ErichKolb.com

In a way, creating and publishing your website is the easy part. The hard part is getting people to visit without breaking the bank on advertising. In order to gain an audience you need to let people know you exist. There are a lot of great ways to promote your online presence. Here are just a few that have proven useful to me.

• Use Technorati to promote your product (write a blog entry and promote that).
• Write an introduction to your new application and submit it to share sites like Digg, Reddit and Now Public.
• Make easy to be bookmarked on del.icio.us so you get into the popular page.
• Submit your web application to Techcrunch.
• Submit your web to StumbleUpon and get your friends to Stumble your site.
• Submit your web application to search engines like DMoz.
• Create a MySpace account and advertise your site.
• Submit your site to free, search engine friendly directories (UK Small Business Directory, BT Tradespace, Biz-Dir, Redcog.net).
• Submit your web application to Read/WriteWeb.
• Submit your RSS feeds to sites likeFeedBurner, Jordomedia, Squidoo, Feedboy
• Write and submit articles.
• Add a bookmark option to your website/blogs.
• Write an article related to your site and submit it to article sites.
• Send press releases using PRWeb.com.
• Exchange widgets with other similar web applications in order to promote each other.
• Publicize your site on related forums.
• A forum or chatrooms will give your users a reason to come back to your site.
• Add a link to your site in the signature of every forums you post on.
• Find a quality blog and leave there a comment with a link back to your site.
• Add photos to your blog with appropriate keywords.
• Propose something for free. People like this.
• Add a “Tell a Friend” function to your site, in this way you can be recommend easily to other people.
• Sign up with an affiliate programme to sell your product.
• Create a promotional video and upload it to YouTube and Google Video then encourage people to share it.
• Be attentive to the spelling mistakes.
• Offer as many ways as possible to contact you: MSN, Skype, Yahoo, emails, phone and a real address.
• Write subjects on Wikipedia.
• Put downloadable content on your site.
• Response to your customer’s emails promptly.
• Ask bloggers or other competent peoples to review your site or product.
• Select carefully your desired keywords and use Google AdWords
• Sponsor a Wordpress theme.
• Share your banners on banner exchange sites.
• Buy enough hosting to have a fast site.
• Link to other sites, especially if they are relevant.
• Include a Feedburner button on your site and people will subscribe easily to your feed.
• Ask your friends to give you honest feedback on your site.
• Elude technologies like Active X and Java.
• Buy advertising from Stumble Upon
• Advertise your site on Craigslist.
• Write a rich descriptive title at the top of each of your pages. Users and search engines like this.
• Submit photos and pictures to online photo albums like Flikr, Photobucket.com, YahooPhotos.
• Add a Bulletin to your MySpace account.
• Upload your product feed to Froogle.
• Search unanswered questions on Yahoo! Answers and add your site there.
• Translate your websites/blogs, especially in Chinese.
• Find domain names that get traffic, purchase them, and have them redirect to your website.
• Review some related products on epinion.
• Encourage readers to comment on your blogs.
• Become friends with editors of an offline publication.