The Internet is the #1 news source. But there’s great competition for eyeballs and web traffic. These days, even journalists need to be their own entrepreneurs and promote themselves – and their work – online. Student journalists and their media advisors should adapt, as well. Almost all students are online, but most don’t know if their school media has an online presence, studies show. In order to share their news, school media must report news where their readers are.

There are many and varied ways to promote your or other’s articles, blog, newspaper website or online magazine to share news and increase traffic. The 10 ways listed in this presentation are among the easiest and most efficient ways. Plus, they're all free! All you need is a computer and Internet connection.

For Google, visit http://www.google.com/addurl .

For Yahoo, visit http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html .

Bing is at http://www.bing.com/toolbox/submit-site-url/.

Follow the instructions on each page. This will ensure your site or blog is included in indexes for search engines and shows up when people do searches. Studies show that Google drives 70 percent of traffic to most websites.

This is done by attaching a link to your URL at the end of your emails. Many email programs, including Gmail and most college email services, allow users to change their settings to automatically include a signature every time they send an email. For example: “Get the latest Scarsdale High news at http://www.shsmaroon.org”.

For example: Sample email signature plugging a student’s blog

The idea is that people you email will see the link, be curious and check it out. Think of all the people you email every month; those are all potential visitors to your website or blog. To set up a signature, try clicking on and editing the “Options” or “Settings” tab or link in your email program.

One-third of Americans get their news from Facebook. Attract more readers to your website or blog by posting a link to your latest content on your or your organization’s Facebook or Google+ page. If you don’t have a profile or page on these networks, you’ll need to create one. Social network referrals account for a significant portion of traffic to websites, especially those of news organizations.

For example: Link on student newspaper’s Facebook page to its latest articles

People are often interested in content that their Facebook friends recommend or post links to. Having social media referrals will also ensure your website or blog is one of the top results when people do searches on Google. That’s because Google announced in 2012 that social media referrals will be an important factor in their search engine algorithm.

When you post a video to YouTube or a photo to Instagram, put a link to your blog or website in the description i.e. “find more useful information at mywebsite.com.” If people enjoyed watching the video you posted or found your photo interesting, they’ll probably be curious to see what else you have to offer on your website. Before you can post content on these sharing sites, you’ll need to register as a user.

For example: Referral link to school newspaper on Instagram

Social bookmarking is a way for people to store and rank online content, including websites, blogs, articles and videos. and other types of website content. StumbleUpon, Reddit and Digg are a few of the most popular bookmarking sites available. Different bookmarking sites have different types of users. Find the one that works the best for your content and post a link to your content. This is a great way to attract visitors to your URL who otherwise may never know about it.

For example: Link on Reddit to story in school newspaper

Twitter is becoming an increasingly popular way for people – especially young people – to get their news. There are a couple ways to utilize it for your blog or website. First, you can manually tweet about your content using Twitter. You can post your own personal tweets with links to your blog posts or articles, link to other people’s content, ask readers questions, etc.

For example:Penn High School’s newspaper staff uses Twitter to link to content, post breaking news updates, engage readers, connect with sources and more….

Second, you can set up a content syndication tool, such as Twitterfeed. This is free and will do all the work for you. Basically, anytime you make a new blog post, a tweet will also appear on Twitter. You could also do a combination of the two: utilize Twitterfeed and also make your own custom tweets. See http://twitterfeed.com. For both services, you’ll need to register as a user.

Think about which organizations and people with influence may be interested in your content, service or cause and send them a short email. For example, alumni of your school, the Parents-Teachers Association, local civic organizations and local government officials may all be interested in what your school newspaper is covering. In addition to visiting your website or blog, they might spread the word to others.

For example: If you can procure an alumni email list from school officials, you might send an email like this to alumni

It is important to get other, relevant websites to link to your URL. Traditionally, most search engines have based their rankings heavily on the number of credible websites that link to a website. The best way to do this is to manually search for websites and blogs related to your site and contact them for a link exchange. Use http://blogsearch.google.com

For example: If your school’s Parent-Teacher Association has its own website, as many do, you might email them and ask them to add a link to your student newspaper

When soliciting links, remember, flattery will get you everywhere. When you pay someone a compliment, it piques their curiosity in who you are. “Who is this person with impeccable taste?” Be honest and sincere in your flattery, but it shouldn’t be hard to come up with a compliment. Something like, “Hey, I liked your post about [insert topic] because [insert compliment]. I also have a blog that I thought you might be interested in because [insert why it’s relevant]. My blog’s URL is [insert Web address].”

Sometimes, the person you contact may ask you to return the favor and link to his/her website. Only agree to trade links if you believe the other website’s content is relevant to your audience and are comfortable endorsing it by linking to it on your site.

Regardless of what your content is about, there are likely Internet discussion boards and numerous blogs related to the general topic. If you’ve got a article that you think relates strongly to something that another blogger has written about or that is the topic of discussion on a forum – leave a link to your own article.

The key to pulling this off without being labeled a spammer is to leave a genuinely useful comment on the blog or forum. The comment itself should add value, be right on topic and contribute to the conversation. Then if you include a link introduce it with a ‘I’ve written more about this at….’ type comment rather than just a spammy call to action.

Relatedly, many newspapers have likely, at some point, written a story related to your blog topic or one of your blog posts. And many newspaper websites these days allow readers to post comments about stories. You can do a search using Google News at http://news.google.com .

For example: If a local newspaper writes a story about your high school football team, you might comment on how you have a blog or school newspaper website that covers the same topic. Readers who read the newspaper story – along with the reporter who wrote it – may also be interested in your content since it’s related.

Some blog posts and online articles will have mainstream media appeal. Shoot a reporter at a newspaper, magazine, TV or radio station an email – you might get lucky. For example, if you write or blog about your school’s theater club, you might email the theater critic or arts writer at local newspapers. If you cover your high school’s sports teams, you might email the high school sports reporter at the local newspaper. Sometimes, just launching a website for your school’s media outlet can be news, too. Many media outlets’ websites have a “Contact” page that explains how to contact the newsroom electronically. Hyper local news media, such as Patch.com, may be particularly interested.

For example:

This high school newspaper got mainstream media news coverage about its move online

Another example

Alternatively, you could write a press release about your website or blog and post it in cyberspace. Some online press release services don’t cost anything and they can be surprisingly effective with a little luck. For example, see www.i-newswire.com , www.free-press-release.com and www.prlog.org . Journalists sometimes cull these sites for story ideas.

For example:Sample press release by school newspaper

Facing information overload, Internet users are counting more and more on sources they trust: their friends, followers, contacts. Everyone has probably clicked on a link that someone they know posted on one of the social media sites they use. But most people probably haven’t given much thought to why their Facebook newsfeed has replaced the evening news or morning newspaper.

There’s been a recent paradigm shift in the way people get news – and these 10 tips will help you take advantage of it. Web analytics now allows businesses to track what’s working online and what’s not. As a result, journalists are increasingly being evaluated by how much Web traffic they attract. So, journalists need to know how to utilize the internet and all its tools to market their content, whether it’s an article, a blog or a news website. Student journalists and media advisors should learn to adapt, as well.