How to Promote Your Website

The tools for free Website promotion have not really changed much over the past fifteen years. The rules imposed by search engines have changed and their abilities to enforce those rules have improved. So we need to look carefully at what can be done versus what should still be safe to do when devising campaigns to promote Websites for free.
Of course, there is no such thing as “free Website promotion”. We have to invest time if not money in Website promotion so it’s still not useful to think in terms of how to promote Websites for free. Let’s instead think in terms of “how to promote Websites without spending money.”
Here are the basic methods:

1. Publish content for discovery on your site
2. Publish content for discovery on other other Websites
3. Ask other Websites to link to your site
4. Wait for other Websites to link to your site

Let’s assume for the sake of discussion that these links only send visitors to the site being promoted.
When you publish content it may be discovered either via self-promotional links you share (such as by emailing friends or through unlinked advertising) or by random search engine placement.
Publishing content for discovery on other sites includes all Web-visible self-referential link placement, such as submitting a listing to a Web directory, providing a link on a social media site, dropping a link in a blog comment or forum profile, etc.
Of these methods, only the fourth has not been abused to the point where search engines have desired algorithmic filters or imposed manual penalties to push back against aggressive promotion.
Even just asking for links becomes abusive when you engage in systematic reciprocation or link “buying”, “renting”, “sponsoring”, etc.

There But for the Spam I Made Go I

A Website promotion campaign should produce some sort of results unless you simply avoid mentioning your site in front of anyone. So if you’re sure your promotional efforts are visible then you have probably violated a search engine guideline.
Web spam seeks to obtain value from practices that in other contexts should be legitimate. If you place your own links and don’t expect any PageRank-like value or anchor text benefit from them, for example, then your only motivation for placing those links should be the traffic they send. However, the links may still be spammy if they are not provding/creating real value for people.
Aggressive, spammy practices should be avoided. Hence, when you run down the list of things you can do to promote a Website without spending money, you should assume there is a limit to how much you can do anything — and that limit may be severe, because it is determined by what is natural and reasonable.
If all you want to do is put up a 1-page affiliate site that consists of a lot of smarmy copy citing faux testimonials, unverifiable statistical claims, and otherwise extolling the virtues of whatever it is you are trying to sell, you don’t have anything to promote. There is no value in what you offer and it doesn’t matter if your links are using “rel=’nofollow’” or are otherwise uncrawlable.
So the assumption going forward is that you have a real Website offering some sort of real value and you’re not relying on snake oil sales pitches to wear people down and overcome their suspicions about whatever it is that you are offering.

Option 1: Publish Content for Discovery on Your Site

You need to publish an RSS feed or XML file. This can be something that is updated periodically or simply a static file. You need to submit the file to at least the Webmaster consoles at Bing and Google and maybe to blog pinging services. The object is to provide a map of your content to indexing services that will share your content with their visitors.
As you add new product pages or articles your RSS/XML files are updated and the indexing services do their thing.
If you have already set up a Website that doesn’t publish an RSS/XML file then you either need to add that capability to the site or you need to add a new section/subdomain to the site where you can publish a blog (most if not all blog platforms now publish these files).
For the Advanced Marketer: Instead of diving into the whole “let’s redesign the Website” issue, look for methods of incorporating additional content structure into the Website. Think in terms of adding crawlable widgets where you have control over the content. Javascript and iFrames are not ideal tools but it’s better to do something NOW than to spend 2-6 months on a Website update that may never happen. The farther out the “LIVE DATE” of any implementation the less likely it will happen.
Any incremental change can be phased out of a Website during the next update. Incremental changes can also be replaced or modified with minimal impact on existing Website structure.

Option 2: Publish Content for Discovery on Other Websites

In today’s practices we’re pretty much talking about publishing guest posts and social media links. Under “guest posts” you should include anything like a “press release”, “free article”, “forum post”, or “blog comment”. If you’re writing content and publishing it on other Websites with the intention of getting a link, you’re “guest posting”.
Social media link placement may have its own benefits but despite all the wildly speculative nonsense you have read on many SEO blogs social media links have no impact on Google’s search rankings (except in personalized search) and they don’t seem to have much impact on Bing’s search rankings. These types of links create visibility and that visibility may inspire people to place links for you elsewhere that influences search rankings.
Publishing content on other sites should be done with the intention of drawing direct referral traffic from those sites. If you are publishing Tweets, Pins, and Stumbles and getting no traffic from those links you are wasting your time. No one sees them or else they don’t trust you enough to click on the links.
For the Advanced Marketer: The ongoing conversations about “correlations” has stalled out. People are still treating correlation studies as if they provide insight into how search algorithms work (when in fact they do not). Use correlations to identify influential platforms (like Twitter, Pinterest, etc.), not algorithmic factors. Also, don’t confuse Predictive Value with Causal Relationship. A predictive value means that if you see birds take wing suddenly there is a storm coming; it doesn’t mean that the birds taking flight are causing the storm. Strong Predictors are highly correlated with significant events because they are usually caused by the same factors.
In other words, stop pretending that you can influence search results with press releases. The fact a link passes anchor text doesn’t mean it will improve search rankings. Instead, focus on how much traffic you get from the press release, and look for “echo events” on other Websites (people rewriting the stories in your press releases, or writing about what you are doing based on what they find in the press releases).

Option 3: Ask Other Websites for Links

The SEO blogosphere has published an unfathomable amount of copy advising people on where and how to ask for links. Generally speaking, you can count on 1% or less of your outreach efforts working. You don’t need to do this very much because it’s a waste of your time (and everyone else’s).
If you know people who will give you links, ask them. You’ll get a far better return on investment by leveraging your personal connections than by pressuring random strangers into linking to you.
Ignore all SEO warnings about only obtaining “relevant links”. Although well-intentioned these warnings are written mostly in response to search engine antispam campaigns. It’s not the irrelevancy of the linking Websites that is causing the problem; it’s the aggressive link acquisition that exceeds reasonable expectations.
For the Advanced Marketer Outreach is not dead and yes we’re all happily buzzwording away about “relationship building” but stop repeating the endless drivel coming from every corner of the SEO blogosphere and convention circuit. Instead of asking other sites to publish infographics, widgets, and guest posts ask them to engage in backroom dialogues with you about the real value of the sites you’re promoting. If you’re doing this by email then the best approach is to ask for a private opinion — get the other guy to think about the Website. Plant the seed and let it grow.
You’re more likely to draw attention to a Website that is easy to talk about than to a Website you just need links for. If the site isn’t worth talking about then you need to focus on improving the site first. And, frankly, these kind of “offline” conversations are a great source of feedback.
Every good Website is worth at least one conversation. If you cannot engage anyone in that conversation then there is no point in asking for the links. And don’t be surprised when someone trivializes and ruins this approach by creating a formula for it.

Option 4: Just Do Your Thing

This is the most cost-effective and efficient way to market a Website. Just publish your content and go about your business. Focus your passion on doing what you do best. Don’t worry about metrics, link research, and all that other felgercarb. That stuff gets in the way of real marketing.
For the Advanced Marketer Enough case studies showing the above is true have now been published that you should easily have compiled a half-dozen of them to use when you have to push back against ridiculous demands for meeting “link building targets”. But when you don’t control the site and you have to show some progress, your best bet is to launch a shadow campaign where you control the content and set the targets yourself. This might be a blog or a social media account.
To overcome brand-management objections create a unique brand and be the other guy in the relationship. You can drive traffic to any Website you choose and you don’t have to cloak to do it. Some people call this “Performance Marketing”. Sometimes it’s the only option you have, so be sure you’re very good at it.

When All Else Fails, Try Something New

The list of things you can do for yourself is endless. There’s no harm in compiling a list of things you can do but you should never attempt to do them all at once. Your ongoing marketing should focus on building the Website itself. If your site will never be very large then build another Website and grow THAT.
Your Web marketing should be grounded in a ten year SEO plan that focuses on creating value, not links and fake testimonials.