1. Optimize your site for search engines. Start with keyword research. Focus on both on-page and off-page optimization.
2. Submit your site to web directories.
3. Get listed on search engines. Click here to submit to top search engines for free.
4. Interlink your websites and blogs.
5. Write articles and submit to article directories. Link to your site from your resource box.
6. Start a blog and use it to promote your site. You can easily set up a free blog on Blogger.com, WordPress.com and others.
7. Quote other people’s blog posts and use trackbacks to link back to your own blog.
8. Launch pay-per-click campaigns on Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing, and others.
9. Create a page or group on Facebook and invite your friends to join.
10. Build a Twitter following and tweet your link to your followers.
11. Submit your site to StumbleUpon.
12. Join and participate on MyBlogLog.
13. Join BlogCatalog and visit member sites to leave your avatar on their widgets.
14. Submit an article to Digg. Solicit others to Digg your article by embedding a Digg widget in your article.
15. Make a video and upload it Youtube and other video sharing sites.
16. Create a social network on Ning.com and invite friends, clients, and acquaintances to join. Use to your network to promote your site, products, and services.
17. Create a free toolbar on Conduit and offer it as a free download on your site. You can make money from the toolbar while using it to bring back visitors.
18. Create RSS feed for your site and submit it to feed directories.
19. Add your blog to Technorati and ping it every time you update.
20. Join Squidoo. Create a Squidoo lens and add a link to your site.
21. Ask people to link to your site. Search on Google for sites related to yours and simply send a nice email to their owners to link to you.
22. Exchange links with others. Use search engines or forums to look for link partners.
23. Buy links to your site. Buy links from online brokers like TextLinkAds.com and LinkAdage or get them more cheaply through forums like Digital Point and V7 Forums.
24. Participate on forums and link to your site from your signature.
25. Promote your site offline.
26. Post ads on online classifieds like Craigslist and Backpage.
27. Run a contest. Photo contest, random drawing, writing contest, etc.
28. Share knowledge on Yahoo Answers.
29. Join Entrecard. Surf member sites and drop your business card (125×125 banner) on their Entrecard widgets.
30. Buy banner ads through BuySellAds.com.
31. Give away free stuff on your site, e.g. downloads, coupons, gifts.
32. Set up a mailing list. Embed an email subscription form on your site and invite visitors to join. Send out regular newsletters.
33. Comment on blogs and link back to your site. Write relevant and interesting comments, not spammy cut-and-paste comments like “Great article” and “I couldn’t agree more”.
34. Content is king. Focus on providing fresh, original, relevant and unique content.

There are now hundreds of article directories that cater to both the general and niche markets. Because of the desire of authors to get their articles published on as many places as possible and the sheer number of article directories on the web, some authors have turned to automated submission software and third-party submission services to hasten the submission process.

The use of third-party submission agents presents an ethical problem. While some article directories don’t care how articles are submitted to them, as long as the articles meet their editorial guidelines, many rely on authors as a major source of traffic to their sites. They want you, the author, to browse their sites, read their submission guidelines, and become a regular visitor to their sites in return for distributing your article.

Any article directory that cares about the quality of articles they publish will spend some time to review each submitted article before publishing it. As an article publisher myself, I can attest to the work involved in reviewing, reformatting, and correcting minor errors of every article submitted to me. Since I get hundreds of submissions every day, I am forced to reject any articles that appear as if they’ve been submitted by a third party or through an automated submission process.

It’s not exactly rocket science to distinguish between an article submitted by hand and one submitted through an automated process. The software-submitted article may be improperly formatted, suggesting that the submitter never bothered to read the submission guidelines before submitting their article. It may be missing a required field, or it may be submitted to the wrong category. Different article sites stipulate different guidelines and requirements for what they accept. It’s not possible for an automated submitter to take into account all of these differences to allow you to submit to several hundred directories with a few clicks of the mouse button.

Many article publishers do not even allow manual submissions by third-party submission services. A common telltale sign that an article has been submitted through a third-party service is when a single author account is used to submit multiple articles with different resource boxes. Submissions from multiple author accounts from a single IP address are another indication of third-party submission.

Any software program that promises to “do 99% of the work for you” does nothing more than spamming your article all over the web. Some of these spam machines even post a link along with your article back to the submission software. This is a sure-fire way to get your article rejected and even get you banned from some directories.

Ideally, authors should submit their articles by hand. Meanwhile, there is an understandable need for a way to quickly submit to a great number of sites. An acceptable compromise between laborious manual submission and a completely automated process is a semi-manual tool that allows you to browse article sites as well as quickly submit articles to them. Article Submitter is an inexpensive semi-manual submitter that stores your article, personal information, and resource box as you visit each article site. When you’re ready to submit your article, the software auto-fills the submission forms for you, eliminating the need for tedious copying and pasting. The whole process is very much like manual submission, only a lot faster.

A lot of people have approached me about making it big on the internet. They’ve heard of the Jerry Yangs, the Jeff Bezoses and others who have made billions on the web.

Truth be told, these are the very tiny, almost non-existent, exceptions to the rule. Most people who enter the business never make it, especially when they enter a niche not related to porn or gambling. The web business is dynamic and challenging endeavor that requires an enormous degree of creativity and luck. There is no magic formula, and a lot of trial-and-error is necessary.

But not to get discouraged! While few people, including this blogger, have struck it rich, many have been able to make a decent living off the web. In fact, tens of thousands of people make a living selling on eBay and other marketplaces.

I think the key is stop looking for an easy way to make a lot of money. Instead, do what you love. The online business is fiercely competitive, where you have to go up against people from all over the world. It takes an incredible amount of learning, tedious work and inspiration to gain the edge over your competitors. It’s hard to get inspired if you don’t do what you love and, instead, focus on getting rich.

Many internet marketers advise against outlinking as it provides an opportunity for visitors to leave your site. The idea is to get people to stay on your website as long as possible by reducing the number of doorways for people to exit. With billions of web pages competing for only millions of eyeballs, this would seem like a reasonable advice.

The other school of thought is to link freely to other sites, without regard to how long people are likely to stay on your site. The idea of not linking to other sites is contradictory to the spirit of the internet.

So what is the correct approach?

I suppose it all depends on the nature of your site. For commercial site, you only compete for people’s eyeballs but also their pocketbooks. Therefore, it’s prudent to avoid linking to other sites unless when absolutely necessary. If you own a network of sites, link it to another one of your sites ensures that the potential stays in your network.

For informational sites such as blogs, the rules becomes less stringent. If the main objective of the site is share information, one should be less stingy about linking other sites. On this blog, for example, I have no qualms about publishing other people’s articles (along with links to their site) when I feel that they would be useful to my visitors. Of course, I’d rather have you reading my blog rather than someone else’s, but if you adopt the view that your blog is a hub to share idea and connect with other people, you should not be stingy about linking to other sites. If your motive is simply to share and socialize, rather to preach or stand out as an authority on some topic, you may win more friends by adopting a spirit of sharing.

That’s not to say that you should go overboard with outlinking, even for an informational site. That there are billions of pages on the net does not mean that they should all be looked at. A good rule of thumb is to link only when you feel that the resource can enrich, deepen or broaden your visitors’ understanding without overtaxing their brain cells. From an SEO standpoint, excessive linking dilutes the value of each link on a page, and if you are trying to make some money selling text links on your blog, some advertisers may be turned off by them.

Any internet marketer knows how hard it is to get people to visit his or her website. Some companies are willing to pay up to $10 or $20 for each visitor to their site through pay-per-click campaigns.

What we sometimes overlook is that keeping a visitor is just as valuable as getting a new one. In fact, return visitors are even more valuable because they are more likely to take action, to purchase whatever you have to sell to them.

Here are a few tips on keeping your visitors.

1. Make sure your site gives your visitors what they want. Internet surfers have very short attention span, and there are millions of site competing for their attention. Your message should jump out at them and grab their interest from the get-go. It should be clear and specific. If your main business is selling Korean DVD’s, make certain that they get the message within the first few seconds. If they have to dig through your site to find Korean DVDs, chances are, they’d already left your site.

2. Keep your site up-to-date. When people return to a site they want to see fresh content. If you’re selling Korean movies, you’ll want to frequently update your site with new releases, special discounts, sales, etc. Updating your site on a regular basis lets your customers know you’re on the ball, that you’re diligent about your business.

3. Send out regular newsletters. Build an opt-in email list from visitors to your site. Place newsletter sign-up forms on as many pages on your site as possible. Send out regular newsletters informing your recipients about the latest updates, specials, offers, etc. Be courteous to your prospects by not sending them too much junk mail and by providing a means for them to have the mailings stopped at any time.

4. Incorporate forums and news feeds on your site. Forums and news feeds update themselves with minimal effort and maintenance on your part, so it’s a no-brainer to incorporate them into your site whenever appropriate.

5. Maintain a blog on your site. A professional blog can be a part of your domain, or you can link to an external blog from your site. The link should be displayed prominently. If your site offers professional services and products, keep your blog entries professional and relevant to the content. Keep miscellaneous personal rants away from your site as they can turn your customers off.

6. Incorporate third-party widgets to your site. Widgets can add special functionality your site without your having to write and implement the codes yourself. There widgets for chat, polls, newsletter signups, weather forecasts, and so on and so forth. Widgets are a good way to add bells and whistles to your site without the expenses of software development and extra bandwidth (since they’re hosted on external sites). However, use them sparingly as they could slow down your site and steal away your visitors (through the outgoing links that they display).

7. Make yourself unique. Chances are, there are hundreds or thousands of other sites in your niche competing for your target visitors. How do you stand out? How do you set yourself apart from others? Check out your competitors’ websites and assess their strengths and weaknesses. Are there certain features that are lacking on their sites that you would be able to provide on yours? Being unique is not so much about coming up with something totally new and revolutionary– although this would do the trick, too– it’s about filling certain voids and needs that are not being filled elsewhere.

8. Make your site fun and attractive. Your site should be easy and intuitive to navigate. The design of the site should fit its function and complement the nature of your business. Avoid flashing links, graphics, glaring colors and other elements that might annoy your visitors.

9. Collect feedbacks from your visitors. Feedbacks are a good way to engage your visitor and gather their inputs on making your site more appealing and usable. They let visitors know that you care about their needs and wishes.

10. Offer “free” things on your site. Sending out newsletters to people in your opt-in list offering them “free” this and “free” that is a good way to attract return traffic. In truth, nothing in life is really free. This probably explains why no matter how much the word “free” is overused, it remains a very powerful marketing technique. Although few people are foolish enough to think they’d actually get something absolutely free, with no strings attached, they’re always looking for extra perks and incentives to give them more for their money.

Online classifieds are an effective marketing channel often overlooked by webmasters. Online classified sites like www.craigslist.org and www.backpage.com get enormous traffic from people looking to buy and sell services and products.

Although not recommended for link building as they expire in 7 to 10 days, online classified ads represent an excellent source of direct traffic. They are best suited for products and services catered to local and regional markets but may be used for global as well.

Placing an ad is not as difficult as you might think. In fact, much of Craigslist’s enormous popularity is owed at least partly to the site’s fast, no-nonsense design and the ease of ad placement.

I seem to recall a link exchange service called “linkfart.com” a while back. The site no longer exists. Such a name as “link fart” is attention-getting, but not the kind of attention that would a site an overnight success. To be sure, I have no idea how much of a factor the site’s name was solely responsible for linkfart’s downfall, but its flatulent name was not enough to keep it afloat.

Link baiting has become a catch phrase in the SEO community nowadays. The idea is to get others to link to your site naturally through attention-grabbing, often provocative, content. You can bait others to link to your site by stirring controversy. The concept is basically a new twist on the old “content is king” mantra. The concept is perhaps more descriptive of methods that provoke.

Anything that evokes a negative response, such as anger, disgust, and envy, even on a subconscious level, may backfire, so it’s not always prudent to provoke to get people attention.

Link-baiting can be a double-edged sword. One should not try to create a buzz at the expense of detracting from their online professionalism and reputation. One should set a limit on how far they’re willing to go to get people’s attention.

Most companies would not consider placing contextually-targeted ads on their commercial sites. An obvious reason is that these ads may make their sites look less professional and somehow diminish their online credibility. A more important reason, however, is that the ads that will be appearing on their sites will be for competing products and services.

Due to the rising costs of pay-per-click advertising, revenues from ads can help offset advertising costs. Plus, people who find your site by clicking on an ad are more likely to click on ads on your site.

As for displaying ads for competitors, I think people are inclined to do comparison shopping any way. So why not make a few bucks from their habit? If you have confidence about the product or service you’re selling, then there’s really no reason to fear.

Personally I have no qualms about placing contextual advertising on a commercial site. I don’t mind ads offering competing services. If you’re worried about your direct competitors’ ads appearing on your site, you could go into your Adsense account and filter them out so that only products and services that are complimentary to yours appear.

A lot of site owners are complaining that making less and less from Adsense nowadays. No matter how they play around with their ad size, position, color schemes, etc., they still see their revenues declining.

I think part of this is that people are learning to habitually ignore contextual ads. Sure these ads are relevant to the material they’re viewing, but they also know that they’re, well, advertisements by companies going after their pocketbooks.

When contextual ads first came out, I liked to click on them thinking that I’d find useful (and free) information on the landing pages. But once I had found out often enough that these sites are mostly trying sell me something, I learned to avoid them.

I’d figure that everyone else is probably the same way. Most people get on the internet to look for FREE things. They don’t necessary like sites where they’d have to pay.

So what’s next? What could be more effective than context ads?

Since there is no industry standard for pricing a website, a site is only worth as much as someone is willing to pay for it. This isn’t helpful if you’re considering selling your site and don’t know where to begin. In my opinion, a website should be priced as one would a brick-and-mortar business.

One might price a site by taking its annual profit and multiplying by some factor, say 2.5, to arrive at a “fair” value. Unlike brick-and-mortar businesses, the internet business is volatile and everchanging, so a profit one year may not translate to one in the next.

Other considerations for valuing a site include the site’s niche, market reach, traffic, search engine rankings, age of domain name, number of inbound links, number of paying sponsors, Google PageRank, Alexa rankings, number of competing sites, and so on.

dnScoop has an interesting site valuation tool that attempts to value a site based on various factors. However, one should be forwarned that the results, while useful and interesting, should be regarded for its entertainment value rather than taken seriously for valuing a site.

Perhaps a better way to get an idea of how much your site is worth is to hang out in forums like the Digitalpoint and Sitepoint marketplaces and see how much sites comparable to yours are selling for. Ebay is another place to search for past sales of websites.