The best way to gain free web promotion is through the use of press releases, which highlight upcoming news, events and headlines regarding your company.  In order to write an effective press release, your business must be involved in something noteworthy.  Whether it be a contest, a grand opening, a special sale or other event, a press release is the perfect way to advertise your business happenings for free.  There are a number of press release submission websites, which allow business owners to submit their news for free.  In addition, submitting your press release to newspaper and magazine editors may increase your chances of being published both online and in print.  Before sending a press release, which should be no more than one page in length, make sure that your name, mailing address and telephone number is included at the top of the page.  Many editors require that contact information be present before they will even consider publishing a press release.  The reasoning behind this is to confirm the identity of the person submitting the news.

Web promotion can perhaps best be utilized through successful positioning on internet search engines.  By making sure that your website content is rich with information, links and updated information, search engines will be more likely to position your site among the top ranks.  In addition, a descriptive website will also find itís way to the top.  For example, if your business deals with collectibles, make sure that your content is rich in keywords dealing with collectibles and the product line that you offer.  Avoid stuffing keywords, but make sure that your website clearly indicates itís subject matter.

One of the best avenues for web promotion is through article marketing.  While many website owners are still somewhat unfamiliar with this approach, others are cashing in on a surge of traffic generated from properly marketing their articles.  The key to successful web promotion via article marketing is to write an informative article that everyone will want to read.  At the bottom of the article, include a brief paragraph featuring your name, the name of your business and a website address.  The next step is to submit your article to as many article directories as possible.  The more exposure, the better.  As other webmasters log on to article directories in search of content for their website, they may select your article to be featured on their site.  The more webmasters that feature your work, the more free web promotion your business will receive.

There are a number of ways to acquire paid marketing opportunities and an equal, or greater, number of ways to get free web promotion.  If done correctly, web promotion doesnít have to empty the entire expense account.  In some cases, it wonít even cost you a cent.

- List on Free Top Web directories and search engines

- Exchange link with your associates

- get one way link by article submission and blogs

- Using forums and including your sites link in your signature

- Reciprocal link exchange

- One way link exchange

Link exchange really work, A Link exchange is a clever way to get hundreds or thousands of visitors to your website for free. The concept is very simple and the exchange process is easy to put into action.

First, you join a link exchange program that includes individuals with websites to promote.

What is Link Exchange?
In Link Exchange basically, we exchange-add our site link in your site and your link in our site.

Get Listed on Free Top Web directories  and search engine and get listed on open directory project  dmoz.org  and   dir.yahoo.com  etc.

visit   a big search engine and enter a keyword you feel is extremely related to your website. And related to your content and that have a list of partner links displayed on their website submit your website their.

- Reciprocal link campaigns

There are many ways to get traffic and reciprocal link campaigns are good.
Reciprocal Link Exchanges can increase your website’s visibility in search engines… If they are true reciprocal links. When making Reciprocal Link Exchanges, Make it count! For example, if your site is about web design, you will want to exchange links with other web site design, seo, web templates and resources related to the web When visiting sites for link exchange, ensure there is a link from the main page to their directory.

If you cannot easily find their reciprocal link directory,

Look for links that read:

-Links
-Link Exchange
-Link Partners
-Link to Us
-Add  site
-Resources
-Partner sites

Traffic exchanges can expose your website to Internet users on a worldwide basis. As a result, the exchange can give your website a lot of hits

Traffic exchanges are one of the best methods of getting exposure to your site on a limited or zero budget. The more quality exchanges you sign up for the more viewers of your website you will have.

I don’t know everything and if I have learned one thing about doing business on the Internet it is that the more you learn the more you don’t know. However, I have been doing business on the Internet since 1999 and I’ve managed to carve out a successful enterprise for myself with several profit streams. The largest percentage of my marketing and promotional efforts has been conducted through one simple method-Ezine Advertising.
These are the 8 important lessons I’ve learned regarding Ezine Advertising and Marketing Success:

A common mistake many advertisers make is to attempt to do too much, or rather sell too much, in one ad. Sure you have lots of great products but you can’t sell them all in a few lines-at least not individually.  Instead focus on the benefit your customer can achieve from all your products and promote that! People are much more likely to click on a link that BENEFITS them than a link that promises to sell them something.

For example, “Help your child reach their maximum potential” instead of “Try our many reading, writing, math, shapes and colors programs”

More importantly, tell the customer “what your product or service is going to do for him.”

It is important that you identify your Unique Selling Proposition before you begin your advertising program. This will determine which Ezines (or markets) you target as well as what you should include in your ad copy. Who will be interested in your product and why? What benefits does your product offer them?

Don’t go for the sale in your ad! You are at a disadvantage because you can’t list all your products’ wonderful benefits in the space allowed. Also, there is only a small percentage of any Ezine audience that is ready to buy your product at the exact moment they view your ad. Yes, maybe they should be, but most people today live in the moment and if this isn’t the time they want to buy then they aren’t going to buy, end of story.

But it doesn’t have to be the end of the story.  If you go for the soft sell approach your target consumer is much more likely to click on your link and then you’ve got the chance to go for the hard sell-again and again!

Here’s an example. I’m selling a product called the Preschool Prep Power Pack. It’s an educational CD for preschoolers. Now I could go for the hard sell in my promotion and I would make some sales but a lot of people who really might be interested won’t even look at my site and product. However, I’ve chose to go the soft sell approach. Instead of selling my product in my ads, my ads offer two FREE items. I offer a free newsletter (Preschoolers Learn More) offering tips about preparing preschoolers for kindergarten. This is my target market for my product. The folks who subscribe also receive a free ABC-123 coloring book. Why wouldn’t the parent of a preschooler subscribe, right?

But what’s in it for me as a business person? A lot! Think about it. I now have the freely offered contact information for my target market. Now I can regularly email them information about my product. I’m confident they will buy eventually because my product provides a solution to something that concerns them-or they wouldn’t have subscribed in the first place!

Another common mistake is not giving your ad campaign enough time to work.

Studies show it takes prospects an average of seven exposures to your promotion before they take the bait. Even after they have clicked through to your site visitors may need to visit your site as many as three times before they buy from you. So make sure you keep that offer in front of them. That means it may well pay to take the long-term package versus a one-shot ad.

People run through their emails rapidly and delete things they wish they hadn’t. Make their wish come true! Give them a second, third, fourth chance. The formula is–when you’re sick and tired of it, the public is just beginning to hear it.

Just because you’ve bought ad space doesn’t mean you have to utilize every pixel or character-space. Short, punchy lines that do not use up every available space are more effective.  Think about the reader scanning down the page or screen. What will catch their eye and make them stop scanning and actually read?  White space is your friend so don’t squander it. Use it to set off your important message.

Make sure you apply the same principal to your urls and e-mail addresses as well. Nothing can make an ad look more cluttered than giant web addresses with a complicated string of numbers and letters. If you have to use an address like that (perhaps for your affiliate code, for example) then it might be wise to use a redirect. There are numerous free services out there (http://snipurl.com for exmple) although perhaps it might be a good idea to use a page from your own web site with a redirect programmed in

USE YOUR HEAD

Your headline is the most important part of your ad. This is usually the line that determines whether the skimming reader will stop or skip ahead.

Some of the proven headline formulas include:

1. Ask the reader a question: “Are you worried about filing your
tax return this year?”
2. Tell the reader how to do something: “How to buy a
car without getting a lemon.”
3. Provide a testimonial: “Big Al saved me $200 last month. Thanks, Cindy Lou from Paducah, Kentucky.”
4. Make a command. Turn your most important benefit into a commanding
headline. “Stop rushing through life.” “Make more money this month.” “Feel better about yourself.”
5. Important news makes a good headline. “Max Electronics just went international!”
6. Start the clock: “Buyers who act before midnight Tuesday will save an extra $50!”
7. Give the reader something free: “Free whatsit for the first 100 visitors!”

DON’T FORGET TO TELL THEM WHAT TO DO!

It sounds almost ridiculous, but simply giving clear, specific directions about what you want the reader to do can increase the response to your ads.

Click here to find out more: http://whatsit.com

Subscribe by emailing subscribe@whatsit.com

Visit http://whatsit.com today to save!

SET YOUR BUDGET

One of the most difficult things to decide for any business person is how much money to spend on promotion. There really is one simple way to determine the answer. How much is a customer worth to you? That tells you a great deal about how much you can afford to spend on advertising.

The simple formula to calculate the net worth of a visitor is: Net Profit divided by Conversion Rate.

First, what is your net profit on an average sale?  Let’s say $10 to make it easy. (Hey, I’m an English professor, I need to keep it simple!)

Then consider what your conversion rate is for visitors to become customers.  Let’s say one visitor out of 50 becomes a customer. (This makes your conversion rate 50 as you need 50 customers to make a sale)

With this example, a visitor is worth $0.50 to you. ($10 divided by 50)

So if you spend $100 on an advertising campaign that draws in 1000 visitors then you made $400 on that campaign.

SET REALISTIC GOALS

This issue is really about control. Yes, if you could control things that you would have a high sell through but that isn’t always going to happen. In fact, for most advertisers that isn’t going to happen. However, if your goal is to capture customers then you are much more likely to match your goal or even exceed it. And in the end a customer is worth a lot more to you than a sale because a customer can represent many sales over years to come-sales that were fairly easy to achieve.

As frustrating as it may be, advertising is usually about long-term versus short-term benefits.  Your ad simply serves as a lure to draw people into your site or long-term promotion. Once you’ve pulled them in then you need to sell them. So it is not really fair to judge an ad campaign on simple sales.

The success of an ad campaign should be measured by one or two elements only-first, how many people followed up on your offer (click-through rate) and second, how many of those visitors were you able to convert into customers (conversion rate).

Over time you will be able to judge where the weak link in your chain of customer creation exists and work to fix it.

Low click-through rate? Then it is probably your offer. You are not giving readers enough incentive to follow through. What is in it for them to click on your offer? Remember you are selling benefits!

Low conversion rate? Then perhaps you are not attracting the right sort of visitor. Target your incentive (the free offer, for example) to match your target audience.

Enjoy.

Free Marketing That Works
By Jeffrey Jettison

When it comes to marketing, whether free or costly, we are not just marketing a product. We should be marketing ourselves. No matter if its the quality of the product, the support we give, or even a professional looking website or blog. Its how you are perceived by readers , and viewers that could ultimately cause a prospect to take the next step – ie. clicking your ad, giving up an email address, or flat out buying the product. No matter what free method you use, you always have the chance to portray yourself as a professional. But the method that gives you the best chance to cover all the bases , and look like an expert in your product area, is article marketing. Hands down, no other free marketing technique works as well for short term and long term success.

Articles allow you to help the reader , and show them that you want to help them out. No other form of free marketing gives you that opportunity. Providing information to prospective buyers is your chance to build trust between you and the reader. Its becoming very hard for buyers to trust the online market. Heck, people have a hard time be trustful in real life situations. So when you offer advice or assistance, and then back up the offer with real helpful information , you are perceived as someone that has a certain level of knowledge on that subject. Which in turn , builds trust between you and the reader. People will often pay quite a bit more just to stick with a trusted name and a trusted , well known brand. We have all seen products at the grocery store. Many times the “off” brand is just as good as the “name” brand items, but significantly cheaper. Because the “name” brand is simply trusted and well-known. That is another great reason why article are the best free marketing option we have. Here are some other reasons why you should consider building a greater level of interest in article marketing:

• Knowledge is key, and you can be the knowledge provider.
• You get complete , undivided attention.
• Many articles get ranked very high on major search engines.
• You have many different options to choose from.(There are tons of article directories)
• Your trust leads to multiple sales over a longer period of time.

And those are just a few. Quite frankly, article marketing just works, period. Once you find out how certain articles get ranked on Google and Yahoo, to name a few, you will see tons of free, targeted traffic flood your sites and blogs and wherever else you send visitors. The reason why most people fail to have success with articles is their lack of knowledge. You have to know HOW it works. You can write the best, most informative articles, and still not see success.

To be honest, I have seen some pretty un-impressive articles with 20,000 views and on the 1st page of Google, just because the author knew how to set up the article for maximum success. And that can be said for all free marketing methods. Remember, when someone is looking for information, and they come across your article, you got them right where you want them. So make sure you put forth your best efforts when writing articles. It might be free, but article marketing is more than just a source of traffic, its about you selling yourself as an expert.

Use this FREE report, with the biggest unknown secret in Article Marketing, to get ranked on Google and Yahoo!

Make your Articles WORK

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jeffrey_Jettison
http://EzineArticles.com/?Free-Marketing-That-Works&id=1931222

The first technique is the easiest and simplest way to generate traffic and it is free. Put your link in your email signature. Email signatures are not intrusive to the receiver. If you do not know exactly what you want to put in your signature, do a search on the internet for email signature examples. Once you have your email signature ready, go under your options and set it to automatically appear at the bottom of your email. Now every time you send an email, your links will be displayed.

The second way to generate inexpensive traffic is through banner link exchange. There are thousand of banner exchange sites on the Internet. You would join up with the banner exchanges. You would enter you banner link and receive code to put otherís banner links on your site. This technique will only work if you have your own site to display the banner. Free banner exchange can be a great way to get your affiliate link out to a fresh targeted group of consumers.

The third way to generate inexpensive traffic is to join a manual surf site. These are websites where you get to display your site in exchange for you looking at someone elseís site for 15-20 seconds. You are paid to manual surf otherís sites with credits. You exchange these credits for visits to your site. Two really good manual surf sites are Traffic Swarm and TS25. You can join the sites for free and surf. If you do not have the time, you can buy credits. If you have some time on your hands, this is a very good technique for generating inexpensive traffic.

The fourth technique for generating inexpensive traffic is joining an autosurf site. This technique will cost you money, but will pay you to autosurf otherís sites. This is a little risky way to gain traffic. There are thousands upon thousands of these sites. You have to do your due diligence when deciding which ones to join. Find an autosurf monitor and see how the autosurf site ranks.

Autosurfs are all different in there structures and payouts. You buy ad units and you will be required to view a certain amount of otherís sites daily. Now you earn a percentage of money each day by autosurfing the subscribe amount of sites. At the end of a subscribe time limit, you get to cash out. You also can get paid autosurf traffic by buying advertising space on the site. This advertisement will display at the top of the autosurf site. Just to warn you again, this can be a little risky. You have to do your due diligence when deciding by use some of the autosurf monitor sites out on the Internet.

The fifth technique for gaining inexpensive generated traffic is by joining some topic specific forums. This is a great way to meet and learn from others. You generate traffic by putting your links in your signature box. Now, the thing you need to remember is not to just post messaging in the forums promoting your opportunity. This is called spamming and will be quickly removed by forum moderators. You passively promote your business opportunity by adding meaning content to the topic being discussed. Others will see your links in the signature box and visit your site if interested.  Join 3 or 4 forums and make entry in each on a daily basis. Before long, your site will be getting extra exposure at no cost except for the time needed to post.

The sixth technique for generating inexpensive traffic is blogging. Blog is short for Web Log. Blogging is publishing your thoughts or interest through an electronic medium. You can get a free account at http://www.blogger.com. Set you up an account. You are allowed to have multiple blogs. Use you blog to publish things about your product or service. Then use http://www.pingomatic.com or http://www.pingoat.com. These two websites will let other blogging services that you have updated your sites. On your blog, promote your links.  Keep your content update and fresh.

The last technique is writing articles. This is a great inexpensive traffic generator. Article writing can be fun and interesting. You may think that you cannot do this, but you can. This is probably one of the best form of advertising your product or service. You promote your product or service by putting your links at the bottom of your articles in the resource box. The resource box is like an email signature box. If you are having problems writing the articles, do a search for article writing software. This will help your writing experience easier. Now just remember that this will be a slow process, unless you just turn out article after article. When your articles are ready, submit to some of the ezine directories.

There are many ways to generate traffic. Some cost lots of money, some are inexpensive. Using the 7 techniques discussed in the article will allow you to generate inexpensive traffic. Email signature, banner exchange, manual and autosurfing  sites, writing in forum, publishing a blog, and writing articles are all good inexpensive techniques. Visit my blog (link in resource box) to see some of these techniques in action.

Message boards are essentially online meeting places. In general most message boards are focused on a particular niche subject and encourage those who share an interest in this particular subject to get together to discuss relevant issues, ask questions, provide advice and even just socialize. Message boards can focus on any subject imaginable, they may focus on a particular baseball team or just the sport of baseball in general. Message boards can focus on subjects such as politics, television shows, bands, current events, jobs, hobbies or any subject under the sun. Savvy Internet marketers can take advantage of these message boards to reach a target audience without investing a great deal of money.

Consider a business in which the focus of the business is to assist people in finding jobs which offer telecommute options. The concept of working from home is becoming increasingly popular and there are many websites which focus on this subject. Likewise there are also many message boards devoted to the topic of working from home. On those message boards those with an interest in the subject meet to discuss issues such as finding employment where working from home is an option, working around the schedule of children, setting up a home office, dealing with friends or family members who donít respect your working hours and paying taxes on freelance assignments. A business owner who actively participates in this message board can take the opportunity to post a link to his website when it is relevant and offers something of value to the conversation. He or she may also pick up useful tips and information as well. This is worthwhile because the message board features a high concentration of your target audience members.

When using message boards to promote your business, it is important to ensure you are following the rules associated with the message boards. Message boards may have restrictions regarding the posting of links and failure to abide by these restrictions may result in you being banned from the message board. For this reason it is important for anyone who is interested in using message boards for promotion of their business to carefully read the terms of use to ensure they are not violating any of the rules. It is also important to simply use common sense when promoting your business on a message board. Just because the rules do not restrict posting links, does not mean you should spam the board with your link. Take care to only include your link when it is relevant. This will prevent message board users from assuming your link is just worthless spam.

Finally, when using message boards to promote your business it is important to be courteous to other message board users and to keep all posts professional. This is important because you and your business are much more likely to be taken seriously if you act professionally and responsibly. You should maintain this degree of professionalism even in posts which do not include your business link. This is important because other message board participants will remember you by your user name and will not be likely to take you seriously if you have previously made posts which were offensive, mean spirited or inaccurate. So always be professional and courteous at all times, and with all postings.
Internet Marketing