The best web site ever won't succeed at all unless it gets a high exposure. Promotion is at least as important as the site itself, as something is really worthless if nobody knows of it.

WHERE TO START?

Before getting started promoting your web site, you should check that it is ready to receive its first visitors. If you don't take care of this previous step the mistake could ultimately ruin all your efforts:

• Make sure that your site is 100% finished: An incomplete web site will give a poor impression to your visitors. It will seem unprofessional or even abandoned. Test your site and fix any error, broken link...
• Make sure that your site has a decent amount of content: It's a bad idea to promote your site when it has just started its journey and it is almost empty. The starting content might attract visitors but it is unlikely that they will come back to your site unless they have some perception that it's a growing up-to-date source of content.
• Make sure that your site is search engine ready: Though search engine optimization is a wider concept and can be performed after the site is launched, you should check some points in anticipation: that your urls are indexable, that all pages are linked from other pages, that titles are descriptive, that your site has proper description and keywords meta tags (they still work for some minor search engines and directories, and in any case they won't harm), that you use important keywords in link texts... Postponing this task could harm your site in terms of indexation and search engine rankings.

SEARCH ENGINES

Most Internet users employ search engines to find what they are looking for, that's why it is important that your site has a good visibility in them. Search engines are the most important traffic generators on the Internet.

• Search engine submission: Submitting sites to search engines is an almost obsolete technique: major search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN...) will find your site through links to it and minor ones are usually useless. However it is still worth a try to find relevant and popular search engines to submit your site to. As a general rule, a search engine will be worth the submission if it can bring your site traffic by itself.
• Search engine optimization (SEO): The set of methods used to make a web site attractive to search engines and improve its rankings in organic (non-paid) search results. The SEO techniques will alter some factors of your web site, both on-the-page (content, link structure, HTML...) and off-the-page (essentially links received from other sites) to this effect. Optimizing your web site and taking no risks on some penalized techniques (Black Hat SEO) will improve notably your search engine traffic and your web site visibility.
• Search engine advertising: Paying for search engine top listings (usually on a pay-per-click basis) for a number of specific keywords is an easy way to bring visitors to your site from the very first day. It can be considered as complementary to the natural search engine positioning, even in some cases (specially with highly competitive keywords) it can be used as a replacement for organic search traffic. Though big advertising solutions like Yahoo Search Marketing and Google AdWords will generate the most traffic to your web site, you should concentrate not only on major search engines, but also on specific theme-related ones. Moreover, price comparison search engines are specially efficient for sales sites.

LINK BUILDING

Some years ago Google revolutionized the search industry by taking into account web sites' incoming links in its ranking algorithm. This improved the quality of search results and also made them more difficult to manipulate, as they weren't based exclusively on on-the-page (easily modifiable) factors. Sooner or later all major search engines adopted that measure, making link building strategies more important than ever. Of course links are also valuable for the simple reason that they drive direct traffic to your web site.

• Directory submission: There are only a couple of major directories: Open Directory Project and Yahoo Directory. The first one allows free site submissions while the second one doesn't. Beyond those two, there are thousands of less important directories, most of them with paid submissions. Unless you have an unlimited budget, submit your web site only to those directories that are really popular or that are very relevant to your content (niche directories). Otherwise all your money and effort won't be profitable.
• Link exchange: A very common practice is to arrange reciprocal link exchanges with other web site owners. While it is an easy and sometimes effective way to increase your site's link popularity, it is also risky. Search engines are driving their efforts to ignore (maybe even penalize) what they consider "artificial linking", that is, linking that isn't naturally and spontaneously built. So you should avoid massive link exchanges and concentrate on just a few of theme-related sites.
• Link purchase: Some web site owners won't be willing to exchange links, but to sell them instead. This is common in popular and heavily trafficked sites. Analogically to the previous point, you should analyze in each case if the purchase is worth the risk.
• Link baiting: This newly coined term refers to the strategy of offering specific content to your visitors with the (only?) intention of generating interest and gain links. Anything controversial, humorous... This term is a bit unpopular right now but, what is the difference between "link baiting" and the classic "content is the king"? Probably just the intention, not the action. In any case, link baits or "hooks" are a very effective link building technique: it's always better and faster to encourage links than to ask for them.

ADVERTISING

Get the maximum exposure for your web site by investing in Internet advertising. Choose from different ad formats (text links, banners, rich media...), different targeting (specific sites, contextual ads...) and different pricing models (pay-per-click, pay-per-impression, pay-per-signup, fixed rates...) by contacting directly publishers or by participating in big ad networks like Commission Junction, Fastclick or TradeDoubler.

OTHER METHODS

Let people hear of your web site through any medium you can think of:

• Issue press releases when you have something significant to say about your web site. Send them to free press release distribution services like PRWeb.
• Participate in topic-related forums, weblogs, newsgroups... Don't spam, simply share your thoughts on the given topic and post your web site url in your signature. Talk about your site only when requested.
• Write articles for others to include on their sites (or in their newsletters). Ask that they include a link to the original content source (and maybe a little description of your product/service) and you will increase your web site's visibility. Submit your articles to publishing services like Ezine Articles.
• Publish your own newsletter so you can increase your web site awareness and gain your visitors' loyalty.

Original article published by Javier Garc