There are many ways to promote your web site. Some are expensive and some are time consuming. Here are a few ideas on ways to promote your site that are both quick and free. Watch for future articles that will include further effective promotion ideas.

Always Put Your Web Site in Your email Signature: Create a professional email signature that includes your URL and either your motto, a quote or a tiny tidbit of information about your business. Make sure to make it interesting; you want them to click on your link. Include it in all your email messages; you'd be surprised who might click on your link and be interested in what you have to offer. Also, include your URL on your business cards, stationery and any other printed information you have.

Link & Banner Exchanges: A link or banner exchange is a great way to increase the links to your page (a sure way to climb the search engines' rankings). However, because you are exchanging a banner, you may lose some of your visitors to other sites.

TIP: Have the link open a new window separate from your site. That way if your visitor gets sidetracked, she won't lose you.

Nevertheless, it is a free and viable option for increasing your traffic and your ranking. But...

Whom Do You Exchange With?:

1. Other Home Based Business People: Find the web sites of other home Based Business people and ask them to exchange a banner with you.

Choose someone who ranks high on a search engine. Perhaps, they will scoff at the idea of exchanging a banner with your site which ranks 9999 out of 10000, but it sure doesn't hurt to ask. Besides, you won't be 9999 for long!

2. For Party Plans Limited to a Particular Country: Exchange a link or banner with a fellow consultant from another country if you are limited to sales in your own country. This is a link that you could easily place front and centre on your home page. You can put the corresponding country's flag as a link and say "Canadian Visitors Enter Here" (for example). It will be clear if people should follow the link to the other page. If people click on this link, you aren't losing customers. They are obviously from another country and cannot order from you. Providing such a link is useful information to your visitor and she will be directed to the appropriate country's site.

3. WAHM Web Pages: many Work at Home Mom themed web pages offer free banner exchanges. Take advantage of these, but place it on your "Links" page. It should not be front and centre because:

· You may lose your visitor

· You will not be front and centre on their web page

Check out these free banner exchanges:

Of course: InternetBasedMoms.com http://www.internetbasedmoms.com/banner_exchange.htm (your banner will always be shown on the Links page)

WAHM Exchange.com http://wahmexchange.com/ (your banner will receive one exposure for every two exposures of the WAHM Exchange on your site)

Moms Network.com http://www.momsnetwork.com/busdirc-d/bannerexchange.shtml(your banner will receive one exposure for every two exposures of the WAHM Exchange on your site)

The Mom Pack http://mompack.com/ringsetc.shtml (see this site to find other free banner exchange resources)

WAHM Tips http://www.wahmtips.com/rotation.htm (free link exchange)

Moola Mom http://moolamom.com/bnnrlinks.htm

4. Sites that Compliment Your Web Page Content - Exchange links with sites that compliments yours. For example, if you sell children's products - exchange with a parenting site. If you sell kitchen supplies - exchange with a recipe site. You may have to approach these sites and ask them if they are interested in a link exchange.

Choosing Meta Tags - Choosing good keywords for your site is a time consuming, but an imperative and worthwhile venture (see article in Building a Web Site). If you don't know what meta tags are, don't fret, we will learn about them in detail soon.

One quick thing you can do with your meta tags is make sure that the titles of your pages are descriptive and contain keywords for your site. You can see the title on the very top of your browser of a page you are viewing. It's also the name that comes up when you try to add a page to your favorites. Web crawling (see below) search engines search sites, in great part, based on these titles.

For example, if you sell children's clothes online, you want to make sure that the title clearly illustrates what your site offers. A title like "Mandy's Stitches" may be your brand, but it is not very descriptive to what you are selling. A title like "Quality Children's Clothes at Inexpensive Prices" will serve you much better.

Keep in mind: What is your product and who is it for?

Note: This does not mean that you cannot use "Mandy's Stitches", or something like that in the headings that your visitors will see on the page. We are strictly talking about meta tags here.

Also, if you are selling a recognizable brand, use that name in your title. Remember, to be search engine friendly, a title can be up to 60 characters long - so maximize your keywords in your title!

Using Your Keywords in Your Site Text - of course, use your keywords in your meta tags, but also include them in the text you use on your web pages. If one of your keywords is home based business, be sure to use those word in your site.

Free Search Engine & Directory Submissions – A number of search engines allow you to submit your site to for free. However, it often takes weeks or months before they will consider your submission and most often you will not know when they do consider it. Also, even if they do consider it, you may not be entered. That said, search engines are an extremely powerful tool for advertising your site and you will want to submit to them.

Note: Search engines are usually of two types: 1. web crawlers that find your page based on keywords and ranking and 2. web directories where you have to be listed to be found. Some engines are a combination of both (ex. Yahoo).

Beware: free submissions are becoming rare. Get your site in while you can.

Here is a short list of search engines and directories to which you can submit for free:

Google http:/www.google.ca (you should submit your site with a description, but Google is a web crawler, not a directory - it will eventually find your site)

Open Directory Project http://www.dmoz.com

AOL http://aolsearch.aol.com/

Alcanseek http://www.alcanseek.com/ (Alaska & Canada only)

All the Web http://www.alltheweb.com/

AltaVista http://www.altavista.com/ (Alta Vista is a web crawler but also contains a web directory you should submit your site to)

Biz Web http://www.bizweb.com/ (directory of business web sites - not a search engine)

Yahoo! http://www.yahoo.com It's very difficult to get into their directory even if you pay, but they do have a free submission option. However, the free submission option is not available if you want to list in the Business to Business or Shopping & Services. So much for that idea. L

Web Rings – The idea of a web ring is that everyone in the ring (related by some topic - ex. product, WAHMs, UK sites, etc.) places a link at the bottom of their page that links the site visitor to the next site in the ring. The visitor can click from site to site related to that particular topic.

A Web Ring may bring visitors to your site, but again you may lose some. Regardless, they are a good way to increase hits to your site and increase your search engine ranking. You need to decide which is most important.

You can find a directory of web rings at: http://dir.webring.com/rw (you can also make your own here quite easily)

WAHM.com offers a web ring at http://www.wahm.com/wahmring.html

iVillage has a directory of web rings or you can make your own

MomsNetwork.com also offers a web ring

Top Site List – top site lists are those buttons you may have seen on web pages that say something like "Vote for My Site". You can place a "Vote for My Site" button on your site and you will be listed in a directory. Generally, the ranking on the directory is based on the number of links you bring into the directory and how many links you receive out of the directory. So if you give and receive a lot of links, you will rise to the top of the list.

Again take note, that top site lists may bring visitors to your site, but you may lose some. Be sure to have the top site banner button on your site open in a new window.

WAHM.com has a top site list you can join (note: At the time of publishing this article, WAHM.com had 1838 sites on its top site list. Consider it might be difficult to get hits of such a long list if you are at the bottom)

MoneyMakingMommy has a relatively new top site list you can join. Hurry, it 's a good idea to get in while there's time.

Check out MomsNetwork.com's top site list

Take a look at the Jarvis Network, they have a listing of top site lists you can join. You can find them at http://www.topsitelists.com

Good luck promoting your site quickly & for free. Look for future articles on other highly effective ways to promote your site.

About the author: Alice Seba is the creator of http://www.internetbasedmoms.com, the online home-based resource center for work at home moms. Receive great tips on building your Internet Business right into your email inbox mailto:subscribenewsletter@internetbasedmoms.com