Being Noticed

Do you know anywhere I can list my website for FREE?
You are listing your website for free right now, by having a signature that displays your hosting company. Also, you may list your website along with offers to consumers on the various web hosting forums. In reality, nothing is absolutely free... something will always require some effort or money.
 
The good news is that you're listed in Google. Have you considered entering your site into the vast array of web hosting directories? While a number of them require a fee to be listed, there are still plenty that allow you to list your site and your hosting packages for free. Some offer both - free and paid.

While I am not an SEO specialist, I understand that getting your site listed in these directories also helps with your search engine ranking (incoming links).

Also, if you provide hosting to local customers, check the Web for any local (city, county) business portals, or even state-wide business portals. Maybe look into joining your local Chamber of Commerce. Along those lines, also look at the Open Source Directory (www.dmoz.org). Although, I have been hearing that things are not going well with this project, you should still look into getting listed.

I'm sure there are tons of other places to ist your site for free, but this should get you started.
 
Sure google for "web hosting directory" and enter your company in everyone that pops up.
 
We have found host directories to be ineffective. There are so many hosts listed that your company just blends in with the other thousands.

Nothing beats paid advertising. The reality is that you need to spend money to make money. Give Google AdWords or Kanoodle a try to start off with. You could also consider paying for a banner ad on forums like Hosting Discussion. :)
 
We haven't really spent vast amounts of money with either company, but Kanoodle seems to be a touch cheaper per click. That really depends on how much you are willing to bid though. We haven't had huge success with AdWords. If you want to gain a good rank you need to spend a bit more than with Kanoodle but the click through rate would appear be lower. When setting a daily budget Kanoodle seems to reach it every time, while, in our experience, AdSense seems to fall well below it. Of course the ads aren't identical and are being displayed at different times so a direct comparison is hard to make.
 
Thank you for the additional info. I would be interested if you can comment more regarding quality of traffic. Did you track the ROI?
 
At this stage I couldn't tell you. As I mentioned in my above post, we haven't invested a huge amount in either advertising network and the majority of our traffic comes form other sources (eg. search engines, referrals etc). In the future we will be tracking this sort of thing in more depth, but at this stage we just want to get our name out there. :)
 
Also, visit other web hosting forums. The majority of them have some form of Offers forums. Post an offer that someone would find hard to turn down. Extra months free, submission into a contest for a big prize, etc.

MOD NOTE: Post edited. Participants may not post or otherwise transmit promotional materials, or any other form of solicitation, except in those forum sections where advertising is expressly permitted.
 
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