How To Promote My Site?

I was wondering if anyone has some ideas on how I could promote my website on the cheep. I am the owner of a wonderful site called Yahoo! Coder’s Cookbook (http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/). My goal with this site is to provide informative information about Yahoo! Messenger and the protocol it uses. Unlike many of the other Yahoo! sites out there, my site is geared toward the academic and open discussion of Messenger. I have a few good articles that I have spend quite a bit of time composing and I will have lots of new stuff coming soon.The problem is no one knows about it. I have submitted my site to all the major search engines over 6 months ago yet when I search I can not find any direct links to my site. I have also scoured my logs and found that many of the major search bots have made an appearance. Would there be any reason the bots would refuse to index my site? Does a robots.txt have to be setup for the bots to index?I am gaining no money off the site and am doing this out of the goodness of my heart. Are there any good, free methods of promoting what I have to offer? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I just checked out your site, nice work (designing). Anyway the best and the only way to increase your traffic is through hits from search engine because most of the time it targeted visiotrs. To get listed in SE and to improve your rankings you need to exchange links. This will give your site a big boost in SE rankings. Another good way is by getting listed in DMOZ, the ODP. Get listed here and you will get listed in all the major SEs (if you still have not).

In addition to what ganeshn11 said (excellent advice by the way): you just promoted your site for free by asking Xisto forum members for suggestions. Spreading word-of-mouth information about your site via forums is a good way to attract attention, as you just did.But remember not to spam forums and to bring up your site in relevant threads and sub-forums.I've also heard that craigslist.org is a good place to post various notices. You might want to check them out to see if it's worth a shot.You can also include the URL in your e-mail signature. That works pretty well, especially if you send lots of e-mails like most of us do *smiles*

I to have faced the same problem in the past. I still don't know what to do about it, but I can agree with the other two. I have found that the best way to get your website noticed is to make it known; I mean as in going to forums that allow you to advertise such things. Another great way is to just put the link in your signature of any forum you are on, but only if they allow it. There are many good ways to get people to notice your site, and I am sure you will find them. Good luck.Oh, I havn't looked at your site yet because I don't use Yahoo Messenger, but I will surely look at it just for you. Who knows, I might interest me in Yahoo Messenger.

Another great way is to just put the link in your signature of any forum you are on, but only if they allow it.

At least Xisto allows you to do that, dont take advantage of this feature and dont end up add a number of sites as your signature. Just limit your self to your site, that would do it. Xisto aslo allows you to have images as signature provided you do not make the large which will affect slow-connection computers.

I feel word-of-mouth is the best way to advertise your site as you will be reciving tragetted visitors that you can convert into buyers, rather than just blind visitors who will never give a second though about your site.

Good luck

A thought just poped into my head. I don't know if it is worth even saying, but it is worth a try.I know how some sites really like it if you make a FAQ just for their site. Well why don't you see if Yahoo might advertise your site as a FAQ for Yahoo Messenger. It is worth the try, if you have not tried already.

Thank you for all of your wonderful replies. I just wanted a few quick clarifications. What are SE rankings, DMOZ, and ODP?As to Yahoo!, I highly doubt they would want to promote this site in any way. As it stands, they are quite closed lipped about any of their protocols. But I believe in open sharing of knowledge.Searching Google I can actually find several links to my site through Xisto (thank you Xisto) but no direct links.

Searching Google I can actually find several links to my site through Xisto (thank you Xisto) but no direct links.

Yeah, I accidently didnt put .com at the end and firefox took me to a post on the Xisto forum. So your right you are lucky to be getting promoted through Xisto.

And to the subject of Yahoo!, I didnt know they were so crazy.

I just wanted a few quick clarifications. What are SE rankings, DMOZ, and ODP?

SE rankings = Search Engine Rankings. How high on the list your site is translates into how easy you are to be found on a search request for the keywords used.

DMOZ = A Directory of websites listed under the Mozilla umbrella of services. If you want to find something by subject or category, they will make that info available to you. The Directory is based on the sites which they have had submitted or that their Bot has found, not sure which.
http://www.dmoz.org/

ODP = Open Directory Project by DMOZ. See Above.
Edited May 2, 2006 by jlhaslip (see edit history)

The Directory is based on the sites which they have had submitted or that their Bot has found, not sure which.

You do not need to be sure as none of them are correct. Actually you are partially correct, when a webmaster submits his/her site, it does not get listed so easily, there are people called ODP Volunteers who maintain the directory. These people review each and every site submitted to them care fully and after through check the list on their directory, mind you that getting listed on the ODP is'nt easy. Once you have got listed on their directory the rest part of promoting your site becomes a little relaxed as all the major search engines add these site on the ODP to their index.

Next time if you need to know any definition or a term, use google. Just type the below code into the serchbox and get your definition.

define: [i]your search term[/i]

example

define: dmoz

OK some people laugh at this, but it works great!

First make a myspace profile for someone famous or a loveable character such as Chewbacca as in my case.

Next Get as many friends as possible. After you get about 200 or so the friends requests come in themselves.

The last and final step is once in awhile post a bulletin with a link to your site. Make ure to put a link on the profile too. Sometimes sense i make indie movies for my site i will say something like,"Haha hey guys check out this funny video i found on the net" then i give a link to the video or my site.

Go to https://myspace.com/browser and take a look. I created it and now i have over 2,500 friends and when i post a bulletin i have the chance of hitting 2,500+ people. I get about 10-15 friend requests a day! I use this for my http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ site and i get mad hits this way. I promise you wont be let down. It will take ahwile, but after a month or so you'll start to see.

The #1 best thing about this...

IT'S FREE!

P.S. Don't tell anyone that i am Chewbacca haha. I get a TON of fan mail. It's really funny.