Over 150 million people surf the Net everyday. Making your site noticeable is truly like looking for one specific piece of straw in the haystack. But these people are involved in vital conversations and there is a way to reach them.

Promoting your site on a shoestring can be done - but you will have to roll up your sleeves. It does take time, smart thinking and a willingness to really be in communication. Take notes from The Cluetrain Manifesto:

"If you only have time for one clue this year, this is the one to get...

"These markets are conversations. Their members communicate in language that is natural, open, honest, direct, funny and often shocking. Whether explaining or complaining, joking or serious, the human voice is unmistakably genuine. It can't be faked.

"Most companies, on the other hand, only know how to talk in the soothing, humorless monotone of the mission statement, marketing brochure, and your-call-is-important-to-us busy signal. Same old tone, same old lies. No wonder networked markets have no respect for companies unable or unwilling to speak as they do.

"But learning to speak in a human voice is not some trick, nor will corporations convince us they are human with lip service about "listening to customers." They will only sound human when they empower real human beings to speak on their behalf.

"While many such people already work for companies today, most companies ignore their ability to deliver genuine knowledge, opting instead to crank out sterile happy talk that insults the intelligence of markets literally too smart to buy it."

http://www.cluetrain.com/#manifesto

Creating Good Content

When you sit down to create the content for your website make it your business to find out who you should be talking to and where they hang out online. Spend time listening in the forums and discussion groups that would be of interest to your public. Go to http://www.technorati.com and find the blogs dealing with your subject

Use your knowledge and passion about your business to help others. Don't be afraid to share your knowledge. Learn to write so that you create an atmosphere of credibility.

Be real. Show that you know what you're talking about and have the solutions in your field, Do your homework. Find other sites, e-mail newsletters and blogs your prospective clients might find interesting. Offer your articles to these sites/e-mail newsletters.

Start a blog. There are many free blogging tools out there you can use.  Wordpress is one.  Blogger is another.

Promoting Your Content

Take advantage of the power of syndication.  RSS - Really Simple Syndication - can increase your traffic and raise your search engine visibility faster than any other strategy  right now.  Visit PRESSfeed to find out how you can add news content to your website and syndicate it in an RSS feed.  PRESSfeed also has a list of over 50 sites where you can promote your RSS feeds

Create a great email signature file. Use your 'elevator speech' for a quick pitch on all your e-mails. This is not an ad. A good elevator speech should show them how you can be of benefit. Always include your URL, email address and phone number. Don't make prospects do the hard work of finding this information if they want to contact you.

Word of Mouth is the still the most successful method of advertising. On the Internet you need Word of Mouse. When people pass on your links because of your good content, you're ahead of the game

Every successful campaign has had only two common elements: publicity and word of mouth. The Internet provides both in abundance if you learn how to tap into it.

Sally Falkow