By: Bruce T. Woodward

So, you have probably read my previous articles for Internet Marketing for your internet business. To begin this article, I must say that the tips that I offer, even though directed mainly towards online businesses, can be implemented in/for online and offline businesses alike.

No doubt that you have seen me write about the importance of search engines, despite what some articles and “gurus” might tell you. I am not saying that you cannot succeed without search engines, but they really do help your site. I discussed that further in my article “Home Based Business Marketing – How To Succeed” (you can read that article either at http://www.Profiting4less.com/articles.aspx or on http://www.ezinearticles.com, so I will not argue that point in this article.

This article is directed more towards HOW to advertise/list your site on the search engines, and other available sites.

Search Engines:
There really is no secret here. The best way to get your site “crawled” by the search engine(s) is to look up their “submit a site” link. Yes, it is painstaking, but in the end you will know that your site will be “crawled” … in time. You are probably asking yourself, ‘but what about those programs that submit your site to hundreds of search engines’? I will ask you another question … how many search engines do you know and use on a daily basis? Take those search engines, and you probably get the same ones that the majority uses on a daily basis. Google, Yahoo!, AltaVista, AOL, MSN, Excite, Ask, and Netscape. Sure there are more, and some people don’t even think of that many. My theory is that if you can think of it, your customer can. If you cannot, they probably cannot either. As well, if you can get your site listed on the major search engines the “others” will pick it up from them. And, yes I have tried such ’submission tools’ and have had poor success getting hits from them.

Search engines love robots.txt files. Create on. Even if it is a blank .txt file, name it robots.txt and put it in the root directory of your website. Search engines will thank you for it. You can Google sites about how to configure robots.txt files, from blank to complicated … it’s your call.

Free Advertisement:
If you have read previous articles of mine, you will have seen that I am at best lukewarm to the idea of ‘free’ advertising. Yes, it is free in regards to your wallet, but not your time which can be at least as equally important. This is not to say that I discredit any and all free advertising and advertising services, as some are worth the time to set up campaigns. One of these is Traffic Swarm. I have used them for years, and have had probably the best success of any free services. It is completely free, and they do a good job of targeting your customers. So as long as you follow the rules, and set the proper groups to advertise to when setting up your account, you should get solid traffic. I have. But, as with anything, results will vary. There are others out there. But be wary. Always remember, time is money. If you spend too much time on ‘free’ ads, you will essentially be losing money, or money you could have made had you just paid a couple of bucks.

Forums:
I am not sure why, but many people forget – or perhaps do not know – the importance of forums! Most forums are free spaces to rant, chat, discuss things that are on your mind and others’ minds, but most of all can be great advertising media! Now, most forums have policies (and rightfully so) against outright advertising, almost none of them have policies against adding links in your signature of the forum, at least within reason. For instance, if I am in a forum of any kind, I will put my name but also right after, http://profiting4less.com/default.aspx. Now, if I have more than one site, for courtesy, I do not put the others. I limit it to one (at very most two) links per signature. Some forums will site you for advertising against their policies (spamming) if you put more than one or two links in your signature. A great way to get your name out there, even if you are chatting about something completely off-topic from what you are selling!

I hope that these tips will help you in your advertising efforts. Please feel free to check out http://profiting4less.com/default.aspx for more tips.

Article Written By: Bruce T. Woodward
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