ActionNet Website Promotion

Website promotion is promoting your business website with anything that will give you publicity.  It's an ongoing day-in & day-out affair...  and a lot of work... but the effort will pay off. 

Banner Programs

Banner exchange programs can help build your site traffic for free.   They are easy to use.  Most just furnish some HTML banner code to paste into you web page... in return they put your banner on other sites.

First thing you have to do is create a banner.   You can do this yourself with the graphic software in Step #3 Website Design or... you can find sites that will build a banner for you free.  Here are a couple...

The Banner Generator
MediaBuilder Animated Banner Maker

There are plenty of sites that will build a banner for you... just search for free banners.

Once you have your banner...  here are some excellent sites that list and review the exchange programs.

AccuSubmit's banner exchange comparison

http://www.markwelch.com/bannerad/baf_exchange.htm

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Free Classifieds

There are literally thousands of sites where you can run free classified ads.   Although most (80% or more) of your site traffic will come from the major search engines... this is another way to get that little extra.  But... classifieds can be a real time consuming pain!  You will get lots of unwanted email... and you have to constantly re-post your ads.  That aside... you can get some rewarding results... if you work at it.

One of the real jobs is writing an ad that works.  Take the time to go out to some of the big classified sites and read ads similar in content to what yours will be.  Notice that the ones that catch your eye use high impact words and hard-sell the benefits.  Write yours the same... and again... copy!

You will have no trouble finding the classified sites... just search for classifieds.  But to save some time here are some sites that list classified links.

http://www.ecki.com/links
http://www.angelfire.com/in/highlandgroup/1000.html
http://www.uran.net/imall/mother.html
http://www.icemall.com/allabout/links.html
http://www.webthemes.com/submit.html

On most classified ad sites your ad will appear at the top of the category list when you first post it... but will be pushed down each time a new ad is entered.  If you want to keep your ad at or near the top... you have to post it everyday!  One way to help this is to write your ad in Notepad or any small text editor... and then cut & paste it into the entry form.  Or... there are some for-pay services and software out there that will post your ads to many sites simultaneously.

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Directories

Directories are much like the phone book yellow pages... where to find what you are looking for.  Most allow you to list your business site free... then try to sell you additional service.  Here's a few...

555-1212.com
All Business Network
BigBook
BizWeb
Business Seek
ComFind
Four11
National Direct Internet Yellow Pages
New Riders Yellow Pages
WEB World Email Directory
Where2go
WhoWhere
WorldPages
YellowNet

Reciprocal Links

Whenever you find a website that could complement yours and visa-versa... email the owner or webmaster and offer to swap links or banners.  Sometimes this works best if you take it 2nd step first... that is... put a link to their site on your site... then email em' with praise for their site!

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Mailing List

Build a mailing list.  You can use the mailing list to alert people to new products or features on your business website.   And...  you can promote one business with the mailing list from another.   Advertise your mailing list prominently on your website... and outline the benefits of signing up.

Promote your mailing list online... here's a list of sites you can use for that...

http://www.neosoft.com/internet/paml/bysubj.html
http://www.lsoft.com/lists/listref.html
http://www.liszt.com/
http://www.webcom.com/impulse/list.html
http://www.meer.net/johnl/e-zine-list/
http://www.catalog.com/vivian/interest-group-search.html

Use ListBot!  ListBot is a FREE service that will keep your mailing list for you... allow you to email all or part of your list easily... you can download your list for safe keeping... and you can have several lists.  Here's how it will look on your site...

Offer contests as a tool to build the mailing list.  Put a contest page on your site listing current contests and sweepstakes for your visitor to enter... and an opportunity to sign up for your contest mailing list for notification of new contests.  NOTE... this will only work if you search the net and keep the contest page up to date.

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Free Content

LookSmart also has BeSeen... several excellent tools and content for your site... chat room... guest book... credit card service... and much more. Check it out...

http://www.beseen.com/

Here's another free news source from FreeRegister... they offer several free options with good features.