Does anyone have any good ideas on how to promote a website to get it known to the public?
This site is popular enough that maybe I could get some answers. :)
Oh BTW, for those who missed the "add your website" forum, please click here (http://xsorbit.com/users/stevesavicki/).

Once again, I'd like to emphasize that this is not in any way trying to detract people from posting here. Please continue to post and support this site.

Thanks for all your support, :)
Steve

Sign up to every single freakin' search engine, update your page often but most important .... Make sure you have the best metatag. What words should it contain to attract the most users to your kind of metatag....

Don't try to repeat the same word over and over, that just make the serach bots ignore you .... and don't make a lot of "invisible" text to make search bots come your way, that's considered bad etiquette :)

Not just search engines, but directories as well. Going around signing guestbooks of like minded sites (if there are any), posting a message on other message boards (but don't spam), stick the address in your e-mail sig, if it's more than just a message board, you may be able to go for awards....plenty of ways to get the word out.

Thing is, the site's gotta be of quality too to keep visitors for longer than a quick peek...design and concept brings 'em in, content keeps 'em coming back :cool:

Hey, thanks for all your help! :)

Try www.addme.com - you can add your sites to all the search engines really easily. That's what I did for my site. :)

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Not just search engines, but directories as well. Going around signing guestbooks of like minded sites (if there are any), posting a message on other message boards (but don't spam), stick the address in your e-mail sig, if it's more than just a message board, you may be able to go for awards....plenty of ways to get the word out.
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That's exactly what I do! Please see below.

Originally posted by Christine
Try www.addme.com - you can add your sites to all the search engines really easily. That's what I did for my site. :)
Thanks Christine!
Just did so!

I think it is quite hard to get a good place in a search engine today.
....or you have a very special content.

I got some letters from web-space providers who offer me guaranteed best results for search engines with my address.
But I need to pay extra for this preference.

Well, one of many ways I got my high search position across every engine is awards....I won about 244 I believe and as such, I'm linked to every one of those sites. I'm also a high ranked and respected site evaluator in my own right and each site who's won my award also links to me....all these links to my site make it popular on the search engines. The more links to your site from other sites, the higher you're ranked.

And as Smurf noted, the right metas can work wonders for engines that use them :)

There's ways around paying....just gotta be knowledgable about those ways and your site's gotta be around a while....it's not going to happen overnight...

Steve,

There are many ways to promote a web site. Here's what I did:

Where I work, we have web submission software. It ads your site to about 900,000 search engines. In reality, you only need to be in about 50. The rest are FFA (Free For All) links which spam you heavily.

I added my url to my signature, my outbound email, and I went around and signed TONS of guestbooks. Over the past year, I have probably signed 50 or more guestbooks.

Once I got in google the hits started coming around. I also asked other webmasters to include me on their links page and I would do the same. Sal added me to the main page, and about 3 other fairly large sites added me as well. I also partnered up with a Debbie Gibson fan site and mirror several video files, so that brings people over too.

The biggest thing is patience. Sign guestbooks, get yourself added to search engines, ask other related web sites to add your link to their links page. Then give it a few months. My site went online in August (and one of these years I might even have a night to work on it again! what a concept) and I didn't start getting decent traffic until late fall.

Give it several months. I remember finding the site inthe80s about 2 years ago. He had been online for 5 years and I stumbled across the web site. I never knew about it. Some people won't find you for years.

Just be patient.

One final note: don't flood other sites about yours. I haven't posted to a guestbook in weeks, if not months. Nobody wants to read 5 entries in a row about you. Post a new entry every month or so. Most people will read past entries.

Gawsh, what a swell bunch! :) :cry: :)
You make me feel like I can do this.
I really needed a boost of self-esteem.
I've already been trashed. :(