Site Promotion
The focus is on increasing your sites rankings and visibility on the major search engines as well as creating a web of links pointing to your site.
In the past year alone, it seems as though nearly half of the legitimate, traffic driving engines switched from free web site inclusion to some form of paid inclusion. Certain search portals, such as LookSmart even switched from an annual subscription to an all out Pay per Click ("PPC") bidding system without giving their subscribers any choice.
With all of the engines switching over to forms of paid inclusion, it may seem that there are few free search engine submissions available. Thankfully, some of the most important search engine submissions are still free for all to utilize at the time in which this article is published.
Directories
The Open Directory Project (http://dmoz.org)
Having some level of pull within Google, Teoma, AOLSearch, Lycos, AllTheWeb, Netscape, and HotBot - The Open Directory Project is a prime candidate for your immediate attention. Best of all, submission is free for all.
When working within the Open Directory Project, it is important to keep marketing speak and verbose descriptions out of any site profiles that you submit. The Open Directory is run by human editors, and the categories that you will seek entry into - are run specifically by editors with some knowledge of the field. Therefore, if your web site is a good match for their listings, let them know why and complete your submission with an accurate and detailed description.
Because the directory is human-edited, your submissions and listings are subject to change. Still, the magnitude that this submission holds is unprecedented in value. Go to http://dmoz.org/add.html to add a link to your site.
Look Smart directory (not free)- http://listings.looksmart.com/submit/
doLithe Reef Directory (free) - http://i-spi.webcatalogue.biz
Submit your site and description to as many search engines as possible. Check the results after a month or so and resubmit if your site is not shoving for expected keyword search.
Free
Google - http://www.google.co.nz/addurl.html
AltaVista - http://addurl.altavista.com/sites/addurl/newurl
Yahoo - info suggest
Not Free
Lycos - http://searchservices.lycos.com/searchservices/
Exite Web Crawler - http://www.webcrawler.com/info.wbcrwl/
Reciprocal links
The basic concept is simple - you link my site, I'll link yours and we'll both get an increase in traffic. But there is more to it than just exchanging links with a random site.
For the exchange to be useful to both parties involved, sites performing an exchange should have similar amounts of traffic - that way one site doesn't just rip visitors off the other one without giving any in return. Because most webmasters know this rule (some even monitor the amount of traffic they receive/send out), it's unlikely that a low-traffic site can get a link exchange with a high-traffic one. But if your site is really good, your proposal for a link exchange could be accepted even if you get less visitors than the site you're trying to exchange with. The old "content is king"-rule applies here, too :)
After you've found a site that seems to be suitable, it's time to contact the webmaster of that site. Tell him that you run a site that has a similar topic and describe your site a bit (remember to give your front page's address). Say that you like his site and have included a link to it in your site (give him the address of the page where the link is), then ask him to return the favor by linking to your site. If you never get a reply or your proposal gets rejected, just forget it and find another site.
E-mail signatures
The key to good E-mail signatures lies somewhere between a simple list of contact information and a blatant advertisement.
Mine looks like this:
Milan Mogin
doLithe Limited
www.dolithe.com
+64 021 139 6163