Website promotion is an art. As a webmaster, I spend most of my time promoting my sites. Without a big budget you cannot promote a site overnight. Most webmasters don't have a big budget. So, they have to do it the hard way.

• Try different options.

• Use trial and error to determine what works.

• Spend countless hours to arrive at good places to promote the site.

Before You Start Promoting Your Site Be sure to create and include Meta tags on every page. Also, don't use all of the free submit utilities on the same day since many of them submit to the same search engines.

Wait at least one week before you use the next utility. You may want to open an email account on hotmail or another of the free email services and use that email address if you plan to submit to free for all links since many send a confirmation email, or add you to a mailing list.

The Big Ten

1. Self-Promotion:
This is the best place to start promoting your site. And best of all it is free to use. However, for only $10, you can have your data stored for one year so that you can promote your site over and over without retyping the information.

Self-promotion allows you to promote your site to over 400 different search engines, indexes, business directories, international indexes, directories and awards.

2. Jim Tools:
This is another free utility that promotes your site to 400 search engines and indexes and over 200 Free-For-All (FFA) links pages.

Do not use Self-Promotion and Jim Tools in the same week since many of the search engines and indices are same. Compared to Self-Promotion, Jim Tools takes a lot less time to submit to 400 search engines and indexes.

The two free utilities above let you submit one URL to 400 different search engines and indices at a time. However, in some cases submitting your home page URL alone isn't enough.

You have to "deep submit" your site. Deep submit is nothing more than submitting each and every page of your site. If you have 100 pages in your site, then you must use the above free, utilities 100 times to submit all of them. (Deep submission is possible with Self-Promotion's paid service.)

But don't worry. You can use the following deep submit utilities to submit multiple URLs at the same time.

3. Associate-it Free Submit:
This free utility lets you submit all the pages in your site at one time to 24 major search engines. All the submissions are done in real time, you can watch the submission results as they happen.

Depending on the speed of your Internet connection and the number of different pages you are submitting, this may take any where between three minutes to a few hours.

The good thing is that you can start the submission and then surf the Net as usual in a different browser window. associate-it.com/html/main/300free.

4. The Promoter:
This is similar to Associate-it Free Submit, but it will submit multiple URLs to 800 search engines, indices, FFA pages, classifieds, etc. at one time.

This works much like Associate-it Free Submit. You can start the submission and then browse the Net in a different window. The Promoter also notifies you when it's time to resubmit your site.

5. Announce It America!:
One more free utility that submits multiple URLs to 300 search engines, indices, FFA links, classifieds, etc. at one time.

This works like Associate-it Free Submit and The Promoter. You can start the submission and then surf the Net in a different browser window. announceitamerica.com/The_Announce-O-Matic.

By using the five utilities above, you have submitted your site to most of the search engines and indices. It may take anywhere between three weeks to six months for your site to be indexed.

6. Open Directory:
Recently, when Netscape purchased NewHoo, the Open Directory, I was quick to submit my site to be included. The only complaint I have with the Open Directory Project is that the editor in the category you are trying to submit your site to may be your competitor and may try to list your site lower in the list.

But you can submit your site to three or four different categories if it belongs. Recently, Lycos and HotBot adopted the Open Directory, so getting listed with the Open Directory may bring you a lot of traffic. dmoz.org/add.html.

7. Direct Hit:
A lot of search engines like HotBot, MSN and others have recently adopted the Direct Hit search technology. Getting listed with Direct Hit may also bring in considerable amount of traffic, but your site has to be somewhat popular. directhit.com.

8. GoTo.com:
Even though it is not free, GoTo.com can bring targeted traffic to your site at a low cost. To get listed with GoTo.com you have to open an account with a minimum of $25, then bid on keywords that you would like to target.

The minimum bid for each keyword is $0.01. I would recommend bidding $0.01 on 500-1000 keywords related to your site. You can bid high on 5-10 keywords that are really important to your site and bid $0.01 on others.

To generate 500-1000 keywords related to your site, use Jim Tools keyword generator at jimtools.com. If you type in two or three keywords related to your site, the keyword generator searches the web for similar sites and compiles list of keywords by reading their Meta tags. Usually, if you bid on 1000 keywords, you will get between 75-100 hits a day. GoTo.com.

9. Yahoo!:
Even though getting listed on Yahoo is a pain and it may take up to six months, most sites get the majority of their traffic from Yahoo!. Also try submitting to Yahoo! Local or International if your site fits.

If you submitted your site to Yahoo! and nothing happened for four or five weeks, try submitting again in the same category, or maybe in a different category.

You can get good tips on how to get listed on Yahoo! at search engine forums at searchengineforums.com. Do what ever you have to do, but get listed on Yahoo!. yahoo.com.

10. PRweb:
Press releases are one of the most effective ways to generate traffic to your site. If written well, they can be very effective.

Over 90 percent of press releases are sent out by the companies or sites trying to generate traffic or publicity. Write a press release and distribute it free of cost using Prweb. prweb.com/submit.htm.