Articles - Written by Gino on Monday, October 1, 2007 12:18 - 43 Comments
25 Ways to Promote Your Website or Blog
I have hand picked all of these resources based on their usefulness, rate of success and overall quality. I have written this article to help people find new sources of traffic for their website or blog and to shed some light on some of the best resources related to each method of promotion. I hope you find this article informative and useful! Enjoy!
1. Article Directories
Article directories are a wonderful way to get traffic and backlinks to your website. There are many well established article directories that have been proven to get websites traffic. People search for articles in different categories and after reading the article they usually follow a link at the bottom of the article to your website.
www.GoArticles.com
www.eHow.com
www.EasyArticles.com
www.ArticleDashBoard.com
www.Article99.com
www.ValuableContent.com
www.EzineArticles.com
2. Business Directories
Posting in business directories is still an effective way to get backlinks and small amounts of traffic. Most directory sites have many listings that are organized into. Being that there are so many business directories, the best way to find one related to your site would be to do a Google search or to use the websites below to find them.
www.dmoz.org
dir.yahoo.com
www.lii.org
www.stpt.com/directory
www.business.com
www.cannylink.com
3. Classifieds
Classifieds are a common way to easily make posts for free, and reach large amounts of people. They tend to work better for business or service-based websites, but you can also drive traffic to other types of sites as well
www.Kijiji.com
www.craigslist.org
classifieds.myspace.com
classifieds.yahoo.com
4. Forums
Forums are another good way to get backlinks and traffic, but you need to contribute to the forums and not just spam them with your links. I recommend becoming an active member of forums that are related to your site, as well as including your website link in your forum signature. By making intelligent and informative posts people will be inclined to check out the link in your signature because you’ve built interest about yourself.
The best way to do this is to manually search for forums related to your site and then sign up to start posting.
5. Social Networking Sites
Social networking sites are often overlooked as a way to market a website or blog. Having lots of friends and access to groups can be a good way to contact a lot of people in an easy and efficient manner. Most social networking sites also have forums and classifieds that you can post in.
www.myspace.com
www.facebook.com
www.linkedin.com
6. Social Bookmarking Sites
Social bookmarking sites can be an amazing way to promote your website. What a lot of people will do is write a killer article and then submit it to the social bookmarking sites to drive traffic to that article, hoping it will get bookmarked a lot.
www.netscape.com
www.digg.com
del.icio.us
www.furl.net
www.stumbleupon.com
www.reddit.com
ma.gnolia.com
de.lirio.us
myweb2.search.yahoo.com
www.simpy.com
www.newsvine.com
7. Search Engines
This is probably one of the most difficult ways to market a site, but also one of the most popular ways due to the fact that the traffic you get can be extremely targeted to exactly what your site offers. This is especially important for sites that sell a product and are looking for a high conversion rate. It is usually better to start off targeting niche markets and low competition long tail keywords. Ranking well on Google for a phrase like ‘graphic design’ in the search engines would be extremely difficult to do, so look for longer keywords or more detailed ones.
www.google.com
www.yahoo.com
www.msn.com
8. Word of Mouth
This is a very basic and old school way of marketing but it has remained because it really is effective. All you have to do is tell all your family, friends and co-workers about your new site or blog and let them do the work!
9. Pay per Click Advertising (PPC)
PPC advertising takes a lot of studying to do right, and can cost a decent amount of money, but if your site is well designed and converts well, or you are just looking for traffic, it can be a very powerful marketing tool when done right.
adwords.google.com
searchmarketing.yahoo.com
adCenter.Microsoft.com
10. Banner Advertising
The difficulty in banner advertising is simply creating a very alluring banner design in the amount of space specified. Some sites don’t let you create animated banners, but if you have a very intriguing static banner on a good site it can get you traffic for sure.
The best way to do this is to manually search for websites and blogs related to your site and contact them for a banner exchange.
11. Text Link Advertising
Text link advertising is usually cheap and can bring in lots of traffic, but the traffic tends to be rather unspecific - which is ok sometimes. I find it best to look for sites related to your website to buy text links spots on. Or, if you are just looking for tons of traffic, you can go to major text link sites that offer spots on very large websites.
www.text-link-ads.com
www.adbrite.com
www.adengage.com
12. Print Advertising
Print advertising can be very expensive, but is especially useful when advertising in a specific location. For example, if you are opening a new restaurant in a city, sending out flyers is a surefire way to get people to your website and restaurant. You could also drop off business cards or flyers at local stores and start offering your services to local people.
www.4over4.com
www.modernpostcard.com
www.vistaprint.com
www.clubflyers.com
www.alocalprinter.com
13. Portfolio Sites
There are many websites that host portfolios of designers and artists. By submitting your work to their sites you will often get a lot of exposure to your own site by way of a link.
www.behance.net
www.altpick.com
www.portfolios.com
www.deviantart.com
14. Tutorial Sites
Submitting tutorials is a great way to get traffic to your website via a link. A lot of designers submit tutorials to sites like the ones below, and get a lot of exposure. Most of these tutorials sites are very well ranked so getting a link on them can be very good for your website or blog.
www.pixel2life.com
www.good-tutorials.com
www.tutorialoutpost.com
15. Link Baiting
Linking baiting is when you write or post something that has the potential to be blogged about, linked or bookmarked a lot. Good content in general will help your website or blog out a lot, but you can step it up a notch by producing videos or articles specifically for link baiting.
16. Contests
People love entering contest, especially if there is a desirable prize. Contest prizes range in types. Some sites will offer you exposure and links and other sites will offer money or actual physical prizes. The key to a successful contest is obviously getting lots of people to enter, so make sure you promote your contest as much as you can on forums, classifieds and more. Also, don’t be afraid to enter contests for a chance to win some money or prizes, yourself!
17. Link Exchanges
This is arguably one of the most important ways to rank well for keywords and bring traffic to your website. It is important to exchange links or get one-way links from relevant sites. Make sure you are using an important keyword because your links anchor text and not a word like ‘click here’ or something you don’t want to rank well for in search engines.
The best way to do this is to manually search for websites and blogs related to your site and contact them for a link exchange. Also, check out the two sites below.
www.seopen.com/seopen-tools/
blogsearch.google.com
18. Email Marketing
Email marketing can be very beneficial if done well. You do not want to be a spammer or buy lists of emails, though. The way to work email marketing is to have an opt-in email form on your website where users can sign up to receive emails and special offers. Offering a free e-book or tips is a good way to get people to sign up. Once they are signed up you can send emails once in a while to bring them back to your site or to promote something.
www.aweber.com
www.icontact.com
19. Viral Marketing
This is the hottest new way to market a website, but it is not easy! You have probably heard about all these YouTube videos getting millions of views, and articles on Digg getting thousands of hits. If you can think up a really clever, funny or useful idea and tie it into your website via a link or some other way, you can drive incredible amounts of traffic to your site with very little money or possibly none at all.
20. Videos
Creating videos has become very popular since the creation of YouTube and other video-based sites. This ties into viral marketing and is a good way to get people interested in your blog or website. It is most common to show or say the URL of your website at the beginning and/or end of a video, or tie it into your video site profile some how.
www.youtube.com
video.google.com
vids.myspace.com
video.search.yahoo.com
video.msn.com
video.aol.com
www.metacafe.com
21. Podcasting
This is basically creating audio files and then letting your users download or stream them via a link on your website or blog or via RSS feeds. This is a good alternative to creating videos if you don’t have a video camera or don’t like being on film. I have seen many sites successfully offer audio downloads as a way of bringing users a large amount of information quickly. You can even post on craigslist.com and hire voice over talent for your podcasts at affordable prices.
22. Blogs
Blogs are a great way to reach a lot of people in a fast manner. They take a lot of work, and to make a blog really effective they need to be updated with fresh content at least several times a week. A lot of websites will have a blog in addition to a main website as a sort of news system for their main site, or just as a way to drive traffic to a website.
www.wordpress.com
www.blogger.com
www.twitter.com
www.squidoo.com
www.tumblr.com
23. eBooks
eBooks have become very popular and they tend to spread well in downloading communities. You can even sell your eBook on eBay, via a website or just offer it as a gift to get people to sign up for your newsletter.
24. Press Releases
Press releases can be an efficient way to get media attention if your website or product is newsworthy enough. There are several websites you can do this on. However, more commonly press releases are mailed, faxed, or e-mailed to assignment editors at newspapers, magazines, radio stations, television stations, and/or television networks.
25. Networking
Networking can have many benefits to promoting your site. I am always adding people on instant messaging services and talking to people related to my field. By networking and making friends in the business you can learn from each other and help each other which will benefit your site.
The best way to do this is to meet people in forums or on sites related to yours and chat via instant messengers. I usually run 5 different instant messengers that are all filled with business contacts and friends.
www.aim.com
www.skype.com
messenger.yahoo.com
get.live.com/messenger/overview
www.icq.com
26. Conclusion
I hope this article helped you narrow down the best methods of promotion for your website or blog and we plan on doing more in depth reviews of these resources at www.youthedesigner.com so be sure to check back often for new tips on design and website promotion.
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43 Comments
Great List. Thanks for all the helpful links.
great stuff, thanks for sharing ! thumb up
Zohaib Ahmed
Nice list. This is going to help me 
thanks for the list, many useful helps. I just want to add that behance.net is having a contest at the moment where you upload your portfolio and if it’s considered good you have the chance to win 1000$ and get featured in behance’s online magazine. excellent way to promote your design!
joel
Great article. Many Thanks.
I thought this would be another wasted effort and I am happily wrong. THANKS
wow! a very handy guide
I am not forgetting it to bookmark right away…
thanks
Nice to see somebody, who knows where to promote a website to increase site vistors, and prospects…
A Great List of resources.
al
what about high traffic award sites like http://www.thefwa.com ?
one of our clients had a site featured there and got 40000 visitors from that site alone.
Gino
The fwa is good too, but they seem to mostly give awards to interactive and flash based website.
I personally dislike flash sites for portfolio sites unless you are actually promoting animation services.
Even with a fast connection most flash sites take a while to load and I’m very impatient and don’t like the extended wait time.
Statistics show as well that most internet users will leave flash sites and sites with splash pages!
What a phenomenal post! Thanks so much… You are right on.
Don’t forget design:related, ( http://designrelated.com ), for setting up a profile (that can then link to your site/blog). There’s also a news posts section where you can also promote your projects/etc and vote it up.
This ia all really great advice for increasing traffic. Thanks for sharing. Drop by my blog and request your free blog review.
Hi,
I just wanted to add Mister Wong(http://www.mister-wong.com) to the social bookmarking list. Some of our users have created a couple of design related groups where members share some of their favorite resources.
http://www.mister-wong.com/groups/Design/
http://www.mister-wong.com/groups/Webdesign/
Excellent List.. I think it shows that turning your blog into a relatively popular place takes a lot of work. People need to explore multiple outlets in order to get linked in with other sites of similar tastes, and start to build up a community.
For video tutorials on improving your Wordpress blog, you should also check out http://www.tubetorial.com
I have no affiliation with the site, but I really like most of their work there. Very handy.
Thanks for all the helpful advice - great stuff.
You might also want to check out a list of PageRank 4, 5 and 6 Directories at:
http://www.1websitedesigner.com/directory_submission.htm
All the best,
Martin
Thanks for the list!
A Great List of resources. Thanks
A Great List… Thanks for sharing.
25 Ways to Promote Your Website or Blog « Window to My World
[…] Here’s the original article. […]
One tip about print. True, print can be very expensive and you usually don’t see a return until about 5 printing or viewings. If you are good at content creation like photography or writing you may be able to cut a deal with a local publication in lieu of payment. In the past I have bartered my photography for advertising and I have also worked for magazines in the past where they have had guest writers provide “how to” articles in lieu of other ads or payments. In some ways this is like blogging or podcasting except in print media. Sometimes those are called, “Advertorials” and publications will often give you a good by-line. You can get free ad space for all practical purposes and they don’t have to pay extra for writer.
Great stuff as usual!
This is Exactly what i need
You didn’t mention about promoting your RSS feed and Ping sites like Ping-o-matic etc., very useful!
Great List. Wish I had thought of creating one like this, although now I don’t have to!
I personally like free, viral ways of promoting sites. Like posting videos with links to my site or putting it up on stumbleupon. Because they are actively looking for stuff related to your site and you can capture a targeted audience without much time or money. There is no need to think of any kind of ads or catch phrases. Just link back and people will check it out.
Gino
Yes viral marketing is one of the greatest ways to advertise nowadays. I myself plan on experimenting with videos in the near future. I have a few ideas I would like to test out!
Good tips to promote website. I will use these tips to promote my website.
Thanks
Links to Great Articles on Paid Blogging « IKNOWBLOGS!
Thank you for publishing this list. Have bookmarked it and plan on going through each and doing some testing to see what works and what doesn’t… thanks for making my research a little easier
- Tina
Thank you for publishing this list. Have bookmarked it and plan on going through each and doing some testing to see what works and what doesn’t… thanks for making my research a little easier
please do write these type article’s it definitely
people like us who just learner:):):)
25 Ways to Promote Your Website or Blog | abelcreative.com
[…] web offers a myriad of options for promoting you site without spending a dime! This article highlights some great resources for promotion and marketing. Definitely worth a read! Posted on […]
I work for a Stamford, CT-based human services nonprofit serving our region’s most vulnerable children and families, and we’re about to start a blog. I’ve found many articles suggesting how to promote our blog, but this has been the most informative and readable. I liked the breadth of your discussion and specific advice; glad it wasn’t just a collection of links…that’s valuable, but less so for my purposes. Thanks–I now feel like I can actually get this thing read by other people!
Garland / http://www.domuskids.org
Thanks for the info!
Great stuff. It is very useful.
Thanks
Thanks for the information, great content & lists of useful websites.
This is superb information, I will print it out.
Thanks for the useful info!!
Thanks for the information.
Thanks for information.
Thanks for the info. I used it with my own site and im know hoping it works!
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