Marketing a website can be frustrating, not to mention expensive. Plus, there are many times that it cost money to market a website and there is no idea if the method used will work. Throwing money away on a poor or unsuccessful online marketing method has no little or no benefit to anyone who owns or runs a website. That being said, there are a number of free alternatives available when it comes to marketing a website and getting more traffic to go there. These free methods should be mixed in with the more costly methods so that the benefits of both can be realized.

Ten Free Ways To Advertise A Website:

1. Online Coupons - A website can make coupons available for customers to use on their next purchase. This encourages traffic to increase in two ways, people may come back to the site to take advantage of the coupon, or people may distribute the coupon to their friends or co-workers which could result in them coming to the website.

2. Free Samples - Advertising that a website offers free samples is a great way to encourage people to click on a link and come to the site. People are confronted with recommendations and advertising for thousands of different websites each day, the thought of getting something free may be what makes them choose one website over another.

3. YouTube - Filming an informative or humorous video, adding a watermark to it which includes the URL of the site being marketed, and then uploading it to YouTube or other video sites is another free way of getting a URL and website name out in front of the eyes of people that could end up being traffic to that site. When doing this, attentions should be paid to making sure the video is labeled, titled, and tagged in the best way to so that it will be as beneficial to the website as possible.

4. Search Engines - Submitting to search engines is not always necessary as most search engines will come and find any site that is built and linked to by another site. There are however many things that can be done that are related to search engines to bring in traffic. This includes putting keywords into the website’s META tag fields, the text of the website, and any articles or links pointing at the website.

5. Create An Ezine - Creating an Ezine is a great way to market a website for free. Filling up an Ezine with content that is specific to the niche of the site being marketed can sometimes be difficult, but once it is created and submitted to a number of distribution sites, the Ezine works by itself directing traffic back to the website itself.

6. Free Classified Ads - There are a number of websites on the internet that feature free classified ads as part of their site. Some of these sites are full featured classified ad sites while others of these sites offer free classified ads as just a part of the services they offer.

7. Offline Methods - From giving away T-Shirts and hats that have the URL of the website being marketed printed on them, to putting the URL on bumper stickers, flyers, and other items that a business uses anyway, free offline methods of getting traffic to a website should also be pursued along with the great number of online methods.

8. Free Submission Sites - When it comes to finding free advertising or marketing ideas for websites, one of the most plentiful is the large number of free submission sites out there. There are a great number of directories, URL lists, and other linking possibilities out there that are one hundred percent free.

9. Blogging - Any website that is looking for traffic should take advantage of the great possibilities available as a result of successful blogging. Blogging is a free way to create new content, on a daily basis if need be, that will be found in search engine results and other areas of the internet. An additional benefit of blogging is that it encourages readers that have already visited the website an option to come back and see what is added or talked about in the next entry.

10. Online Communities - Whether chat based, social network based, or online forum based, joining and participating in an online community is another way to advertise a website and drive traffic to it for free. There are many communities that are either general in nature, or even focused on a specific niche, and when the URL of a website being marketed is posted in these communities it has a large chance of being clicked on and visited.

There are a number of important, effective, and useful ways to advertise a website that cost money to execute. Many of these have the exact results that the owners or managers of a website are looking for. There are also a number of free ways to advertise a website and try and find potential traffic to visit that site and they should be exploited too. Just because an advertising method is free, doesn’t mean that it is less effective.