Christmas is coming, and NOW is the time to plan your site promotion efforts. This article covers some basic but important methods of promoting your website in time for this lucrative holiday season...

. A client got in touch with me last week concerned about the approach of Christmas, and the fact that nothing had been done to promote their website (ever!). They simply wanted to know what options were available to promote their site, and how much it was going to cost.

I have reproduced my advice within this article (without associated costs, obviously). The advice is relevant to those of you who *are* actively promoting your websites too. (Always be careful, however, not to promote the same page too often to the same search engine or directory!)

<== Advice begins...

Dear Concerned Client,

Following on from Friday's telephone conversation about promoting your site, I have summarised the possible options you might want to take. The options are as follows:

1) BASIC site submission.

This does not *guarantee* extra site traffic. A listing on the major search engines and directories is absolutely necessary, nevertheless, to provide at least the chance of search engine traffic. Activities include:

* Determination of suitable keywords and site description; use in search engine (and directory) submissions.

* Hand submission of site to 10-20 major search engines including Google and other major UK search engines

* Automatic submission to 50+ directories

* Hand submission to DMOZ and Lycos human-edited directories

* Hand submission to 10-20 UK shopping guides. (Not all guides will list the site for free. Some require you create a reciprocal link, whilst others require a listing payment or an affiliate program to join (so there is at least the possibility of earning income).

* Automatic submission of one web page to major search engines via Inktomi. This guarantees the web page will be listed on several search engines within 48 hours. (Page listing is refreshed every 48 hours for 1 year thereafter.) It does *not* guarantee a good listing, however.

- http://www.shoptour.co.uk/webmaster-promote/ - http://www.dmoz.org - http://www.lycos.co.uk

2) BASIC search engine report.

A simple report can be generated each month, that determines search engine ranking for 5-10 specific keywords; e.g. 'key word 1', 'key words 2', 'key words 3' etc. (These keywords would be determined in option 1) above.) There are many sites that allow you to do this yourself. My favourite tool can be found at

- http://www.did-it.com

3) Create a LINKS PAGE.

Create a links page and engage in an active reciprocal linking campaign. The ideal solution would be to swap links with sites that already rank well for your chosen keywords. This process can be automated a little with free scripts found at

- http://www.cgi-resources.com

Good link-swapping strategies can be found in this article - http://www.howipromotemywebsite.com/bin/ap.pl?link-swaps

4) Start a pay-per-click search engine campaign (ADVANCED)

Pay-per-click search engines allow you to automatically rank well on a search engine for any keyword you choose. You simply bid for a keyword and if your bid is highest your site ranks highest on the search engine. You simply pay the cost of the bid for each click your site receives.

Bids can start as low as 1 penny, and the best strategy is to choose many less obvious keywords and bid as low as you can.

Pay-per-click search engines like GoTo UK (www.uk.goto.com) and Espotting (www.espotting.com) indirectly reach upwards of 70% of ALL UK search engine traffic (they sell their search results to search engines like Excite and Freeserve who incorporate them into their own searches).

This is a somewhat labour-intensive activity but is a great way to generate low-cost, targeted traffic. For more details visit

- http://www.howipromotemywebsite.com/bin/ap.pl?pay-per-click

5) Set up an AFFILIATE PROGRAM (ADVANCED)

Set up (and manage) an affiliate program for your site. This would have the potential to generate a lot of inbound links to your site, as well as to create an active sales-force. In return, affiliates would get paid a small commission for any sales or leads they provided. For more details visit

- http://www.shoptour.co.uk/webmaster-profit/

.. Advice ends ==>

The advice above is aimed at a UK-based client who owns a shopping-related site (AND one who does not wish to have search-engine-friendly pages created). Whatever your site is about, however, there will always be important sites to get listed on (or swap links with) outside of the major search engines; you just need to find them.

(For advice about creating search-engine friendly pages visit - http://www.shoptour.co.uk/go/good-keywords.html ) As I was to undertake this work myself, it was not necessary for me to provide suitable links (I just added a few (above) for the benefit of this article). The following links are also useful:

* Free web site promotion guide - http://www.HowIPromoteMyWebsite.com

* Free 5-day search engine Masters course, by e-mail - mailto:1stSearchRanking.1000.1037@optinpro.com

* Find important sites to get a link on; use this tool - http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop/

* 8 Ways To Promote New Content On Your Website - http://shoptour.co.uk/webmaster-promote/promote-new-content.shtml

* 10 Simple Ways That You Can Promote Your Website - http://www.taurus-graphics.net/website_promotion.html

* Contact your customers via mobile phone text messaging - http://www.textmefree.com/free_sms_on_your_site.html

(And for those of you who really want to master web site promotion, the single best resource without doubt would be the newly revised ebook Make Your Site Sell! 2002 (MYSS! 2002), written by Dr Ken Evoy.

The 400 page traffic-building volume (one of four volumes in MYSS! 2002!) covers the basics of website promotion together with pay-per-click-search-engines, affiliate programs and (importantly) it reveals the web site promotion time-wasters, too. Unbeatable value. Invaluable.)

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Yes, Christmas 2002 is coming. There is no need for concern, though; this article has shown you many ways that you can successfully promote your web site and take full advantage of this holiday festival. Just do *something* NOW!

About the author: Steve Nash is webmaster at HowIPromoteMyWebsite.com . He also edits a bi-monthly newsletter called Promote! Promote! Promote! Subscribe and get 2 free gifts. mailto:pppromote@getresponse.com And you can buy the excellent (and MUST-read) MYSS! 2002 at http://myss.sitesell.com/shopping101.html