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Search Engine Listing

Just about every search engine provides tools for easy registration of new sites. Just look for an "Add URL" or "Add Site" button, and then follow the directions (ordinarily no more complex than typing in the address and hitting "Send"). 

There are hundreds of search engines to choose from. For-hire site registration services typically say they submit to more than 100 engines. But there’s little value in being on an index no one uses.
Google, AltaVista, Go, Lycos, WebCrawler, and Excite. Get in them, and you'll reach most surfers. 

Low-Cost Options

There are fundamental steps that too many businesses neglect. For instance? Always put your URL on letterhead, business cards, in e-mail signatures--wherever potential visitors are likely to see it.

The e-mail signature is an especially powerful--and absolutely free--tool. When customers click it, whoosh, they're at your site. It will only take you a few seconds to create this signature, and it will probably bring in visitors every day. 

Another low-cost traffic builder: Get active in online discussion groups and chats, and, where appropriate, always give out your URL.

Another big-time traffic builder for any Web site that retails: posting items for sale on the major auctions such as eBay, Yahoo! and Amazon. Those sites let you identify yourself to viewers, and a few dollars spent on putting out merchandise to bid just may bring in lots of traffic from surfers seeking more information. Many small e-tailers tell me their entire advertising budget consists of less than $100 monthly spent at eBay, but they nonetheless are seeing traffic counts above 500 daily, with most of those viewers coming via eBay. My advice: Put up a few items for bid on each of the leading auction sites, then track traffic. Even if you sell the auctioned goods at no profit, the traffic jams you may experience could well justify your efforts. 

Classified ads offer more possibilities for traffic generation on the cheap. Check out both Excite and Yahoo!. Ads run free there, and viewership is high. Listing is simple--just follow the steps at the sites--and, again, you can insert your URL so that readers who want more information can get it with a click. For my money, classified ads--at least the freebies--represent one of the very top ways to generate no-cost traffic, yet many businesses ignore them. Why? The complaint is that such sites have too many listings--hundreds of thousands--but don't let that stop you. Put up some ads, and watch your hit count climb.

Spam-Free E-Mail Marketing

For many businesses, direct mail--good old e-mail--may be the surest and certainly the cheapest tool for building traffic. Who reads spam? Nobody, but well-constructed e-mail is informative and personal, and people will look forward to getting it and reading it. 

A key to making e-mail effective: Use "opt-in" sign-ups, where Web site visitors are asked to indicate if they want to receive e-mail from you. How to get sign-ups? Offer a free monthly newsletter. The key is to give really good information.