Free Website Promotion Methods Still Exist
by Nathan Anderson
http://www.searchspot.com/
Back before the dot-com crash, it used to be
easy to find free methods for advertising
your website. Many companies offered promotion
opportunities at no cost in order to gain
market share, popularity, or name recognition.
Things have changed.
The larger sites that "gave away the farm", so
to speak, ended up not surviving when things
got tough. The vast majority of major sources
of free promotion dried up in mid 2000.
Since then, advertisements for free traffic
are everywhere. The problem is, you'll find
that the vast majority of these programs are a
waste of time. Many of these free sources
require you to spend your precious time
surfing other people's sites, or promoting a
matrix or MLM program.
The one exception I've found to this rule is a
traffic exchange called Traffic Roundup. You
can find it at http://www.trafficroundup.biz/
If you don't have the time to "surf" for
credits, you can buy traffic and banner
impressions really cheaply. I recommend the
"PRO" level of membership at a measly $5 per
month.
There are STILL good methods of promoting your
site on the web for free, though. One such
method, if you have the time to set up these
accounts, is to get free signup bonus accounts
from small Pay-Per-Click (PPC) search engines.
These small PPC search engines don't have
enough bidders to cover all the keywords
available; so they are desperate for bidders!
They'll usually give you a $5, $10... or even
$25 and $50 free balances in your account
when you sign up.
You won't see a lot of traffic from these
little guys, but if you sign up for a TON of
them, they can be a substantial source of
traffic for your site!
The best list I know of for these PPC search
engines is in the ODP. The URL for the
category is ridiculously long... so just
search for "Pre-Funded PPC Accounts" at
http://www.dmoz.org/ You can find more of
these small PPC search engines by searching
at the other various search engines with the
same search phrase.
As an owner of a small PPC search engine and
Web Directory, I can also "chip in" to your
efforts with a $10 free account at my search
engine - SearchSpot.com. Here's the link:
http://www.searchspot.com/cgi-bin/bidsearch/signup.cgi?free=1
Speaking of Web Directories, they can also
be a nice source of free traffic for your
site. Many Web Directories offer free
inclusion of your site in their Directories,
though you may have to wait a while to be
included.
A few of the better ones are:
http://www.dmoz.org/
http://www.GoGuides.org/
http://www.Skaffe.com/
http://www.WebSavvy.cc/
http://www.Gimpsy.com/
http://www.JoeAnt.com/
Search Engine Optimization is another way
to get free traffic to your site from the
free search engines on the Web like Yahoo
and Google.
I've outlined the basics of SEO on my site:
http://www.webmarketingguide.com/. The
basics are easy, and can result in some
serious traffic, depending on your site's
subject area and the competitiveness of
the field.
So if you have some time to use these
resources, you should have a nice flow of
free traffic to your site in no time!
To Your OnLine Success!
-Nathan Anderson
Nathan Anderson is an Internet marketing
consultant, SEO expert and owner of
http://www.SearchSpot.com/. He is the author
of Search Engine Optimization Tactics and
owner of the SEO Club, which can be found at
http://www.SEOclub.com/
