Mailing Lists

Email is one of the most valuable tools there is for building Web site traffic. No, I'm not talking about "bulk e-mail." If you spam, you will go instantly to Hell. Or at the very least, you'll waste time and money to hurt your traffic rather than help it. Spam is for MLM mountebanks, purveyors of porn, weight-loss wannabes and just plain crooks.

Email lists, however, are quite legitimate, and are often terrific traffic-builders. An announcement newsletter, which allows you to send email to visitors who sign up for the list, can be used to notify customers and potential customers of new features on your site, special offers, etc. A discussion list, which allows any list members to post messages, can be a valuable resource for members, and can be used to plug your site. For details of how email lists can be used to build site traffic, see the article, Mailing Lists for Web Sites.

Whether you have your own mailing list or not, participating in appropriate discussion lists and online forums can be a good way to increase awareness of your site, and build traffic. Be careful to use proper netiquette, and obey all the guidelines of any group that you participate in. Most lists won't tolerate blatant advertising, but see nothing wrong in sneaking in a plug for your site here and there, in the course of contributing meaningfully to the discussion.

Advertising

What about paid advertising? As an employee of an advertising-supported network of Web sites, I hate to bite the hand that feeds me, but in my experience, buying banner advertising is seldom cost-effective for a small business. To get results from paid banner ads, you need to spend some serious money, and you need to be prepared to refine both the banners and their placement on an ongoing basis. However, who says you have to pay cash for banner ads? Barter arrangements thrive on the Web. Exchanging ad banners directly with a related site is likely to be more effective than simply participating in a formal banner exchange program. A content-for-ads swap can also be a good thing for both parties. You can swap content for banners, fixed links, or whatever you like. If you sell products or services, consider offering them in barter for ads. When it comes to barter and other mutual back-scratching deals, the sky's the limit.

To be able to measure (and try to improve) results from banners, you need some sort of ad management software, which will rotate different banners on your site, and keep track of impressions and clickthroughs. You also want to be sure that the site running your banners has some way of tracking this information. Various free or low-cost scripts are available that can do an adequate job of running banner ads on a small site. See The Web Developer's Journal's Online Advertising section for an overview of the various packages and tips on how to choose one.

Print ads are even more expensive than online ads, and it requires even more expertise to manage campaigns effectively. However, they can be a valuable piece of a marketing plan, as they often reach a different set of people than online ads would. As with online ads, it may be well worthwhile to propose some sort of barter deal.

Mailing list ads are generally far cheaper than banners, and often reach much more finely-targeted audiences. If you can find a mailing list or two that targets the type of people you're trying to reach, it might be well worthwhile to try a few ads. The drawback to mailing list ads is that it's harder to track results. Ad management software can tell you how many people clicked on a banner, but there's usually no way to know how many people found your site through a mailing list ad. One trick is to set up duplicates of your home page, each with a slightly different URL, and use a different one for each ad campaign. Then you can use your server logs to find out how many visitors came from each one.

Getting Media Coverage
You've submitted to all the search engines. Now what?
Conclusion