Inexpensive and Effective Advertising for your Website

By Kevin Nunley
Posted Thursday, August 5, 2004

With so many businesses on the web and so many different ways of promoting your site it is easy to spend far too much on advertising and get far too little in return. Here are some tried and true ways of promoting your business that are simple and relatively cheap:

1. Using Banners to Promote Your Site

Banner exchanges are about the oldest form of advertising on the Internet, and while they won't flood your site with customers, they can be an effective low-cost promotional tool.

How it works: Your banner runs on other sites in a banner co-op while their banner runs on your site, simple as that.

Two of the longest running free banner exchanges are Link Exchange at (http://adnetwork.bcentral.com), and Banner Swap at (http://bannerswap.com). These are both pretty reputable and have some good features. Of course there are many more banner opportunites out there, and some of them are great, just use good sense, and avoid sites with claims that sound too good to be true.

Be smart with your banners. There are a few basic rules to banner use.

*Don't place banners at the top of your page. They take time to load and detract from your page content. Place banners at the bottom of your page.

*Banners that tell people to "click" to get something good far outperform other banners.

*Animated banners work well only if their file size isn't too big.

*Yellow gets attention best but is hard on the eye. Blue is the most soothing color.

2. Classified Ads

There are a ton of web sites and e-zines that print classified ads. Most are pretty cheap, and some are even free. The trick to an effective classified ad is to say what you need with just a few choice words.

Follow these steps:

*Write your ad in complete sentences, then cut out non- essential words. Use action words and short phrases.

*Write several versions of your classified ad then pick the best ones.

*Test your ads. Run a few of them on free sites first to see which ones get a response. Be sure to include a code in the ad info so you will know which ad produced the response.

*Once you find an ad that works well, keep using it. Just because you're bored with it doesn't mean the audience is. They don't see it nearly as often as you do.

3.Promote Your Web Site With Direct Mail

With today's e-everything mentality, it is easy to forget the old, tried and true ways of doing business, but don't yield to the temptation. There are an increasing number of Internet businesses that are returning to traditional advertising methods and seeing some great results.

One of these great older methods is the classic sales letter sent through the mail. It's a time-tested technique that brings business.

You can mail your web site announcement, new product release, or price specials to as many people as you want, and you'll never be accused of spamming.

Check the catalog of mailing lists available from (http://www.SRDS.com/). It's a standard in the Direct Mail industry. Look for fresh lists which are tightly targeted to your market.

So don't get discouraged by expensive advertising campaigns. As you can see, there are many cheap and effective ways to promote your site. So get out there and get some business.

About the Author
Kevin Nunley provides marketing advice, copywriting, and promotional packages. See all his tips to help your businessor career at (http://DrNunley.com) Reach Kevin at kevin@drnunley.com, or 801-328-9006.