You have to promote your website in order for visitors to come to it. You can have a fantastic looking and functioning website, but if you don't effectively promote your website, no one will see it and you won't make any money. There are lots of ways to promote your website, and fortunately, many of them are low cost or free.

1. Submit To Search Engines - You need to notify the major search engines that your website exists. Each of the search engines has a form you can complete for this purpose, or you can go to SubmitEdge and they will submit to hundreds of search engines for you for a fee. (Use a Submitedge coupon code to save.)
2. Classified Ads - Online classified advertisements are a great way to advertise your website. Many free classified sites exist, and most do a really good job of directing visitors to your site.
3. Submit To Directories - There are many thousands of website directories on the internet. It's a good idea to be listed in most of them. Some are free to be listed, and others charge a fee. Again, you can manually submit your site to them, or for a fee SubmitEdge will do it for you.
4. Exchange Links - One of the oldest and best ways to promote your website is to contact other webmasters and ask them if they're interested in exchanging links with you. This involves placing a link to their website somewhere on your website, and they'll do the same on their website. If your website is related to theirs, and you ask nicely, they should be willing. After all, exchanging links with them helps their website as well.
5. Write Articles - A really powerful way to promote your website is to write an article on the topic that your website covers and submit the article to article directories. Article directories allow you to submit an author bio along with your article. Article bios should include a link to your website. This in turn will help to increase your ranking in the search engines. There are hundreds of article directories, but the top ones are ezine, isnare, and goarticles. You can automate the article submission process by using the DistributeYourArticles submission service. You can find very affordable article writers on oDesk.
6. Distribute Press Releases - Write a press release to notify media outlets about your business and why it's the best ever. If you write an interesting and compelling release, your local newspaper or television station may contact you to conduct an interview for a story. This can generate tremendous exposure for your website. Read reviews of the best press release services.
7. Learn From Experts - Consider getting assistance from extremely successful affiliate marketers like Rosalind Gardner. Expert advice from others in the same line of work is invaluable. Get her affiliate guide and get way ahead of the competition.
8. Be Patient - The techniques presented here do work, but they also take time. Search engines can be slow to recognize your marketing efforts, but they always do. Take my word for it.
9. Get Professional Help - Use a professional online marketing service such as RankPay - they don't charge you anything until they achieve search engine results for you. Webwej.com is another affordable website promotion service.

All website directories are not created equally. In general, the directories that charge a fee are more effective at directing visitors to your site and boosting your website ranking in the search engines. I didn't believe how important being listed in some of the major directories could be until I listed my own sites. These directories are expensive to join, but the results really are worth it. The top website directories are:

• Yahoo Directory
• Best of the Web
• Business.com

Before you sign up with these directories be sure to check for available promo codes, which can save you 25% or more off the cost of submission.

• Best of the Web Promo Code
• Business.com Promo Code

See a more complete list of high quality web directories to submit your site to.

After you've promoted your new website, learn about more advanced website design and marketing topics.

They say that with websites, content is king. This is true on so many levels. Not only will a website that contains good and relevant information be ranked with the search engines more favorably, but it also rank better with the real live people who land on the website looking for information.

People, as a general rule, love to learn something new. Rarely does a person leave a website visit thinking, “Wow, what a great sale they were having.” But quite frequently that same personality can be found saying, “Wow, that website was very informative.”

The point is that when you are writing any text for your website you can effectively promote your site without your text sounding like a sales pitch if your information brings the reader value. This method of providing value should not stop with your website however. You can carry this practice over to any type of outside writing that you will conduct to promote your website such as:

• Blogs: Blog about topics of concern within your industry. Use pictures and give links so the reader can get more information if need be. The more information you provide, the more value you provide.
• Articles: Write about anything that is relevant to your website, but not necessarily the website itself. When you promote your website using articles, there will be what is known as the ‘resource box’ at the end of the article and this is the place for you to self-promote. The article body though, should be about a real topic so it will offer some real value to the reader.
• Press Releases: People look through press releases to find out what the latest happenings are, not to learn about a two for one sale that you are conducting. A press release is a great way to take a problem within the industry and offer up a solution. If you don’t know what to write about you can always hit the message boards of whatever industry you are in as there will no doubt be some problems that need attention there.

The more quality information you provide for your readers the more value you give them. Once you do this a strange thing happens. As your name gets out in cyberspace and people know that they can turn to your website or anything else that you write as a credible source of information, your website, and you by proxy, begin to build up your online reputation in a positive manner.

Once your reputation grows enough then you will begin to be looked at as a guru within your industry. At that point you will have people going to your website simply to see if you can offer them a solution for their problem even if there is a chance that you haven’t covered that topic.

So remember, good content is not only king, but it is also value. By providing value in every single piece that you write, you will promote your website and eventually have more than your fair share of web traffic flooding your website. A great side effect of that is usually an increase in both your online sales and your bottom line.