Here's a proven way to substantially increase awareness and traffic to your site without spending a penny.

Seems like every issue of every magazine, newspaper and newsletter published these days has articles about different web sites the readers might be interested in.

For example, in yesterday's USA TODAY there was an article about dating web sites, (Look for love in all the right places), and the article profiled a number of unusual dating web sites (like www.mailorderhusbands.net).

Now I don't know about you, but until I read that article, I never heard of the MailOrderHusbands site - and I bet millions of other readers weren't aware of the site either - until they read about it in USA Today.

I would imagine that as a result of that article, the site saw hundreds of thousands of new visitors today - and will probably be written about in many articles (like this one).

Imagine if your site could get that kind of exposure.

It is possible - if you have chosen the right topic (non money making, non MLM, non porn, with a little humor), and if you follow the 'leaving footprints' strategy of zero cost marketing.

Here's how it works.

Leaving Footprints

As you know, the internet is populated with millions of web sites, and with these many sites the only way someone finds a new or interesting site is via either a search engine search, or by finding a link to the site in an article, review or message written by someone else.

As we have discussed before, having high ranking in the search engine is the quickest way to be found by people looking for what you offer.

But after you achieve that top ranking, the next step is to start 'leaving footprints' to your site at well visited places on the net.

By 'leaving footprints', I mean placing links to articles on your site in appropriate locations on the web, where the links will be viewed in a positive manner by those who see them.

For example, on a recent visit to the PC Magazine Tips and Solutions Discussion Forum, I saw that someone has posted a question about how to stop a specific type of pop up spam message on their computer. Since I had already written an article on this very subject, I posted a reply to the message, with a link to my article.

My posting the link to that article on my site was an example of leaving a footprints.

As a result of leaving a footprint, the original message poster read my article, and then posted a reply on the PC Mag discussion thanking me for the link saying the information solved their problem.

Within a few days, I started getting emails from many people either thanking me about the article, or asking if they could link to it. I also learned that the support department of large internet service provider had found the footprint link, and been providing the link to their customers who complained about getting unwanted pop ups. (Not only did they email the link in the replies from support, they also added the link into the online knowledge-base.)

Soon other sites on the internet began including the link in their articles, and a number of surfers reposted the link on other discussion forums.

In essence, because I left a single footprint in an appropriate place, I increased traffic to my site. But more than that, that single footprint was picked up by many web visitors who added it to many other sites on the web. And that will probably result in more and more people seeing the footprint and some of them will add it to other sites.

And that's why leaving footprints in appropriate places is such a powerful zero cost marketing tool. It costs you nothing to do, but can result in a tremendous viral marketing response.

Doing it correctly

When pursuing the footprints strategy you have to be very careful not to come off as a spammer or unwanted link.

For example, it is inappropriate to provide links to or promotion about products that are not immediately related to the matters being discussed.

Here are steps to take to insure your footprints are welcome:

• Don't spam - never, ever post a link to a sales message.
  
  
• Post links to specific articles, not just a web site - generally the footprint link is posted as the answer to a specific question. So at the PC Magazine site, when I saw a specific question that I had already answered in an article, it was appropriate to post the link
  
  
• Post links to 'publically accessible' articles - if the link is to a members only area of your site, you are going to make a lot of people mad when they click that link (and making people mad is not the way you want to introduce your site).

  Better to place the article in a public area (I placed mine in the sample articles department). Not only does this make reading easy, it gives others a reason to post links to the same article.
  
  

• Post links only to valuable information - before you link to a page, make sure the page includes valuable information. If your linked-to page disappoints or is poorly presented, it can cause a negative feedback in the discussion forum. Let your page impress with quality and usefulness.
  
  
• Don't overdo it - don't post too many links to your site within a single discussion forum. If the site owner feels that you are taking advantage of the situation, you might be banned.

• Don't be a 'know it all' - rather than try to answer a detailed question in a message post, just post a link that says, 'find your answer here - http://www.bmyers.com/public/497.cfm?sd=30'.

  The idea is to be helpful, not boring, obnoxious, pushy or argumentative.
  
  

• Do Post links to a large number of sites - the more appropriate footprints you place on the web, the bigger benefit they will provide. Better to post one footprint on 50 different sites than 50 footprints on just one site. (Use the search engines to search for questions that have been posted to discussion forums - and post replies to the questions you have written articles with the answers.)

  Also, spend time finding the high traffic forums and post your footprints there (ie - the PC Magazine Tips and Solutions Discussion Forum)
  
  

• Do post in places where the media writers hang out - people who write articles for the media (like USA TODAY and the wire services), find most of their information on the web pretty much the same way - through search engines and discussion groups. Make it a point to find out what discussion groups the media read in your subject area, and be sure to leave appropriate footprints there.
  
  
• And DONT BE A SPAMMER! - it bears repeating. If you don't have an appropriate response, don't leave a footprint. Doing so will label you as a spammer, and no one will provide links to sites of those who are spammers or too pushy with a sales message.

The footprints add up

As you might imagine, having appropriate and useful footprints on a few hundred sites can significantly increase the awareness of visitation to your own site.

Even better, having those links will greatly increase your search engine ranking - as the search engines do give you higher scores when other related sites link to you.

Again, the secret to success with the footprint strategy is:

• Only place appropriate and useful footprints
• Place footprints on a wide range of sites
• Place footprints on a continual basis - make it a point to add a few footprints every day.

Do it right, and who knows, maybe we'll see a link to your site in USA TODAY!