When I started initially to investigate an online business many programs and opportunities painted a pretty picture about the endless free places to advertise. Site after site proclaimed how you could submit to numerous search engines for free. Today I still see many offerings to list your ads in free classifieds, submit to hundreds of search engines and place your link to scads of FFA link pages.

You are on a budget and you figure as we did to take advantage of all the free and low cost advertising possible even if it meant a little more work. A little more work is a gross understatement to put it mildly. Although it was my partner doing all the ad placement, I saw the absolute endless hours he invested in it and the minimal results it produced.

Even with a decent piece of software to help the automation of the whole procedure, it produced little. What it did accomplish was giving us the privilege of being recipients of huge amounts of other marketers' offers who were owners of all those various free classified sites and FFA link pages. I suppose you would call it spam but it amazed me how many hundreds and thousands of offers were out there being peddled by the hopefuls. I learned very quickly to have a separate email account to use just for those submissions.

The hundreds of search engines which sites offer to submit your URL to was another road I traveled. It has only been recently through the knowledge I have gained from others experienced and successful in their own right, that I was putting too much importance on this area. It is important to submit your site to the major search engines of which will remain so at least for some time. But, you can do this manually and quite easily. The following url's will take you to the pages of each search engine which allows you to submit your url.

AltaVista
      http://www.altavista.com/av/content/addurl.htm

InfoSeek
     http://infoseek.go.com/AddUrl?pg=SubmitUrl.html

Excite
     http://excite.com/info/add_url

Lycos
     http://lycos.com/addsite.html

Hotbot
      http://hotbot.com/addurl.asp

NorthernLight
     http://www.northernlight.com/docs/regurl_help.html

There are also some major directories that you should submit to which again you should do so manually. The granddaddy of them all, Yahoo is by far the most difficult to get listed in, but there are step by step instructions for getting listed. The reason directories are harder to get listed in is because instead of spiders or robots indexing the pages, there are real people reviewing the submissions. If you do feel the need to submit your site to directories/indexes automatically I would direct you to an excellent site which allows you to use the services fully and for free to try it out. If and when you determine that the service was beneficial to you, you may pay whatever amount you feel it is worth. You can find this site at http://www.selfpromotion.com. Although this site submits your site automatically to the major search engines also, I still advise you to do this on your own. Another excellent resource at selfpromotion.com is the author's guidance to getting listed in Yahoo.

To be blunt and in my own opinion, I feel you are wasting your time when it comes to submitting free classified ads and urls to FFA link pages. I've seen a little response from AOL and Yahoo classifieds but that has been about the extent of it.

What the trend has been lately is e-zine advertising and it does give you the most bang for your buck! Publishing your own e-zine has also been the "thing" to do. Just remember that it will take time to build up your subscriber base, it doesn't happen overnight. There are thousands of other marketers out there doing the same thing. Keep at it though, you will gain them as you go along and I am convinced you own created opt-in mailing list is worth it's weight in gold.

So now what is next? What will emerge in the next few months into the new century as those things that will work?

What I see is more teaming up of like sites. This means reciprocal links, joint-venturing of products - the "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" philosophy. I see E-books continuing to be strong and grow even stronger as information is passed on, sold, and given away with this medium.

As all the big players come on board to carve out their place in cyberspace, I believe the little guy will get lost in the crowd unless he does team up in some form with others like him. Equate that to "united we stand, divided we fall", if you will.

You need to be spending your time networking, getting to know others who can help you and in turn who you can help. Get your name out there. Spend your time writing, offer what you write to others for exposure or in trade for something they have written.

Although I see the trend into the millennium to be successful means networking, teaming up and joint venturing, don't panic and go out soliciting any site you can find to get the lion's share of reciprocal links. Instead, cultivate the relationships, take your time to investigate and form an allegiance with those that prove valuable to you and be able to offer that in return to them. I would much rather form solid relationships with growth potential of, let's say, 10 other like sites than have a link page on my site with 100 urls that just represent quantity without much thought to quality.

In the offline business world if the right contacts and relationships are formed they will serve you throughout an entire career. Online is no different. They are important. They are imperative. They will be priceless to you in the months and years ahead.