by DANIEL JEREMIAH

“Free submission to 70,000 search engines!” Come off it. If you can name 10, you’re really good. Who on earth uses the other 69,990 engines? And the cost for this submission? Hundreds or more of unwanted, irrelevant emails.

Or what about, “Boom, hoot, trumpet your site to 10,200,000 WebPages ” Cool! Instant free traffic by the millions. A marketer’s dream.

Google ‘ad directory submission’ or ‘submit to free ad directories and you’ll see anything from 25,800,000 to 97,000,000 results. Lots of choices; must be a good strategy, right?

Wrong, unless…

Lets say you decide to sign up for a FFA (free-for-all) service that blasts your site for free to 10 million pages at the click of your mouse. Wow! Fantabulous! Hordes of traffic.

Hold on there; what really happens is this.

You’re creating millions of links pointing to your website instantly. While this supposedly improves your ranking in the search engines, it doesn’t always work out that way. Sure, to achieve a good ranking, you must have others linked to your webpage, but certainly not in the millions in one sweep.

The real problem.

But that’s not the real problem. There’s a much bigger one with free site submission services. You are essentially submitting 10 million free ads. The email address you provide [and it will be confirmed] to subscribe to this service will get resold maybe a few million times. Can you imagine the avalanche of reverse-marketing emails you will be receiving? The load will crush the most enthusiastic marketer.

“Ah,” you say, “I’ll just get a mail checker program and delete them all without reading; or better yet, sign up for a free web mail service, then subsequently cancel the account.” No can do. You see, you’ll be receiving verification requests, and unless you respond, almost all of your submissions will fail.

So what’s the solution? If you do decide to go with a site submission service you need to first set up a ‘capture and respond’ mode, using an automated email system. Search for submission services that provide this feature. Basically, what it does is handle the required responses and keeps the dreaded spam mail away from your inbox. This service is not free, but well worth the price.

Here’s a link if you want to review available services… http://www.ad2go.com/

Remember, the sustained success of your website depends on two major factors:

* The number of quality links to and from your website. There should be ‘quality’ links, not just quantity, and your site should include reciprocal linking, not just one-way links.

* The quality of the information on your website. This is because you will start to receive one way incoming links from other websites, not just free directories.

Better Strategies.

While we’re on this page, let’s briefly review more website marketing strategies.

1. If you want to maximize the benefits of marketing your website through a linking strategy, it’s best to include other types of linking besides just directory submissions. Try social bookmarking and article writing as well.

2. Online Classifieds. This is an effective advertising strategy but you’ll need to know how to write persuasive advertisements and also how to do a keyword check for your ad header popularity.

3. Traffic or Link Exchanges. A couple are featured in http://www.vmsbonline. com/IntMarketing.html

4. “Safelists!” Use with caution, if you must. Your “permission” to send your promotional email also requires your “agreement” to receive other people’s unwanted mail.

5. Graphical banner exchanges may work better than link exchanges. But banners work best when relevant to your page content, not as irrelevant billboards.

6. Participate in forums…really participate actively. Offer useful advice, opinions or information. Include your site URL in your signature at the end of each post.

7. Press releases, directory submissions, viral marketing, and joint ventures are viable methods that can bring measurable results.

Before selecting your promotion strategies, take time to understand exactly what is involved, and decide if it focuses on what you’re aiming at.

Also, avoid getting involved in too many marketing campaigns too soon or you will end up confused and disorientated. Become familiar and comfortable with one method before experimenting with others.

“Copywrite: Dan Jeremiah – http://www.vmsbonline.com – a completely integrated site for practical business opportunities”

[tags]free advertising, free online advertising, business opportunities, business strategy[/tags]