Once you’ve built your site and you begin to have significant numbers of visitors, you can consider selling advertising space on your web site. On the web, the best place for a company to advertise is on a site with good content, loyal return visitors, and high visibility.

One of the most overlooked tools in advertising is the press release. Whether your business is conducted only online or in a "real world" business, you can gain massive exposure by submitting press releases to the media on a regular basis.

Unlike the “real world,” the online world is a collaboration and partnership between many web sites. Sure, there is competition, but web site owners realize more than others that they can grow faster and gain visitor loyalty by reaching out to other web sites, and sharing resources and advertising.

Once you have a basic web site set up, you should seriously consider taking it to the next level with an online “member” or “customer” feature which allows you to collect email addresses and gives your customers (or potential customers) a reason to remember you.

...But just like your “real world” business, your web site needs a plan for progress, and a schedule for ongoing improvement....

There are many stats programs available, but Google is a great place to start and gives you vital information you will need. You want to know which of your marketing efforts are working best, which are a waste of time, and so on.

So how do you get quality content without becoming a slave to your web site? You’ll have to be creative, but here are a few things I do, which have been successful – and fun:

A press release is a simple “Who, What, When, Where and Why” story about your new site, a special event at your site, or a new feature you are making available, or a new product in your inventory.

Another no-cost way to market your website is through the many free classified ads sites on the web. Some of the largest are:

A great way to create incoming links is to use forums. Forums are discussion groups, and nearly every website topic has user forums where people meet and discuss the topic.