You have developed a great website, along with good products and services, but yet few visit your site, which is not getting the high rankings and traffic that you expect from the top search engines. If you want to drive traffic to your site and you're aiming for a high ranking from the search engines, promote your website through advertising and publicity.

Publicity is something someone else writes or says about you when you do something good, noteworthy, or interesting. As an Internet business owner, you must learn to use publicity to your advantage.

Here are some ways to get free publicity:

Writing Articles: One of the best ways to promote your website is by writing articles that you can post on sites that provide free content to publishers. Articles that you write don't need to be long; they just need to be informative. Sharing your experience and ideas, citing your wisdom, and telling a story are things that you can write about in an article. Writing about how to do something is always something of value to readers and writing articles gives you credibility. Submitting online, as well as offline, provides another good chance to get your name in print at no cost. Be sure to put your contact information in a contact resource box at the end of the article.

Public Speaking: Speaking in front of spectators usually makes you an expert. If they're in your audience, then they'll remember your expertise and come to you for your products and services. Speaking is free, and it's just like making a sales call to many people at one time.

Online Forum Participation: Participating in online forums or newsgroups for a particular subject area is another way to get your name out. Participating by answering and asking questions related to the subject will position you as an expert and a resource for others. Many forums will let you put an e-mail signature with a link to your site or message with another site linked. These links get clicked often when of interest to the forum participants.

Testimonials: Once your customer is satisfied with your product and service, they will give good feedback and post some testimonials. People increase their trust in a business when they see others just like them have tried its products and services. It is a must to include the name and email address of the people giving the testimonials so that it will not come upon as unreal and their effect backfire. Always ask satisfied customers for permission to post their comments and their contact information before using them as testimonials.

Newsletters: Writing a newsletter is another way to keep publicity or your name in customers' minds. Newsletters can be online, referred to as e-zines, and offline as printed and mailed newsletters. Offline and online newsletters both contain valuable content for your target market and can also advertise your products and services. Advertising to customers is your best bet to get more business. E-zines are e-mails to your permission-based e-mail database. The cost of this is nothing, yet the return potential is infinite.

Blogs: Why should you jump on the current trend of blogging? Search engines adore blogs and visit them often because they tend to be updated frequently. You can use a blog to replace your e-mail newsletter and to feature your product or service reviews and other bits of pertinent information that do not merit a special e-mail to your customers.

Search Engines: A good position in regular and top-ranked search engine results is great publicity. It can be much more effective than sponsored listings or pay-per-click results and users will have more trust in a website if they find it in a proper way such as through a search engine query. To improve your rankings in the search engines, follow some common search engine optimization techniques, but don't exaggerate because search engines are catching up very quickly to over-optimization and it may do you more harm than good.

These are just some of the many ways to get free publicity for your website that can increase your target customers and prospects. A consistent and planned publicity campaign can get you links from some of the best websites on the Net. It is just a matter of marketing strategy and proper measurement and follow-up. Publicize your website: It is a great way to build your web site links, increase your traffic, and gain more sales!