Depending on what your personal wants and needs are you can market your site from FREE to thousands of dollars or even more than that. In my opinion the phrase "you get what you pay for" doesn't always work in this situation. There have been times where Ive done it for free and have gotten terrific results, and there are times I was wrangled into doing it because there was some sort of an "internet special" and I paid a few hundred for it and didn't see any results. All in all I think its a good idea if you CAN do it yourself, to do it yourself. Sometimes I really wonder where my money goes when I buy into something. So if your like me, and you want to be sure exactly where its going and if your money is really being used wisely, do it yourself. Heres some free ways to market your website:



Put your URL on all your stationary and every other piece of paper that leaves your office (home or work). Try business cards, letterheads, packing slips, promo items, etc.

Include your URL in your email signature. This is a good idea if you are sending out emails from your home or office on a daily basis. Everyone you send an email to, will see your signature, have their interests peaked, and will almost always click your link just to see what it is.

Tell a friend. One of the easiest ways to market a site is by telling all your friends or acquaintances about it. Another good way to do this would be to add a "tell a friend" button or contact form right on your site your trying to promote. Then when people visit your site, they can click the button, goto a "tell a friend" form and enter their friends email address(es).

List your website in directories, search engines, and classified sites. There are about a billion different free sites out there that would be good for this.

Now if you go in the other direction and PAY for marketing you can also do several things. One big thing is to hire someone on a website like Submit Express or AddPro . These sites have either real people or software programs that will submit your sites to hundreds, thousands or even millions of directories and search engines, and promise that you will get the top spot. For this, you of course will have to pay a fee. Again this fee may be $5 or it may be $5000, it all depends on the site, and on you, the buyer. Another paid way is by submitting your site to sites like Yahoo! Search, Google Adwords or Google Adsense (PPC). You can control these campaigns on your own and have full control over pretty much every thing. There are also other things to try, billboards, tv advertisements, radio ads, newspapers etc.

As said above however, in my experience I think its always best to do it yourself. Even if you do go the "paid" way, at least you know for sure your money is being spent well. Either way, do your research, check websites for reviews, check yahoo or Google for things people are saying about the sites. How good are they? Do they really work? Will I receive more traffic? How long will it take? Never be afraid to ask questions whether your hiring someone to do the job for you, or your going to do it yourself.