What do you to do Promote your site?

I write articles for various article directories, such as ezinearticles.com

I do this because I don't like using PPC.

I've had bad experiences with it in the past and I would rather wait till I have a decent amount of money coming in to use PPC again.

Such as one time I had an ad spend of around $400 but only made two sales worth about $75. >.< Of course, that was one of my first big ventures into PPC. I've learned a bit more since then.

I post on forums and blogs that are the same category as my site (web masters). I sign up at different places and try to make good posts (such as this), hoping to become noticed and intrest people in the works on my site.

There are plenty of other ways I promote as well, such as contacting webmasters for link exchanges, social bookmarks, blogging, word of mouth, ect.

Do :
Directory submission
Blog Commenting
Forums Discussion
Article marketing
Press release
Link Exchange

Here is my equation for a very effective method of promoting a website:

Good content + SEO + PPC, Paid back links, Forum posts to similar niche, banners, etc. = Great traffic and more targeted traffic!

IMO, opting for paid ways contribute well to a good marketing mix especially at getting targetted traffic. In reality, getting 10 targetted traffic is better that 100 random traffic. Getting just mere random traffic doesn't constitutes your site's success - it's the conversion you get from your traffic. Getting traffic is just the first step, offering the right stuff to your visitors and conversion should be utmostly considered.

To sum up, SEO is great for the long run and should't be left out. This is a long process and wouldn't always give you immediate results. Premium ways (PPC, paid links, banner, etc) for faster generation of targetted traffic especially if you have time constraints.

For PayPerClick campaigns, you can use Wordtracker to see what keywords are most searched. Just google it and look for the free version. Other PPC providers have such tools to help you decide which to bid on.

Don't just rely on using top keywords for your PPC campaign - this is the reason why others are failing. Bidding on top keywords will yield you less as competition for these are stiff already. The technique here is opting for other long tail keywords that is more likely to yield specific results because specific searches on long tail keywords or phrases are the ones that usually convert. Those who employ such search are more likely to buy IMO.

Also don't bid that high at first, weigh first what keywords convert in your niche after a test run so you will know what works and what doesn't.

You should also try out other PPC providers for more reach on your campaign.

Hope that helps!
MrCat

i usually do the following:
Directory Submission
RSS Feed Submision
Social Bookmarking
Forum Posting
Article Submission
link Exchange

Crea;224237 wrote: What do you do to promote your site?

I update my content, improvise my design, have it reviewed, and lastly, submit it on high traffic sites.

just optimize well each page of your website for a particular keyword or search phrase.submit your website to the major search engines and advertise your website in the appropriate category. ..

I personaly pay for SE company to get good results.

Quote: Cam anyone recommend a good site for buying paid backlinks?

I'd suggest you make request on big forums: here, namepros.com, WHT.

Lol, not sure they do that somehow! There is the whole argument where competitors can corrupt your SEO otherwise.

I haven't tried paid back links, but i've read on a few sites that is completely untraceable that you have paid for the link, and what site you going on is anonymous.

Mainly articles, paid blog posts,link exchange.

Keep adding good content to your site regularly. One of the most important thing Google checks is the amount of new content. Regular new content means Google coming back more often.

i usually do promotion via
Directory Submission
Social Bookmarking
Forum Posting
Article Submission