21 Ways To Promote Your Website - Part Three by Neil Stafford

In this last installment of the series, we'll take a look at the remaining seven ways you can promote your website.
Please note that the 21 ways we've looked at are by no means exhaustive and should be used to help you decide which way(s) you prefer and are comfortable using.
With that thought, let's move on to the final seven.
15) Reciprocal Links
This involves the swapping of links with other websites usually within your niche market; however, I've seen many reciprocal links on sites that aren't related.
Reciprocal link exchanges were originally used to build up your link popularity rating with the search engines, although over the last few years this has become less effective as Search Engine technology advances.
However, don't discount reciprocal links just yet.
On several of our sites, we still seek out high ranking and high traffic websites where we can both benefit from a reciprocal link exchange.
In this case, I'm not doing it for the benefit of search engine ranking but for the pure reason of traffic generation.
A link in a prominent place on a high traffic site will, by its very nature, generate traffic for you. And if you have your site set up correctly you should be able to capture the visitors name and email address.
16) Search Engine Listings or SEO
Let's get one thing straight - I am not a search engine expert by any stretch of the imagination. In fact I heard the best definition of SEO earlier last year when it was called...
"Search Engine Optimist"
However, I do understand the principles and do put in place strategies to take advantage of the natural search listings.
The easiest way is to add content to your website and link this from an index page or site map on your website.
I run many websites that are single sales letter types sites and many of them have a page rank of 3, 4 or 5.
However, behind these pages are several dozen content pages that are linked via an index page. By checking my site statistics I can see which pages are driving traffic and in many cases new sales.
When setting up a new sales letter site, I'll use PPC traffic to gauge how well it will perform and for the ones that do really well I'll spend the time adding content pages to sit behind the main site.
17) Classified Adverts
I'm not talking about classified adverts online but simple adverts in your niche market's magazines and publications.
This simple strategy has made us thousands in various niche markets and has even had the magazine editorial team contact us to see if we would like to contribute to the magazine itself.
In specialist magazines you can often place a classified ad for only a few pounds or dollars and know that it will be reaching your target audience.
The idea of these adverts is not to sell your product off the page but to drive the readers to your website and preferably a name capture page.
To do this, your advert must contain a benefit to the reader to put down the magazine, go online and type in your web address.
18) Your Own Business Stationary
If you operate in many different niche markets and are only selling digital products then this may not be ideal for you, however, if you have a small number of markets then at a minimum I'd have business cards printed with your web address on them.
In our main niche markets, we have business cards that have an offer and call to action on the back to encourage people to visit our sites.
We also have letterheads, and if we send out a physical product, we enclose an insert with the branding and an offer or another call to action for the customer to take.
19) Email Campaigns
If people are already on your email list this shouldn't be the end of your traffic driving process. By making sub lists of your main list you can then send targeted messages to drive your customer and prospects to new sales pages and offers.
20) Forums
You may already know my view of forums within the Internet Marketing arena.
However, forums in niche markets are still an ideal way to drive traffic to your website. However, PLEASE don't go and blatantly promote your site on the forums...there are rules to follow.
First of all, find the forums in your niche and spend a bit of time 'lurking' reading the posts and watching how they are answered.
After a short time, you'll get the feel of the board and if they allow any promotion of websites or if you can use a signature file at the bottom of your post.
Once you understand the rules start answering some of the questions on the board, and leave your URL and/or signature. file at the end.
My own view with non marketing forums is not to try and answer all the questions; answer only a few and answer them completely with very good advice or suggestions.
This will get you noticed more and build up credibility with the other people on the board.
21) Conference Calls
Conference calls are an ideal way to build up an email list quickly and are an excellent relationship-building tool as well.
You can either have a free to join call or have attendees pay a fee to join you. Either way I'd approach other 'players' within your market and ask them would they promote your call for you. With a paid call you can offer an affiliate deal.
The call should be on a specific topic and during the call you can make reference to several pages on your site or make a specific sales offer for attendees.
With a free call you can make the MP3 recording available afterwards encouraging your attendees to tell others about it. This will create a viral effect as the call gets passed around and in turn drive traffic back to your website.
I have an mp3 that I recorded more than 3 years ago that still drives traffic to one of my sites each and every week!
Summary
So there you have it, the conclusion of '21 Ways To Promote Your Website'. Which ones will you implement into your business?
Running a successful web business is simple, but not easy. If it was easy everyone would be doing it.
However, it is simple...
What could be simpler than having a product that people are actively looking for and letting them know where they can get it from?
About the Author
Neil Stafford is Editor and Publisher of the Internet Marketing Review the UK's longest running PRINTED Internet Marketing Newsletter. 'Test drive' the Newsletter for FREE - Visit this special web page for more information: http://www.InternetMarketingReview.com/sya