If your serious about making money on the web, your going to have to invest mostly time,
but a little money can allow you to hit the ground running.
Always stay within you advertising budget.

Click any on any of the links in the table below to jump to that section.

Budget Setting

Part of the budget wrangling in the early stages of a start-up revolves around how to spend the available money in the most effective manner. I have always believed in the axiom "presence builds preference." Being in front of your key target audience often, in a convincing fashion, is a powerful tool that when done well can build credibility and excitement for your business, even at the early stages.

But with limited financial resources, you must spend wisely to get the proverbial "most bang for your buck." Here are some commonsense tips and guerilla tactics to consider as you put together your early-stage marketing program.

Set Clear Goals and Objectives.
Make sure you set goals and expectations of what you want to accomplish before you get started. For example, do you want to drive qualified traffic to your site, increase sales by 5 percent, sign up x-number of new customers, or just generate awareness? You can think big, but with a small budget you have to be realistic. Setting goals from the start will help you determine what and how much you need to do.

Learn the media usage and business habits of your target.
Before jumping into any program, you should really get to know your audience right down to what magazines they read, analysts they respect, trade shows they attend, sports they like, etc. This will help you in targeting your activities and spurring your creativity.

Focus your dollars and own the channel.
Once you complete your research, you will most likely find a number of communication channels that resonate with your audience. The initial reaction is to use all of them. My suggestion? Focus your dollars on what you think is the best bet and own the channel.

If you are buying banner advertising, you don't need to buy it from 10 sites.

Fish where the fish are biting.
Piggybacking on major industry events and trade shows is a great way to leverage a small budget to gain exposure. Attend internet marketing and internet trade shows, bring your business cards with your web address on them and be prepared to introduce yourself to everyone.

PPC Search Engines

PPC Search Engines:
Pay Per Click, Placement, Rank and Impression

If you want to really target your audience, the best way to do this is to Pay For Traffic. Several major search engines offer this service and it really is the best way to pick the kind of traffic that you want, specifically seeking your type products, services or info.

Overture:
Their success has spurred the Search Engine Industry, Google adwords, Looksmart and even Yahoo now let you pay for position. Also, our most popular selling site, due to the millions of small-mid size businesses that get buried deep in the major SE's there's plenty of money to be made right now.

Listing your site within Overture's search results is the most cost-effective way to reach lots of targeted customers. You select the search terms that are relevant to your site, and choose how much to pay when customers click on your listings*. The higher you bid, the higher your site appears in our search results.

______________________________________________________________________________

Google

Benefits of advertising with Google include:
Unique text-based ads displayed on search results that are highly visible.

Keyword targeting that eliminates waste and increases relevance.

Ads on Google's image-free pages have yielded clickthrough rates 5 times higher than industry standards.

Google AdWords is a simple and quick way to purchase highly-targeted advertising, regardless of your budget.
Purchasing an AdWord on Google is as easy as:

Your AdWords text ads appear on search result pages for the keywords you buy, and can be targeted by language and country. So, to reach collectors of tin toys you might buy the keywords "toy collector," "tin toys," etc.

Pricing for AdWords is based on the position in which they're shown. Google positions your ad based on how many users click on it over time. Current rates are $15, $12, $10 (per thousand ads shown) for positions 1, 2, and 3 respectively, and $8 per thousand for positions 4 and beyond. Accounts are opened with a credit card and no minimum deposit is required.

Other PPC's

LooksOver of course, get $25 free to start your campaign, plus test out your keyword bidding and polish up on listings skills.

Try our FREE Bid Cap Calculator to setup your keyword bidding budget and track your return on investment [ROI] results.

FindWhat.com
FindWhat is an important paid placement service because the company distributes its results on the Excite search engine, as well as on many major metacrawlers.

Sprinks
Paid placement service that posts links to appropriate areas within the About.com network of subject sites. Listings are also available by searching at the Sprinks site itself. They are also distributed to some meta search engines.

Search Engines

Tips:
I am going to disclose to you here a few tricks of the trade. If you are serious about promoting your website, keep a notebook of your activities. You need to have a record of what you did and when you did it regarding submissions. You need to know if you did or did not submit to that engine and when. You may need to submit again to a site if it doesn't list your site after a reasonable period of time. Some search engines tell you how much time is reasonable, others do not.

You will find that some search engines will list your site immediately.
You enter your information directly into the search engine and it is immediately available for searches. But most search engines don't work this way. Most robots don't go out every night. Some do, but most don't. Most robots go out on a schedule that might be once a week, or once a month, or even less frequently. I even suspect that a few never go out any more.

Robots don't go everywhere every time they go looking for sites.
That may search only a portion of the internet at a time. Some robots also use selection criteria to determine their priorities in searching for sites. They may select only sites that have a certain number of links to them. Some robots don't even look for the URL you submit them. They only use it as permission to enter your site if and whenever they find the site. If you keep track with your notebook, you will find that some robots find your site right away, while others never do, no matter how many times you submit your URL to them.

Most robots do not say when or how they look for web sites.
They don't for a variety of reasons, but this makes it difficult to evaluate the usefulness of a particular search engine.

The problem with getting listed in directories isn't much different.
Many directories are manually updated by human beings with very finite resources available for updating. This means that a popular directory may take weeks or months before it gets around to looking at your site. And when they do look at it, they want to see something good. If your site doesn't past muster, it just might not be listed at all.

Guides are very discriminating.
If the site isn't very, very good, it wont be listed. Period. And the good guides, like the good directories, have long waiting lists. This again take weeks or months before they even get to your site. And since they have to write reviews and come up with ratings, the process takes even longer. They make up for this by just flying by the sites that will be included in a directory, but don't merit their attention.


Yahoo - getting listed at Yahoo should be your primary objective. This is the directory that started it all and is by far the most popular and most used of all search engines on the Web.

YAHOO LISTING FACTS:
$299.00 to be considered (no guarantee) to get listed in 7 days.
Yahoo, better described as a directory than a search engine, is by far the most important site on the Web to get your site listed. After all, who hasn't heard of Yahoo? What sets Yahoo apart from the others is that "real people" list your site ... not a spider. One thing is extremely important - follow the rules! If not, you'll be wasting your time. Carefully read their FAQ and guidelines for submissions. If followed properly and used with our tips, you will get listed.

The 3 most important steps to a good listing at Yahoo are:

1 - the title of your site
2 - selecting the correct category
3 - keywords

The first thing you should do is search for your competition using keywords. On the results page, you'll notice one constant - all sites are listed alphabetically! Sites with titles containing numbers are listed first; with poor old letter z last. Pick a title for your site that will get listed early ... just make sure it pertains to your content. Do a little research on the sites listed high. Read their description and take note of keywords and phrases you can use in yours.

After you've decided on your site title, it's now time to find the best category.
Look through all of the categories that your site would fit under. Take note of how many sites are listed in each category. Choosing a category with fewer sites will give you a better chance of getting listed and much less competition for a click-through. Just be certain your site fits this category or you will get no listing at all.

Your next step is submitting a description of your site.
This is where keywords come in. You're only given 15-25 words to work with, so choose your description wisely and try to use as many relevant keywords as possible while still making it look good. Don't just repeat keywords in your description, but use them "in your description". This will take some time and effort but it's very important since this description will be relevant to all search results on Yahoo.

Finally - don't give up!
Getting listed on Yahoo takes time and patience. After submitting your site for review, wait a minimum of 3 weeks. Go to Yahoo and search for your listing using the title you submitted and/or using keywords. If you can't find your site, submit it again. Wait 2 more weeks, search, and repeat the process until you are listed. With a little patience and a lot of perseverance your hard work will eventually pay off and you will reap the rewards!

We realize some folks simply do not have the time to submit their websites or to keep records and track their results.
We provide the following services to get massive traffic to your website.
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Banner Exchanges

One way to get people to visit your site is to trade links with them. There are many banner/link exchange sites out there that will give you "credits" for displaying banners on your site. For every banner viewed on your site, your banner will be viewed on someone else's site.

Link Exchange
The Best- 468x60 banners, stats pages, banner targeting and good click thrus.
Size restrictions + weight of less than 10k.

Click this link for PowerBanner
Offers Free Banner Swap program and services.

123Banners
1for1
Offers targeted banner exchange services.

Addendum Advertising Network
Advertising and web site promotion.

Allfreesites Banner Exchange
Get FREE advertising for your site. Rotate up to 5 different banners. Real time statistics, Free membership, 100 free impressions on joining and a display ratio of 5:4 make this exchange an unbeatable choice.

BannerBargain.com
One for one banner exchange program.

Banner Co-Op
We provide 1-1 exchange rates + Cash. Get the best of both click-thru and exchange banner programs. No cost to join. Just cut/paste code into your page(s) to bring more traffic to your site.

BannerMall
Targeted Advertising, 3:2 ratio and allow banner sizes of 400x40 and 468x60.

Banners-R-Us
with 468x60 sizes, detailed stats, 3:2 ratio, and more.

BannerSwap
BannerWomen
Banner advertising and exchange for targeting women online.

ComicExchange
ComicExchange: The leading humorous provider of FREE comics and ad banner exchange helping web site owners and designers grow online traffic and revenue.

CyberLink Exchange

Disney Banner Network
Free banner exchange for Disney sites.

Free Banner Exchange MegaList
Banner exchange guide which is indexed by targeting, geography, credit ratio, and technical requirements.

Free Banners

GlobExchange

Home and Garden Banner Exchange
Exclusively dedicated to home and garden related sites.

Reciprocal Links

How To Trade Links?
Link trades are easy and can make you a lot of money. The best thing about link trades is they are free!! What you need to do is contact at least 100 webmasters a week asking to trade links. You need to do some every day, seven days a week! Or if your time is limited, devote a good 4-8 hours on the weekend to trading links. Of course, the more people you trade with the more your site will be listed through out the Internet, which is more chances someone will come to your site and buy. This is your first step in obtaining your goals.

The following is the standard letter asking for a trade that you may to send by email to sites that you want to trade with.

Dear Webmaster,

I understand that time is money and that couldn't be any more true if you take the next three minutes and review our website. We are currently looking for link partners and thought that a link trade would be mutually beneficial based upon our traffic similarities.

My site is MY WEBSITE at http://www.yoursite.com.

If you are interested, please email me and we can work out the details.

Thanks for your time..
Your Name
Your Website Name
Your E-mail address

You will want to keep a copy of this letter in your computer so that you can just copy and paste it or you can do the same from this page. MAKE SURE TO CHANGE EVERYTHING TO FIT YOUR SPECIFIC SITE AND CORRECT SPELLING ERRORS. No one has confidence in a webmaster that can't spell. DO NOT SEND SPAM. DO NOT SEND SEVERAL HUNDRED E-MAILS TO A GROUP OF RECIPIENTS. YOU MUST KNOW WHO YOU ARE SENDING TO BEFORE YOU DO IT!

Don't insist on reciprocal links.
Don't say, "If you link to mine, I'll link to yours." Not only is that selfish, it's rude and it doesn't work. But do provide a reciprocal link to any and all websites that link to yours, provided its the kind of website with which you want to be associated.

Do request reciprocal links.
Reciprocal links are the word of mouth advertising of the internet. Other sites providing links to your site are extremely important in getting your website the kind of exposure that generates traffic to your website. I stress that you be generous in providing links to other websites because a smart webmaster will recognize the favor you are doing him and he is more likely to put a link to your website on his website. On the other hand, if a website has no links to other websites on its pages, why should someone bother to do him a favor. Those kinds of websites are obviously isolationists caught up in their little private world. Let's leave them alone.

Link trades will make you money and they are free, but you must keep up with sites that you trade with to make sure your link has been put up! It may take a couple days for them to put your link on their page so keep checking back! The best thing to do is to go down the link page on your site once a week or every two weeks, and go to those sites to look for your link on their link pages. If your link is not up, print out your link list on your site and mark out those who have not reciprocated.

Who Do I Trade With?

This is easy. Go to your favorite search engine. Enter keywords that reflect your websites content. Look at the list of websites that come up. These are websites that are closely related to yours and will be receiving the same kinds of traffic.

Paid Advertising - Make More Money Quicker!

First of all, when paying for advertising their are some commonly used terms you will need to know.

Impressions are how many people see your banner, your link on another site, etc.

Click thrus means how many people actually click on your banner or link to go to your site (how many people have accessed your site through the site you have advertised on).

Search engines, Microsoft's site, Netscape's site, etc. are very expensive and charge per impression to advertise on their site. You can lose a lot of money advertising this way, because visitors may see your banner, not be interested, and you still pay for them to look at it. Click thrus are a much better way to pay for advertising, since you will only pay for the people which actually go to your website. Click thrus will cost you more each, but are well worth it.

Advertising paid up front for a term (example: $100 a month) can get you up and running quickly (getting orders). The place to be , of course, is the top ten of search engines indexes. You can do this by offering a site on the top ten of a search engine a term advertising deal. The best thing to do is first e-mail and try a link exchange with them. This is FREE and may get some exposure for nothing! However if that doesn't work, you are going to pay if you want to get in the top ten of any search engine! First let me explain about keywords, a keyword is a word that you can put in a search engine such as computer if you are looking for computers. Their key because their pointed at a certain market or industry. Look at your website and decide which words would be key to it and if you were looking for your website in a search engine, what terms would you use.

Because search engines change, you don't want to pay for more than one week in advance. However, because they change you want to get (if you decide to advertise on a certain site) your banner up as soon as possible! Most webmasters will not put up your advertising (banner) until they receive your payment. The best thing to do once you've made a deal for advertising is to use Western Union or FedEx payment. Western Union is just about everywhere including overseas, because of this you can sometimes get your banner up the same day, certainly the next day. In the adult business, time really is money!! If Western Union isn't an option, FedEx overnight is another possibility.

Here is an example of a good advertising deal:

You look up the keyword baby on Excite and see that Parents Guide is the first listing. You would e-mail the webmaster of Parents Guide (look for their e-mail on the webpage) and tell them that you would like to offer them $100 for a month of advertising if they put your banner up on the top of their page (include the URL of the EXACT page). Tell them you pay weekly, and you can FedEx or Western Union payment that day. This is a great deal if they accept. It could possibly make you $100 to $300 a day and you have only shelled out $25 for 7 days.

Here is an example of an e-mail message you could send them:

My name is Joe Smith and I am the webmaster for Babyless.com. I recently came across your page and wanted to inquire about purchasing advertising at the top of your page at http://www.parentsguide.com/index.htm for $100 a month. I pay weekly in advance. If you are interested you can e-mail me at webmaster@babyless.com or call me at 281-376-6961. My website is at http://www.babyless.com. If I hear back from you before 4 PM CST today, we could send the money either FedEx or Western Union today.

Hope to hear from you soon!
Joe Smith
Baby Less SuperStore
http://www.babyless.com

You will want to keep a copy of this letter in your computer so that you can just copy and paste it or you can do it from this page. MAKE SURE TO CHANGE EVERYTHING TO FIT YOUR SPECIFIC SITE AND CORRECT SPELLING ERRORS. No one has confidence in a webmaster that can not spell.

When you get to the point of actually finding a site that is on top of a search engine and you want to advertise, how much do you pay? Its a hard question!! Their is alot of things to take into consideration. All search engines are different, sites are different, some keywords will make more money than others, because of all the variables you can make money or lose money fast! Take all these things into consideration and offer them a deal. To decide how much you are willing to pay, look at their website. Does it look professional? If not, you can pay less. Do they have alot of good advertising from large companies? If so, you may have to pay more.

Another hot spot for finding good advertising deals is on eBay. Look in the Computer Services area. You can pick up as many as 100,000 impressions for $10! Can't beat that deal! Just use common sense and deal with reputable sellers.

Email

To send or not to send?

SPAM ALERT! It is not recommended to send unsolicited emails to promote your website, business, etc. You can have your ISP account deleted for such activities as well as your membership in many online businesses revoked. I personally report most of the SPAM or UBE (unsolicited bulk email) that I receive, and I know that many accounts have been cancelled as a result of my complaints.

Web Rings

A Web ring (or Webring) is a way of interlinking related Web sites so that you can visit each site one after the other, eventually (if you keep going) returning to the first Web site. Typically, users can also elect to go backwards through the ring of sites, skip a certain number at a time, visit sites randomly, or see a list of all the sites on the ring. A ring is managed from one site which includes a CGI application that can select random sites and bypass sites that have dropped out or aren't reachable.

The ring idea seems to have caught on as a more dynamic alternative to the list of "favorite sites" that many Web sites offer. The originator of the idea, Sage Weil (now 19 and in college), started the first ring in May, 1995. With several collaborators, Sage has created WebRing, a Web ring management system. As of April, 1998, there were over 40,000 Web rings using the system.

There are Web rings on acrobatics, quilting, mermaids, the macabre, Spanish hotels, the Chevrolet, Dixieland, medieval studies, native American sites, and Winnie the Pooh. The largest number are on computer- and game-related subjects.

Where to start...

Webring - a system to manage a ring of pages on the Web. From any Webring site one can click on a "Next Site" button to reach the next page in the ring.

Celebrity Web Rings
Alicia Circle - a web ring uniting Alicia Silverstone sites.
Alicia Dream Page - host site of the Alicia Silverstone webring.
Alicia Silverstone Ring
Billy Zane Web Ring - 17 Billy Zane sites in a Web ring devoted to a wonderful actor.
Chris Farley Web Ring
Claire Danes Web Ring
Claire Danes Webring
Cynthia Rothrock Ring - devoted to the actress and her career.
David Duchovny's Devoties Web Ring - linking to sites from all over the web.
Doris Day Web Ring
Drew Carey Ring
Gillian Anderson Webring
James Spader Webring
Jennifer Aniston Webring
Jenny McCarthy Ring Page
Jeri Ryan Ring
Jessica Alba Webring
Jim Carrey Ring - links to many fan pages.
Katharine Hepburn WebRing
Keanu Reeves Ring Of Fire
Kevin Costner Webring
Lovers of David Duchovny (LODD) - be part of the webring.
Marilyn: The Official Marilyn Monroe Webring
Molly Ringwald Ring
Natalie Portman Web Ring
Ring of Ted Raimi
Christian Web Ring
Circle of Prayer Webring
Creation Science WebRing - for Christians who are convinced of the truth and scientific validity of the Biblical account of creation.
Jesus is Lord of my Life Webring
Messages With Meaning
Praying Hands Ring of Christians
Ring of Intercessors
TG Christians Webring - sites for the transgendered Christian community.
The Word Became Flesh Web Ring
WJD - What Jesus Did
Women Web Rings

GeekGirls Web Ring
gerl.ring - webring for girls with outstanding homepages.
NetGrrrl WebRing
Ring Mistress Ring - the ring for women who run webrings.
WebGoddess Ring - for women whose design sense and knowlegde of HTML are above average.
Women in Business
WWWomen WebRing
WWWomen Women Sports WebRing
Romance Web Rings

I Met My Mate On The Net
Internet Romance Ring
Met On The Net Web Ring

Holiday Web Rings
Happy Holidays Webring - includes all types of holiday sites. Monthly contests, holiday graphics, and more.
Happy Valentine's Day Webring
Holidays Around the Webring
Mardi Gras Ring - webring for Mardi Gras related sites.
Seasonal Graphics Webring - includes a holiday section, a good source of themed clipart, graphics, borders, backgrounds, and more.
St. Patrick's Day Webring - network of themed sites. Family oriented. , kid safe. Sites have Irish history, music, graphics, and more.
Christmas All Year Web Ring
Christmas Cooking & Crafts WebRing
Christmas Web Ring - community of christmas-related sites on the Web.
Christmas Wonderland Web Ring
CSP Christmas Center Webring
Original Merry Christmas Webring
Halloween's Horror Ring
Happy Halloween Webring
Music Web Rings

A Cappella Web Ring
Anti Music: The Hate Ring - dedicated to sites that slag bands, genres, and performers.
Baroque Ring, The - for pages relating to Baroque composers.
Blues At Home Webring
Chinese Pop Stars Web Ring
Choir and Choral Music Web Ring
Christian Rock Music Ring - for Christian rock/alternative bands, signed & unsigned, to show you their stuff.
Dallas Music Ring
Dulcimer Web Ring - offers both mountain and hammered dulcimer sites.
Fans of Classic Rock - for sites about '60s and '70s classic rock legends.
Fixture
Game Music Ring
High School Marching Band Webring
Lila McCann WebRing - got a Lila site? Add it to the Lila McCann webring.
Local Sound - indie Band, DJ and local music scene related webring.
Lyrics Ring
MTV Sucks Webring
Music Ring - organization for musicians of all kinds. We link our pages together in a ring of pages that cannot be broken...
Official Drum Tab Web Ring
Progressive Rock Ring
Rapcore Webring - for bands like Biohazard, Downset and Dog Eat Dog.
Reggae Ring
Ring of the Black Souls - for sites pertaining to vampires, occult, black/death/doom metal, dark poetry, etc.
Skankin' Ska-ring
Southern Rock Webring
Tape Traders Ring
Underground Hip Hop Ring
Law Web Rings
Code3' Webring - open to Law enforcement officers only.
Cop Country Webring
Cops'R'Us Web Ring
Donut Shop Web Ring - linking law enforcement, Fire, E.M.S., and their families together.
Gold Shield WebRing
Sports Web Rings
'Top Sports Webrings' WebRing
All Wrestling Webring
All-Around Sports Ring
All-Star Coaching WebRing - linking coaching related websites.
All-Star Softball WebRing - linking non-professional softball team sites.
Boarders Paradise - linking snowboarding sites.
Boxing Ring, The
Bullriding Web Ring
COOL Swim Webring - links to other swimming sites.
DropZone WebRing - linking skydiving websites.
Extreme Sports Ring - webring.
Fantasy Baseball Webring
Figure Skating WebRing
Good-Looking Athletes Webring
Guido's Racing Ring - webring.
Gymnastics Ring - webring.
Hang-gliding Ring - Start of Hang-gliding Ring of Web Sites
Harness Racing Web Ring
Hockey World Webring
Horseshoe Pitching Webring
IAA (Ice Addicts Anonymous) Ring - for all you puckheads.
Inline Skating Webring
Iowa Hawkeye Webring
KiteRing Connects People - webring bringing together kite fliers in the world.
M2M Wrestling Webring - links guys interested in male-to-male competitive aggression.
Mark McGwire Fan's Webring
Michael Jordan Web Ring
Minor League Baseball Webring
Mountain Biking Webring
North American Rugby Webring
Original NASCAR Webring
Paintball Tactics Webring
Personal Watercraft Ring - webring.
Pole Vault Web Ring - presenting a way in which all pole vaulters can come together.
Professional Figure Skating Webring
Rodeo Cowboys Web Ring
Rugby League Web Ring
Skydive Ring - webring.
Snowboarding Ring - webring.
Softball Webring
Sumo Ring
Super Racing Ring - webring.
Thoroughbred Racing Ring - webring.
Tyson's Skateboard Webring
Un-Official Fantasy Hockey League Listings - webring.
Youth Soccer Webring

There's many more, I only recommend this if you have lots of time and to properly index it's relationship to web marketing.

Award Websites

There are many awards you can get for having a good website or having a site that meets particular criteria. There are also sites that list the "Top" (presumably most popular) sites. The "top" site listings usually mean that you place a link on your page by which your surfers can "vote" for your site.

Medaille d'Or Award - for web site excellence.
Best of the Planet Awards - five-star judging system includes speed and ease of use, design, quality of content, timeliness, and the level of interactivity and technology.
Surfers Choice Internet Awards
World Best Website Awards - granted to exemplary sites that are pursuing the best practices in design and Internet communications.
Webmaster Award
eyeSITE Awards
Awards Scoop - published as a reference source for those outside the web awards community.
Best of the Planet Awards - five-star judging system includes speed and ease of use, design, quality of content, timeliness, and the level of interactivity and technology.
Cow Pie Awards
Dave's World - offers a webpage approval award.
eyeSITE Awards
Gold Tiger Awards - Six awards are presented monthly to the best of the best mney, news,trade, reference, learning and networking global business sites.
Golden Tag Award, The - an award for excellence in HTML design.
Golden Web Awards - presented by the International Association of Web Masters and Designers.
Must-c - Internet design awards where our users vote on the best site within a selected category.
Nice Place To Visit Awards
Nocturnal Society All Nighter Web Awards - awards for late night links.
Over The Edge Award of Excellence - award for best web design.
Palace of Interest Award of Excellence - now issuing awards for the most well-made web pages nominated in the week.
Spyder's Empire Excellence Award - finally an award for Internet web page novices. Submit your homepage and get the credit you have earned.
Surfers Choice Internet Awards

Again time consuming.

Press Releases

Press releases should target either general interest or special interest media.
Your targets should include print, broadcast, and internet media. General interest media includes your local newspaper, Time magazine, and some of your local radio and television stations. Special Interest media includes trade publications and broadcast media that focuses on some niche area of interest. The important thing to remember as you pursue this avenue, is that your press release must be newsworthy, ie..., news, if it is going to be published and generate the traffic to your website that you are seeking. You should also recognize that what's news to one organization isn't necessarily news to another.

Your local newspaper, the Littleville Beacon, may think your having a website on the internet is big news. After all, nobody at the paper has browsed the internet themselves yet and they don't know anyone else who has a website. So by all means send a press release to the home town newspaper. Time magazine, on the other hand may not be so impressed. They may not have actually browsed the web, but someone met somebody sometime at a cocktail party in Manhattan who did. So its not news. Yet if you have the right kind of site you might get into Time. How? Well, if its a special interest site it might correspond to a special interest section of the publication or be involved in a special event of the time. For example, the periodical has a section that covers politics and your website is the be all of all times on politics. Or you might get lucky and send them your PR Release on your model railroading website just as they are putting together a special report on how model railroading is taking the nation by storm. Of course, you will not know that, but if you send enough PR releases out you just might get lucky.

You could get on the radio.
Does one of your local stations have a talk show that covers computers? Perhaps there's a local talk show that's about crafts and hobbies. Your website on model railroading might be an appropriate subject to talk about when you call into the show. Hey, you're doing a public service here. Don't be shy.

Special interest media would include Model Railroading Magazine, NetGuide, ComputerWorld, and a variety of programs on public television and radio. The closer the fit of what your website covers and what this particular media covers the more likely you will get coverage. If a particular media is a super fit for your site, like if there were a publication called Model Railroading on the Web, you should probably make a special effort and maybe tailor your release to meet their specific needs. You might even call the editor for the department you are targeting to reinforce your message.

Writing the press release should not be too difficult.
Keep it brief. About two pages double spaced is about right. Always include some direct quotations as if you were being interviewed.
For example, "Mr. Churilla stated that his Eureka! Internet Search Engine is the greatest thing since sliced bread." With some good direct quotes, the reporter can write the story as if he actually bothered to interview you. Since reporters are very busy people, this extra touch will be very appreciated and your website is more likely to get some press coverage. A well written press release can be used verbatim by some trade publications. The trade publications that have no paid subscribers and a lot of advertisers often don't have a lot of reporters hanging around looking for something to do. The editor just might pop your entire release, unedited (He's busy too.), right into the Industry News Column.

News Groups

Posting To Newsgroups
Post an announcement on all relevant usenet newsgroups. If your website has regional information, post in the general newsgroup for your region. If your site is oriented towards a special interest area like hobbies, sports, travel, or any other of about 18,000 subject areas, search the newsgroups for those where the readers would have an interest in your website. Review at least fifty of the headers in the newsgroups and read some of the articles to be sure it is an appropriate place to post your website announcement. If necessary, you should tailor your message for each specific newsgroup.

All of the above assumes your website is non-commercial.
If your page is a commercial one, you should limit your postings only to newsgroups which are designated for commercial announcements. Remember, you are trying to build goodwill, not ill will. You might do this gradually, posting only one or two messages a day spaced a few days apart. If you start getting flamed (irate e-mail messages) you'll know you are doing something wrong, and these messages will tell you exactly what that is. To avoid any problems you should read the charter for the newsgroups which describes its intended use. You can use the search engines to find much more detailed information on posting to newsgroups and the sins you should avoid.

Useful Software
WinVN Newsreader (32-bit) 0.99-9
Read and post to Usenet newsgroups.
OS: Windows 95/NT
File Size: 351K
License: Freeware

Tifny 3.6 pick
Find, view, and post images and MP3s on Usenet.
OS: Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP
File Size: 3MB
License: Shareware, $30

WinVN Newsreader 16-bit .99-8
Read and post to Usenet newsgroups.
OS: Windows 3.x
File Size: 296K
License: Freeware

Sureview 4.0
Unzip, view, and manipulate images and movie clips.
OS: Windows 95/98/NT
File Size: 2.7MB
License: Shareware

FixNews 2.0
Use newsgroups without reading spam or being spammed later.
OS: Windows 95/98/NT
File Size: 478K
License: Freeware

Absolute News Poster 1.0
Post multiple files to newsgroups with this program.
OS: Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP
File Size: 491K
License: Freeware

PostAgent 3.7
Get your message out to Usenet news groups.
OS: Windows 95/98/NT
File Size: 4MB
License: Shareware

Miscellaneous

E-mail to VIPs
If you read in the paper or hear on the news, that Congressman I. M. Polluted has given up on budget and welfare reform and has decided to coddle up to the Model Railroading special interest in congress, you should sent him a fax, letter, and/or e-mail announcing the great resource that you have made available free to the web-walking public. Representative Polluted might just be so impressed by your public spirit and the incredible content of your web page that he reads it into the Congressional Record the next day. And 60 minutes may find that so noteworthy that they send Andy Rooney out to cover the story in his next chat.
Imagine, your life will never ever again be the same.

Special Interest Groups
You should notify all the other home pages dedicated to Model Railroading that your website has arrived. They will probably want to link to your page. If your website is all about Macintosh HTML programming, you should probably look for Macintosh websites and user groups (SIGs) and the same for HTML websites and SIGs and let them know your website is out there. Generating links and word of mouth advertising will expand your reach and bring in more traffic. You can find these special interest groups by using the Eureka! Internet Search Engine.

Use all regular forms of Business Communications.
If you have built your website as a means of generating traffic to your business and/or business website, be sure also to publicize your website by putting it on your letterhead, your business cards, your invoices, your advertising, and any other form of communication you use regularly to keep in touch with your customers and to pursue new prospects for your business. Don't believe in the axiom, "If you build it, they will come." They won't come if they don't know about it. Don't forget to put a brief description or the websites name along with its URL in your signature file for your e-mail system(s). Every time you e-mail someone you want to automatically advertise your website.

This is not meant to be an answer for everyone, and the internet is an ever changing environment. Try to have some fun and enjoy what you are doing, it will show in your website.

Good Luck and Keep after it, 95% of websites fail due to poor marketing skills.
We will be updating this and sending out monthly updates, if you
would like to be included in our mailing list, please email me.

Sincerely, Mike
CEO LooksOver.com