beings. These have the advantage over search engines in that they are typically better matches for your needs.
• Here's a list of many of the search engines available Submit your web site to as many of these as you can and you will get more traffic.
• Use ROBOTS.TXT to control search engine indexing You can use ROBOTS.TXT to keep search engines from indexing parts of your site
• Cloaking Want to get your site thrown out of the search engines for good. If so, then by all means use cloaking to manipulate yoru search engine rankings.
• Search Engine Spamming Using somewhat questionable techniques, you can force your site to be higher in the rankings, and thus get more traffic. That is, until you get caught...
  • Domain Name Spamming You can artificially raise your site in the search listings by manipulating your site's domain name.
  • Guestbook spamming Some unethical companies and webmasters perform mass postings to thousands or even millions of guestbooks to gain pagerank.
  • Log File Spamming Some webmasters leave reports of their hits (including referrers) open to public viewing. This can be used to unethically raise a site in search engine rankings.
• Highlights from a recent posting on WebMasterWorld Recent evidence suggests that Google may be run by aliens...