Free website promotion

Friday, April 30, 2010

We all love free stuff, and website/shop promotion is no different. It doesn't need to cost you a fortune to advertise your website and get it high up on google searches.
I have tried many free promotional sites and tweeks, some good, some not so good.
This is a list of ideas and sites that I have personally found to work well in getting my site high up in google search.

As with everything else there are lots more of these sites, a simple google search will find you thousands. These are the ones I have found that work best for me and my site so far. You will probably find a different combination that works best for you. Most will also work for your Folksy, Etsy, Misi shop, it does not need to be your own website.

1.Keywords
By far the most important thing you need to make your site visible is your keywords. Too many keywords and you will be considered a spammer and demoted in search. Too few keywords and the search engines will not find you. Around 10 keywords per page is considered to be the optimum number.

2. Submit your website to the search engines.
They will pick up your site on their own without you submitting, it's just quicker if you submit your site yourself.
Obviously Google, Yahoo, Bing are the main search engines to aim for but there are literally thousands of other smaller ones.
Google Yahoo Bing Others

3. Get your site listed in Dmoz.
This is a very good directory to be listed in, search engines like websites that are listed in Dmoz and will show them higher up in search results. Only submit your site once, if you submit it more it will be more likely to be rejected. It can several months to get listed in Dmoz so you need to be patient.

4. Social networking sites.
Personally I only use Facebook and Twitter but there are lots more available. Facebook has a new free shop front where you can now sell your items on your fan page. It can be quite fiddly setting it up but like most things once you have done it a few times it's easy to navigate.
To set up a Facebook shop got to any shop already on Facebook and click on "Launch your free storefront" at the bottom of the page. You can use my shop page if you like.
Other well known social networking sites :
My Space, Bebo, Flickr, Stumbleupon, Twitter.

5.Get your name and products in as many places as you can.
The more links you have back to your website the better for google ranking and search engine placement. Link exchanges is a good way to do this, this means swapping links with other sites.
There are a few link exchange sites you can sign up to. I find it easier to sort link exchanges through these sites but you can maually search out sites and ask for link exchanges by direct contact. The more links you have that are relevant to your site the better.
My links page as an example of relevant content.

My personal best top three link exchange sites : UKlinkexchange LinkMarket Link2me

There are also many places you can list your items for free.
Bttradespace - Free gallery and free shop with a link back to your website. Friendly network forum and fan this shop gadget.
Hotfrog - Free shopping directory. You can list items but not sell. Shoppers must click through to your website to buy.
Freeindex - Free shopping directory. You can list items but not sell. Shoppers must click through to your website to buy.
Yell - Basic submission with a link to your website is free.
Uk small business directory - similar to Yell.
Ebid - Market place similar to eBay with free listings.
Facebook - Free shop with any fanpage.



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