Content Management Systems (CMS)

Running ads in newsletters and ezines

Running ads in related newsletters & ezines is another method to drive traffic to your site or affiliate links. Advertising in newsletters can be done as a sponsored ad in the newsletter or as solo mailing. A solo email is when the whole email is just about your product. 

Offline and Online Radio / TV

This is another channel that can be used for website promotion. Once again it can be done for free or as paid advertising. Remember to evaluate your costs and potential return before spending fortunes on this type of advertising.

Also you could be featured on radio or TV for free if you can present something interesting or sensational to their audiences. Think outside the box.

Quick tip: If you’re calling a live Radio show, make sure you mention your website, like, “Hello, I’m Bob from loseweight.com, blah, blah, blah…”

The same can be applied to TV shows or real time newscasts.

Flyers and printed materials

This is another offline method which can result in more sales. An idea is distribute the information in a targeted fashion. If you want to distribute weight loss product flyers, do it next to a beauty salons, gyms or diet saloons.

For male enhancement, why not leave some flyers in the Men’s washroom.

These flyers or cards can be distributed also through snail mail, door to door, or handed out in public places if you see a person that could be interested in your offer. Of course, stay within the borders of ethics.

Thinking outside the box

Thinking outside the box, contunually learning and adapting ideas from other industries can all lead to insane amounts of publicity and huge revenues.

Content Management Systems (CMS)

Activity in public places (free/paid)

Being active on forums, newsgroups or other community websites can attract decent amount of visitors to your website.

For example, being active in a beauty or health forum can be very beneficial if you can answer their questions and provide links to your website for more information.

The same applies to related newsgroups and blogs.

In addition, there are websites like MySpace.com which can be effective for generating streams of visitors from this huge network.

Why not participate in sites like Yahoo answers. You can give answers not only to questions but integrate your website links in answers and gain visitors who read posts as well good quality links from these question & answer sites.

Pay-Per-Click

Pay per click is one of the best methods to generate laser targeted traffic to your websites. Basically it is about bidding on keywords and paying a cost for every click.

Remember, you can target only the visitors you want to – be it a specific keyword phrase, geographic location or language. You can also choose words to exclude - for example the word “free” will get a lot of impressions, but it is unlikely to g et you sales.

PPC can be a rewarding marketing activity. Once you know your conversion rate, you know exactly how much you can afford to spend. For example, selling a product which gives a commission of 75$ and it requires 150 visitors to get a sale (your site is converting at 1/150). Knowing you spend 20 cents on average per visitor your spending is 150 x 20c = 30$. This means, 75$ - 30$ you have 45$ profit!

The main thing is to research your keywords well and have a solid converting website or landing page.

There are 3 main PPC engines – Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing and MSN ad center.

Quick tip: see the MoreNiche guides for an AdWords guide, read MoreNiche forum for even more tips and ideas check this thread:

Video sites

Video is getting more popular online so if you can create a simple video and upload to websites like Google.com video section or YouTube, then possibly you’re sitting on marketing channel that could bring many visitors to your sites.

Many digital photo cameras now have a decent video function with audio. You can use it to record your message, do a product review or simply do a little video infomercial to encourage to the viewer to visit your website.

You can use Windows Movie Maker to add a “sting” at the start and end of the video featuring you url. Hold it long enough for the viewer to jot it down and then visit the site. Look around, see what others are doing and adopt.

Content Management Systems (CMS)

Buzz marketing (free)

If you can create jokes around your subject mater, create comics or flash movies then this could be a great approach for marketing your website virally. Submit these to viral sites, the links will get passed around resulting in more visitors to your site.

Another example is a blog where unusual angles and events are covered. Make it completely unique and people would visit your blog, leave their comments, link from their blogs to yours. It could create a blog in forums, end up bookmarked in social bookmaking sites and could create more exposure to your blog (or website).

This can create natural one way links to your website; more traffic as well as the chance of being picked up by journalists. Many marketers have achieved huge visibility for free this way. 

Banners and banner exchanges (free/paid)

Banners and banner exchanges can be effective as long as it can get you targeted traffic,. There are different methods how to use banners for advertising.

For example, there are many banner exchange sites where you can exchange banners– you are show their banners on your site and in return they will show your banner on their site network. It’s free and can be great way to build visibility in your niche.

Another way to go is exchanging banners just between two sites. You put your exchange partner’s banner on your site and they put up yours.

A paid banner network (or simply advertising on a particular site) is when you pay either for impressions, for clicks or for a given time period. Look into bannersgomlm.com

Quick tip: before spending any money, research whether the banner network or site is appropriate to your niche.

Link exchanges (free/paid)

Link exchanges are usually seen as method to increase search engine rankings.

A link exchange means sending and receiving visitors from similar topic pages for free. Usually it is realized by creating a “Resources” or “Friends” page.

Once again, it can be done as a free link exchange between two or more sites or you can pay for having your link being displayed on another websites – usually these are called “paid links”.

Quick tips: for detailed link exchange strategies see the MoreNiche guides section. 

Traffic exchange programs

A traffic exchange site receives submissions from website owners. They then browse other member sites to earn credits, which allow their sites to be viewed by other members in the system, thus increasing the number of visits to all sites involved.

It can be set up as start up page showing 10 websites every time you open your browser then 10 other visitors will see your website,.

This method not very effective but it could work for mainstream products.

Content Management Systems (CMS)

Promoting your website

In this part we will overview various methods to generate traffic to your website. Basically there are 2 categories: free and paid.

Free traffic represents - SEO, link exchanges, banner trading, participation in forums, newsgroups, posting blog comments where appropriate, writing and submitting articles to directories .

Paid traffic represents – paid advertising methods as Pay Per Click (PPC), paid banner advertising, paid links, running ads in newspapers, radio or distributing flyers in your local community, etc.

Below you will read main methods you could use for promoting your website.

Search engine optimization

This is most popular method for creating traffic. Traffic from search engines is highly targeted and has great conversion rates.

There are many manuals and guides about search engine optimization. The key points to keep in mind are:

- There are 3 major search engines – Google, Yahoo and MSN

- There are several search engine channels that all can bring traffic

a. Standard web search

b. Blog search

c. Picture search

d. Video search

e. Mobile phone / WAP search

Most SEO concentrates on standard web search which means other channels still offer an easy way to get highly targeted free traffic. Read more in MoreNiche guides how to utilize most of these channels.

Recommended Search Engine Optimization Tool

SeoElite – is one of most popular SEO tools with multiple functions, from competition research down to automatic link exchange approaches and more. 

Blog Specialized Search engines (free)

This channel is totally different from the top 3 engines, and operates in its own world – which means, different competitors and different engines, for example, Technocrati or Syndic8;

Advantages of blogging are: it is easy to use; it is search engine friendly, usually seen as a trusted source of information by surfers, attracts an interactive community that has targeted readership audiences which can result in high conversion rates and sales.

Being featured on a top blog sites can result in thousands of targeted visitors in as little as an hour. If blogs are your way of promoting products, Use these engines to your advantage.

Blogs are also good for generating backlinks and sending traffic to your main website. 

Word of Mouth & Viral Marketing (free)

Word of mouth is an old school method and very effective for getting your message around. A simple way to achieve this is to have a “Tell-A-Friend” feature on your website. Visitors would probably use it to inform their friends they think would be interested in the topic. The new visitor will be highly targeted to your sites content.

Another part of viral marketing is distributing something valuable in the form of an ebook or report. These reports would have links back to your website. Distribution can be done through uploading them to forums, public file sharing networks, for example, Kazaa network or Emule and mentioning them on newsgroups, etc

Viral marketing and word of mouth can be mixed together. If you offer an ebook, the surfer has to give the email addresses of 3 friends who also may be interested in the subject in order to receive it. So this can potentially get you 3 extra visitors from every one who decides to get the ebook. Similar campaigns with unique approach has reached as much as millions of referrals this way

Another method would be to create a website and offering free greeting cards to your visitors’ friends. If this is a dieting site, it could be a perfect card for inviting somebody to dinner. At the end of message you can add your little own ad, saying something like: “Curious how to lose weight – find the answer at myweightlosstips.com”.

Press release distribution (free/paid)

Press releases are similar to articles but the idea is to present it in the light of something newsworthy. Once again it is a great way to get featured in offline and online publications, such as Google News or even the New York Times.

For example, say you did experiment on weight loss product X in your town and 10 people lost a total of 200 lbs in just 2 weeks! There’s a fantastic reason for press release! Use it to your advantage to feature your website where you have more details on experiment and product reviews … plus a sales pitch!

Bear in mind, that press releases can also attract journalists from magazines or even radio and TV stations!

A good place to start is prweb.com and similar services. Read their guidelines and tips; read previous press releases in your niche and see what you can adapt from them.