There's more to promoting your Web site then just letting the search engines know your out there. You should let other people know your site exists too. One of the best ways to get your name known is to exchange links with other sites that are similar to yours.
You can keep a page of sites that may be of interest to your visitors. Look around the Web for sites that you think your readers would enjoy. Whenever you add a link to a Web site let the owner of the Web site know about the link and ask them if they would consider linking back to your site. When looking for sites to link to you want to avoid linking to other sites that you might consider competition. You don't want your visitors to drive your readers away.
When asking Web site owners to link to you suggest that they use a button instead of a text link. You will have to create the button yourself and you might want to include the code for them to use along with the graphic of the button so all they have to do is copy and paste the code to their page. The button should state the name of your site and a short description of what your site offers.
Having other Web sites link to you can actually increase your search engine ranking. Some search engines are tracking the number of good Web sites that link to other Web sites. If you have a lot of popular, high ranking sites linking to you, it increases your rank value which in turn will increase your site's traffic.
Newsletters
Sending out an occasional newsletter is a great way to let your readers know what's going on at your site. It's also a great way to bring them back to your site on a regular basis. Create a newsletter sign-up link on your homepage and on any other pages that you think might get people to sign-up for your newsletter. The more people you can get to sign up for your newsletter the more people you might be able to intice to come back and see what's new on your site. Then send out your newsletter weekly, bi-weekly or monthly.
If you want to be mentioned in other people's newsletters you could offer to do something similar to a link exchange. You can ask another similar Web site if they would consider mentioning your site in your newsletter and in exchange you will mention them in your newsletter. This way you are not only getting visitors from your newsletter but you will also be getting visits from the other site's newsletter.
Page 1: How and Why's Of Promoting
Page 2: Submitting To Search Engines
Page 3: Newsletters and Link Exchange
Page 4: Other Things You Can Do
