So how often do you publicly use your website address? All the time? Not often enough? Only when you remember?

Your website address plays a big part in how you get found online, but it can help you offline as well. The trouble is that lots of people switch off their computers and go out and about and forget they still have a website. Why not promote it offline too?

There are plenty of ways - both straightforward and ingenious - in which you can promote your website or affiliate program and increase the flow of traffic in your direction, and a lot of those ways are free. The key to making the most of them is to put your website address everywhere you can and promote it heavily here, there and everywhere - whether you are online or off.

Here’s a good example of how often people leave money on the table and miss out on a simple promotional idea. I suspect most of us know there is a facility to put a signature at the end of all our outgoing emails. Why not use it to promote your website or blog network? No matter how many email accounts you have, put the same signature line on every single one.

You might be thinking it’s silly to promote your website on the emails that go out of your personal email account to your bank manager, your electricity company and your friends and family. But why shouldn’t you? They all surf the net and read emails don’t they? One of them might just become your best customer.

The same rule applies to those small address labels a lot of people use. Get your website address printed up on those as well. Who knows, the postman might see it and decide to take a look. As an online affliate this is one of the ways to stack the odds in your favor.

It also pays to keep a stack of business cards with you. Whenever the conversation turns to business, or the internet or any one of a hundred other subjects, you can mention your site and simply hand out a business card.

The point is that there are lots of deceptively simple ways to promote your website and let other people know it exists that don’t cost a penny, or any more than a few seconds of your time. But it’s precisely those reasons which lead many of us not to bother about doing it at all. It’s almost as if it’s not worth doing unless there is a big effort or sum of money involved.

In reality the very opposite is true. Lots of small efforts and business cards handed out over time, plus emails sent out with a simple promotional signature attached, can lead to bigger results than you might expect.

As always the key to success is persistence. It can also be trying to remember you are a website owner and the owner of a business at all times, even when you are relaxing and ‘off duty’, so to speak. Why pass up the chance to do a spot of free advertising when it comes your way?

All you need to do is recognise it.