How to Promote Your Website for Free

Since we’ve talked about message board networking and marketing, it’s always wise to have your business in your signature line on posts. The codes below will work on the majority of message boards, I can’t say they would work for all of them.

The box below contains the code you need to add your banner or picture to your signature line on message boards. Don’t forget to replace the words in all caps with your own. You may change the words right here in the box and then copy and paste to your profile on whatever message boards you belong to.

HINT: If you are not sure of the url of a photo right click the photo and choose properties. This will bring up a box showing the url address of the photo! Please make sure that you own this photo or it’s a big huge no no!

[URL=http://www.YOURSITEHERE.com][IMG]http://www.SITEWHEREPICTUREISHOSTED.com/NAMEOFPICTURE.JPG[/IMG][/URL]

The box below this contains the code you need to add a text hyperlink to your signature line for message boards or forums. Don’t forget to replace the words in all caps with your own. You may change the words right here in the box and then copy and paste to you profile on whatever message boards you belong to.

[URL=http://www.YOURSITEHERE.com]YOUR MESSAGE HERE[/URL]

Check out the message boards at Dabbling Divas

When you are surfing the net and you run across a site that relates to yours, look to see if they have a links page.  If they do, contact them about exchanging links with you.

With blogs a link exchange is now called a blogroll, same process, and don’t forget to leave a nice comment on their blog while you are there.

Message boards are a great way to put your name out as I mentioned before.  There are tons of message boards for almost any subject.  One of the best ones I’ve found is at www.wahm.com  They have general discussions as well as “special folders” for all kinds of direct sales companies.

So, you join a board and put your signature in your profile so, it will show up on every one of your posts.  Sounds easy enough right?  There is a catch though.  You will not be welcomed if all you do there is “spam” the group.  You can’t just go onto a message board and start yapping all about your business.  The people there will not like it and you’ll find that out really fast.

You want to add to the discussions on the forum.  By being a good member of the board, you meet others with helpful info and have fun.  Let you signature do all the work, if people want info they’ll ask for it.  There is one exception to the rule and that is, several message boards have a folder just for “ads” this is where you get to brag all about your business and no one is going to give you grief about it. i.e. http://dabblingdivas.com/forum/index.php?board=9.0 or http://dallaswahms.com/forum2/index.php?board=3.0

Message boards serve a two folder purpose.  You are meeting others and the link to your site on your signature allows other members to find you and for search engines to index your site.  Search engines “like” message boards because they are ever changing with new information.  Your signature on a message board can be one of the fastest ways a search engine finds your new site and indexes it.

Have fun, network and the rest will fall into place.

I got my free business cards at Vista Print along with some other wahms I know.  The only catch is that they have the Vista Print logo on the back of the card, but it isn’t big or anything.  I personally feel it was a great deal especially for those of us on a tight business budget. 

Commenting on other peoples blogs is one way to get your link out on the web.  This serves a two fold purpose.  The first being that other people can see your comment and follow the link to your site.  The second is so that the search engines can find you.  The more a search engine finds your link the more it comes to your website to index your website and the higher you will place when people search for something related to your site.

When leaving a comment on a blog, make sure it’s polite and relavent to the subject. 

Practice by leaving one here for me.

Happy commenting!

There are plenty of social networking sites out there, myspace.com, facebook.com, yuwie.com and more!  Signing up and making a page doesn’t take much time at all, less than 30 minutes.  You’ll want to put the links to your website on your new page.  You can also search for people with similar interests and your friends.

Your new social networking pages not only helps with another “free” place to put the link to your website.  It helps you build relationships.  The more people see you the more they will remember you.  The lastest info I read about marketing says that it takes 28 touches, for a person to even remember you.  That is because we are exposed to more businesses and sites than ever before. 

More social networking can come from message board or forums.  I’ll discuss that topic further in my next post.

One of the most simple things you can do is include a “signature” on your email.  Include your website name, your tagline or the latest thing going on on the site, and of course the link to your website.  Keep in short but make it interesting.

Example:

Trinkies Cell Phone Charms
New items added weekly!
http://www.trinkies.com

One of the many things I like to do is to save jokes and funny pictures.  You send them to friends and family and you know how emails of that sort get passed along, all with your signature on the bottom. :)  Talk about effortlessly putting your name our there!  

Just a word of caution, don’t send out offensive jokes unless that is the image you want your company to have.