Advertising your website can get expensive but here are some free and low cost ways to advertise your website. Start implementing them immediately and you'll see an increase in traffic and sales! In no particular order:

1) Give away free stuff

People love free stuff! So why not offer them something free? This will bring in new visitors, keep your current visitors coming back and they might even tell their friends about it. Create a giveaway or free offer in exchange for visitors signing-up for your newsletter, registering for your site, leaving a comment, etc. Think about your business and what you could offer for free. Sometimes putting together a free product or service can take time but the pay off will be a big increase in site traffic.

After you've developed a free product or service you can post it on sites such as: www.freemania.com, www.freestufftimes.com, and www.freebiereporter.com.

2) Run a contest or raffle

Starting a contest or raffle on your website will certainly draw in visitors. Not only will they visit your website to participate but they'll check but to see if they won and see who else is participating. Great traffic generator! When creating a contest don't forget to make the rules very clear (which may require a clear legal statement).

3) Encourage sharing

So many people are on social networking sites these days. Whether you are using these sites or not it is a good idea to give site visitors the opportunity to share your website with their friends on social networking sites such as twitter, facebook and others. Adding a sharing button like the one below will easily encourage visitors to share your site.

4) Sign-up for Social Networking Sites

Set-up accounts on popular social networking sites to keep your customers up-to-date on what your doing. Decide which one will work best for your business before signing up and make sure you update your account regularly. Some of the most popular social networking sites these days include:

www.twitter.com, www.myspace.com, www.facebook.com, and www.linkedin.com.

5) Tell-A-Friend

Make it easy for your site visitors to tell-a-friend about your website by including a form for them to email directly to their friends that includes information about your site. If you have a site with a lot of articles it is also a good idea to give them a way to easily email those articles to friends and family.

6) Send out a regular newsletter

Staying in regular contact with your customers via an e-newsletter constantly reminds them of your services and products making it more likely for them to buy from you. There are many easy to use newsletter tools that make it hard for you to say you don't have enough time to create newsletters. Pick any service and start sending out newsletters immediately! Great recommended newsletter tools include: Constant Contact, aWeber, and GetResponse Autoresponder.

7) Include your website URL on all print marketing materials

Don't ever print any of your marketing materials such as business cards, letterhead and envelopes without including your website URL. Not including your website will certainly lose sales.

8) Advertise on craigslist

If you can't afford other avenues of advertising your services or products, advertise on craigslist.com. Within a matter of minutes you can have an advertisement posted to thousands of people all over the country.

9) Create a sitemap

Sitemaps can be important for site visitors to easily see the layout of your site and find what they are looking for but more important search engines look for sitemaps and use them when ranking your site. Having a well organized sitemap can increase your ranking in top search engines.

10) Start a Blog

Starting a blog is great for most businesses. It is a free way to keep your customers up-to-date on what you are working on and informs them of any deals you have coming up. Customers love to know what you are up to.

Read our article on how a blog can help grow your business >>

11) Issue a press release

Issuing a press release can inform new potential customers what you are all about and introduce them to your new services or products. There are many companies such as PRweb that will write and distribute your press release for maximum exposure.

We recommend using PRWeb - Get your news to consumers, journalists and bloggers. Get seen on Yahoo! News and Topix. Drive traffic to your website.

12) Use an e-mail signature

Include your website URL in your e-mail signature. This is also a great place to introduce customers to services, products and specials they may or may not know about. And just think how much you use your email and how often your customers are seeing this advertisement.

13) Offer sales, specials or coupons

Everybody likes a deal so why not offer your customers a sale or coupon they won't be able to pass up? Don't forget to include the special in your upcoming e-newsletter.

14) Begin an affiliate program

If you offer a product or service and would like to see others sell your product in order to generate additional revenue, think about starting an affiliate or reseller program. Affiliates generally receie a portion of the price of the product in exchange for selling your product. This is a great way to spread the word about your product and generate additional income. It is possible to easily create an affiliate sign-up on your website to make the process as seamless as possible.

15) Purchase pay-per-click advertisements

Using Google Adwords or Yahoo! Search Marketing are great, low cost ways to advertise your website using specific keywords that define your website. Your ads will display on Google or Yahoo as a sponsored link when users search for keywords related to your website.

16) Give your customers promotional items

Advertising your online business offline is just as important. Sending customers promotional items such as pens, stamps and magnets are great keepsakes for customers. Magnets, for example, are great examples as customers will gladly put them on their fridge and your company and web address are displayed daily.

17) Get a toll-free number

Obtaining a toll free number will tell customers you are willing to work with them regardless of where they are located and they will be encouraged to call you without having to worry about the cost of a long distance call. A toll free number also gives a professional appearance and can make your business appear larger than it is.