Creating Your Website's Promotional Strategy


Creating a successful Internet presence involves much more than

designing a great web site or having the "perfect" product. Listing

your website with the Search Engines is your first step, however,

you must not solely depend upon the Search Engines to bring

you traffic. You must design a complete promotional strategy and

work it every day.

A good way to organize your promotions is to set up a webpage,

for your personal use, that will contain your complete strategy.

This page should be stored on your hard drive and not uploaded

to your server. Your page should contain four sections.

- Daily Promotions

- Weekly Promotions

- Monthly Promotions

- Miscellaneous Promotions

Each of these four sections should contain the appropriate

information for each of your promotional resources such as,

website name, user ID, password (if applicable) and hyperlinked

web addresses for each website you plan to use for your

promotions. This will enable you to open your webpage each

day and visit each daily promotional link you have listed.

Your daily promotions should include posting your ads to a list

of free classified ad and free for all sites. In addition, visit some

popular discussion boards. Although you may not advertise on

discussion boards, you can include your signature file with your

post.

There are several websites that will enable you to submit your

classified ads and links to an entire network of sites with just

one form. Here is a list of resources to get you started:

Yahoo Classifieds

http://classifieds.yahoo.com/

AdlandPro Networked Classifieds 5000+

http://www.web-source.net/adlandpro.htm

Web Sitings Networked Classifieds 40,000+

http://www.websitings.com/classads/sites/source.htm

Epage Networked Classifieds 16,000+

http://www.web-source.net/classifieds.htm

SmallBizFFA 35,000+

http://www.smallbizffa.net/ffa.pl?35984

FFA Network 10,000+

http://www.ffanet.com/submit.htm

Free Submission 9,500+

http://hbb.nu/freesubmit/

MGA web 5,000+

http://www.mgaweb.com/submit/mgacat.asp

Link Place 3,000+

http://www.linkplace.com/

Link Station 8,000+

http://global.gr/mtools/linkstation/

USubmit 9,500+

http://www.usubmit.com/

Wizard 8,000+

http://wizardsoftheweb.com/partners/wizard/links.shtml

URL Submitter 183,500+

http://urlsubmitter.com/url.shtml

For a complete listing of some of the top discussion boards, visit:

http://www.web-source.net/web/DiscussionForums/

Your weekly promotions should consist of placing a paid ezine

advertisement and/or arranging ad swaps with fellow publishers.

Visit the Free Directory of Ezines for all the information you'll

need to place and/or swap ads with over 700 ezines.

http://www.netmastersolutions.com/

To organize your ad placements and swaps, place the

publication names, publisher names, ad dates and hyperlinked

web addresses within your weekly promotions list.

Your monthly promotions should include writing an article in the

area of your expertise, Search Engine submissions, promotional

exchanges with similar websites and offline promotions.

Writing Articles:

Writing articles that may be freely published with your bylines

is one of the best promotional methods online. Your article may

be published in hundreds of ezines, on websites or even in

magazines. To learn more about writing articles for publication,

read the article entitled, "Write For Publicity."

http://www.web-source.net/art13.htm

To organize your monthly promotions, place the names and

hyperlinked web addresses for each of your promotional

resources within your monthly promotions section.

Article Announcement Lists:

Article Announce

Subscribe: mailto:articleannounce-subscribe@egroups.com

http://www.web-source.net/articlesub.htm

PublishInYours

Subscribe: mailto:PublishInYours-subscribe@egroups.com

http://www.egroups.com/group/PublishInYours

Articles Archive

Subscribe: mailto:articlesarchives-subscribe@egroups.com

http://www.egroups.com/group/articlesarchives

Free Content

Subscribe: mailto:Free-Content-subscribe@egroups.com

http://www.egroups.com/group/Free-Content

Article Submission Sites:

ideaMarketers - http://www.ideamarketers.com/

Free Content - http://www.certificate.net/wwio/ideas.shtml

Ezine Articles - http://www.ezinearticles.com/addurl.htm

Search Engines:

Yahoo - http://www.yahoo.com/

AltaVista - http://www.altavista.com/av/content/addurl.htm/

Hotbot - http://www.hotbot.com/addurl.asp/

Lycos - http://www.lycos.com/addasite.html/

Excite - http://www.excite.com/info/addurl/

InfoSeek - http://infoseek.go.com/AddUrl?pgSubmitUrl.html/

WebCrawler - http://www.webcrawler.com/info/addurl/

NorthernLight - http://www.northernlight.com/docs/regurlhelp.html/

Promotional Exchanges:

To set up some promotional exchanges with similar websites,

visit a Search Engine and type in a keyword that best describes

your website. Visit some websites that are similar to yours, but

not in competition. Contact the webmaster to discuss your

promotional exchange. This may be a link exchange, joint

venture, or whatever you both decide.

Your miscellaneous promotions will include; running a press

release, joining traffic generating programs, buying promotional

products and advertising in newspapers, magazines, etc.

Press Release:

CanadaOne provides a free interactive press release builder.

http://www.canadaone.com/promote/pressrelease.html

Gebbie Press provides over 10,000 links to print and electronic

media on the Internet.

http://www.gebbieinc.com/

Dr. Kevin Nunley will write your press release and send it to

5,000 media.

http://coldfusion.affiliateshop.com/Link3.cfm?AID004436

Gap Enterprises will enable you to send your press release to

over 7,600 media. You write your press release or they'll write

it for you.

http://www.gapent.com/pr/

Traffic Generating Programs:

Join some traffic generating programs to build a network of

websites all linking to your website.

http://www.web-source.net/web/MegaTrafficGenerators/

Promotional Products:

IDit Plates - Put your web address on your vehicle. IDit Plates

are a great way to continuously promote your web site. They

look like chrome and blend in well with your vehicle.

http://www.iditplates.net/new/2711/index.html

Magnetic Signs - Full size magnetic signs for your vehicle. Get

a customized sign that magnetically adheres to each side of

your vehicle, advertising your website.

http://www.magneticsigns.com/

iPrint - Professional printing over the Internet.

http://www.iprint.com/cgi-shl/index.cgi'shop5072

PromoCity - Add your logo to any of over 500 promotional items.

http://www.promocity.com/

Offline Promotions:

Place ads in newspapers, magazines, on the radio, TV, etc.,

Visit these links for complete listings:

NewsDirectory Newspapers

http://www.ecola.com/news/press/

Newspapers Online

http://www.newspapers.com/

Commercial Magazine Publishers

http://www.writelinks.com/resources/pub/Pubs-mags.htm

Once you've created your promotional webpage, open it up in

your browser and add it to your favorite places or bookmark it

for easy daily access. Set up a specific day for your weekly

and monthly promotions and perform your miscellaneous

promotions as needed.

Once you've implemented your promotional strategy and

continuously work it each day, you'll be amazed with the results

of your efforts. Consistency will be the key to driving massive

traffic to your site.

About the Author

Shelley Lowery is the moderator of Article Announce Writer

and Publisher Exchange - An article announcement list

providing free content to hundreds of ezines, newsletters,

magazines and web sites. Writers announce your articles free.

Subscribe: mailto:articleannounce-subscribe@egroups.com

http://www.web-source.net/articlesub.htm