So you have a newly developed web site, ready to receive visitors, what do you do next to get those visitors to your site?

Web site promotion is an ongoing process. It mostly involves getting links to your web site through various means.

Here is a quick list of basic web site promotion any and every web site owner. In addition, remember to optimize your pages for easier and better indexing by search engines.

• Submit to reputable directories, eg dmoz.org and Yahoo! Directory
• Reciprocal link exchanges
• Continue writing articles
• Contact relevant, on-topic sites one by one for link exchange, article submission or paid links

Submit to reputable directories

Directories provide good exposure for your web site, but not all web directories are created equal. Only submit to quality directories such as dmoz.org and Yahoo! Directory. Such directories are human edited and are of high quality, that is, they don’t accept every web site submitted to it.

Tips:

Take some time to browse the directory to find the most appropriate category for your web site. Spend a little more time thinking up of the most descriptive, least hype-filled title and description for your submission.

Reciprocal link exchanges

Reciprocal link exchanges are the best way to gather a steady base amount of visitors to your site. They’re also easy and free to partake in.

Tips:

Look for web sites that are thematically similar to yours. Avoid link exchanges with web sites that offer little or no value, eg spammy link directories. For more information and tips on link exchanges, see the link exchange category.

Continue writing articles

The more relevant information you have on your site the better. They create “stickiness” for your web site and article writing is one of the best way to get free links.

Tip:

Look for unique articles. There’s no harm in re-hashing information that’s already out there, but unique and niche information is always better.

Contact relevant, on-topic sites

Avoid spamming webmasters, there’s enough spam in the world and you don’t need to add to it! Admittantly, spamming does work or no one would partake in such a practice.

Through personal experience, I find that contacting relevant, on-topic sites one by one yields better response rates.

Tips:

Keep your email short and to the point. Avoid fluff such as “I visited your site recently and think it would be a great resource for my visitors”. Webmaster are busy people, often with too much to do and little time to do it in, so keeping your emails short and sweet will improve your chances of a positive response.

If you don’t get a response initially, email again. As mentioned above, webmasters are busy people and they may have had every intention in responding to your request but was simply too busy to do so. Reminder emails also show that you’re not spamming them.