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.

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.