How to Promote a Website with No Money

If you are the owner of a website, you probably know that getting traffic to that site is the biggest challenge you face. Many webmasters want to make money from their site and they think that they have to spend a lot of money to promote the website. That's not true! There are plenty of people selling books and courses that claim to teach you how to get tons of traffic to your site, and while some of them are good, a lot of them just contain information that you could find for free on your own. If you don't have any money to spend - even on a book, read this article and learn how to promote a website with no money. You won't get a million visitors overnight, but you will steadily increase your traffic if you follow these tips.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Website
• Computer w/Internet
• Excel

1. ~ Make Sure that The Search Engines Know About Your Site ~
   
   The major search engines, like Google, Yahoo, MSN Live, and Ask have to know that you have a site before they can send spiders to crawl it. Each engine has a page that will allow you to submit your site. You only need to do this once.

2. ~ Add New Content Continually ~
   
   There's nothing the search engines love more than content - lots and lots of good content. One of the best ways you can promote a website is to continue to add good content that visitors and search engines will love. Choose keywords wisely, and write well, but most importantly - keep adding.

3. ~ Create an Excel Spreadsheet to Track Your Efforts ~
   
   This is optional, but will help you to keep track of your promotion efforts much more easily. Make separate pages for different types of website promotion - like blogs, forums, directories, and article submission sites. Make a column for the name of each site, the URL, the date you posted, and add a notes section. You'll add information to this spreadsheet all the time, so keep it open.

4. ~ Add Your Site to Directories ~
   
   There are plenty of free directories where you can add your website to get backlinks, which is going to be important in helping you achieve higher rankings with Google. The premier free directory is DMOZ, so be sure to list your site with them, but check for other niche directories as well. As you apply to different directories make sure you log them in your spreadsheet so you don't waste time applying at the same site multiple times.

5. ~ Write and Submit Articles to Article Submission Sites ~
   
   The most famous of these sites is Ezine Articles, but there are plenty more of them out there and they are a great way to promote a website for free. You'll need to set up an account with almost all of them and read the terms of use for each before posting. Some require an original article, some allow posting of duplicate content. Make sure your author resource box contains a link to your site. Your article can also link to your site in most cases, as long as it's done so tastefully. Other webmasters will use your articles and must provide a link back to you when they do so. Make it a habit to submit to at least one of these sites every few days. Log each site you submit to on your spreadsheet.

6. 
   Submit Articles

   ~ Find Blogs in Your Niche and Become a Reader & Poster ~
   
   Use Google to find blogs that are in the same niche as you. Comment on these blogs regularly and always enter your website in the space provided. It's also acceptable to sign your name and type your web address under your name, but make sure you add useful information when you comment and don't just spam with links to your site - or the blog owner will likely delete your comments. Try to post on at least 3 - 5 blogs a day. As you find new blogs, enter them into your spreadsheet so you can easily find them again.

7. ~ Find Forums Relating to your Niche and Get Involved ~
   
   Another great way to promote a website with no money is to find forums that relate to your niche and become a regular poster. Make sure that you add your website to your profile and to your signature. Remember, add useful information to the forum - don't place links all over your posts. It's okay to do so sometime, when the post calls for it and after you are known on the boards, but just get involved. As you post good information, people will eventually check out your links. Again, enter the information for the forums where you belong into your spreadsheet so you can find them again easily. Post in forums daily for best results.

8. ~ Form Relationships with Bloggers, Website Owners, and Forum Owners ~
   
   Once you start posting on blogs and forums regularly, you can form relationships with the owners of these sites and possibly link to one another or be invited to guest blog for them. There are plenty of ways to help each other promote your websites and people are likely to trust you more if you contribute to what they are trying to do before asking them to do your site a favor. Working with other site owners can be one of the best ways to promote a website and it doesn't need to cost a thing. Make sure you are always thinking about what you can offer someone else and not just what they can offer you.

9. 
   Keep In Touch with Your Visitors

   ~ Send a Newsletter ~
   
   This one may actually cost something because you may need to use software to send your newsletter, but having an opt-in newsletter is a great way to stay in contact with your visitors and to get them back to your site. Make sure that your newsletter sign up is placed where people will notice it and invite them to sign up on EVERY page of your website. Also, make sure that your newsletter contains valuable information and isn't viewed as spam. Sending a newsletter or ezine consistently will get people back to your site and may even create some buzz for your site over the long run.

10. ~ Consider Starting a Forum On Your Site ~
    
    You can get forum software for free and having your own forum is a great way to promote a website. It will take some time to get people to sign up and to get the conversation going, but once you do, it's a wonderful way to build traffic because people will visit your site every time they come to your forums. Make sure you are active in your own forums.

11. 
    Be Consistent

    ~ Be Consistent ~
    
    There's no way that you can do all of these things in one day, or even in one week. However, if you do something every day, you will start to see results in a very short amount of time. People will start to visit your site because of your promotion, but all of your work will also pay off by getting backlinks - which coupled with good content and keyword research will help you to rank better with the search engines. When that happens, you will really start to see your traffic grow. Be patient and don't give up, building promoting your website will take time and won't happen overnight.

[dfager]

on 9/11/2009 Thanks for the clear explanations, being new is difficult to understand all the terminology on websites, forums, blogs, etc.

[roanna]

on 7/16/2009 Thank you for the tips. Now it is time to follow and be consistent for me.

[Upon-Request]

on 6/27/2009 Great tips for website owners!

[staysik]

on 6/11/2009 Very good ideas here, and thanks for the resources and directories!!

[blackberrygirl]

on 6/7/2009 I thought this was a fantastic article, I have learned so much. You were very thorough and I enjoyed your writing style. Thanks.Jennwww.thepantrydiet.webs.com