As a webmaster of several quality sites, I often have to decide how I want to promote them, especially when they are new. There are several common options available to webmasters, but first, let's try to understand more about why webmasters need to advertise the sites.

Many new webmasters make the mistake of building new sites and leaving it alone for the search engines to come and crawl it. Assuming that the search engines somehow managed to find these new sites and index them, chances are they will never be able to rank well. And that usually means no traffic, and a website is nothing without traffic.

In order to get some traffic, webmasters must advertise their sites. There are a few options that I would like to discuss in this article.

First, webmasters can buy banners. These are usually prominently displayed across the top fold of the websites. If the site is a popular site, it'll generate awareness over time and also some traffic. The problem I have with this option is that awareness is hard to measure and it may be hard to justify paying for a banner month after month without being able to justify the return on investment.

Another method of advertising that brings more predictable results is Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising. PPC has been around for years and is already a very much accepted advertising model. This can take some time to find out what works and what doesn't but when done right, conversions can be great. However, this method can also burn up cash pretty quickly.

The third option is to buy text links. Text links can be bought either through a monthly subscription or a one-time payment. Many webmasters buy text links for search engine optimization purposes. Usually, the higher the page rank, the more costly it will be. There are warnings flying around recently that some websites use a sneaky 301 redirect to fake a page rank. Therefore, do not rely solely on the toolbar for the page rank. I've found this tool to be most useful (www.database-search.com/sys/pre-check-en.php). Also, when paying monthly for links, try to select sites that have a good chance of bringing in some traffic.

My personal favourite is to buy permanent text links or links that require a one-time fee. Many web directories accept free submissions. The more popular ones will charge a one-time fee but this fee is usually an affordable one.

My recommendation is to have a mix of PPC advertising and text links advertising. PPC advertising can bring in some initial traffic when the site has not been indexed by the search engines. This will help bring in some profits. Eventually, when the search engines start sending organic traffic, cut down on PPC advertising but do not stop completely. That's because PPC still offers the best form of predictable earnings, which makes planning easier. So start promoting those sites now, before your competitors beat you to it.