Over the years, many webmasters have promoted academy sites at thousands of different places online - some good, some not so good. I want to share with you the 10 best places I have found to promote your site so that you won't spend unnecessary hours finding them.

Before you start promoting your site be sure to include Meta tags on every page. Also, don't use all of the free submit utilities on the same day - many of them submit to the same search engines. Wait at least one week after using the first web promotion utility before you use the next utility. You may want to open an e-mail account on hotmail or another of the free e-mail services and use that e-mail address if you plan to submit to free-for-all links - many send a confirmation e-mail, or add you to a mailing list.

1. SELFPROMOTION.com:
This is the best place to start promoting your site. And best of all it is free. However, for only $10, you can have selfpromotion.com store your data for one year - that lets you promote your site over and over without retyping the information. Selfpromotion.com allows you to promote your site to over 400 different search engines, indexes, business directories, international indexes, directories and awards.

2. JIMTOOLS.com:
This is another free utility that promotes your site to 400 search engines and indexes, as well as to over 200 Free-For-All (FFA) links pages. Do not use Self-Promotion and Jim Tools in the same week - many of the search engines and indices are same. Compared to Self-Promotion, Jimtools.com takes a lot less time to submit to 400 search engines and indexes.

Deep Submitting:
These two free utilities let you submit one URL to 400 different search engines and indices at any one time. However, in some cases, submitting your home page URL alone isn't enough. You have to "deep submit" your site. Deep submit involves nothing more than submitting each and every page of your website. If you have 100 pages in your site, then you use the above free utilities 100 times to submit all of them. This may seem like a hassle - and it is - but there is an alternative. You can use the following deep submit utilities to submit multiple URLs at the same time.

3. ASSOCIATE-IT.com FREE SUBMIT:
This free utility lets you submit all the pages in your site at one time to 24 major search engines. All the submissions are done in real time - you can literally watch the submission results as they happen. Depending on the speed of your Internet connection and the number of different pages you are submitting, this may take anywhere between three minutes to a few hours.

4. THEPROMOTER.com:
This is similar to Associate-it.com Free Submit, but it will submit multiple URLs to 800 search engines, indices, FFA pages, classifieds, etc. at one time. This works much like Associate-it Free Submit. Thepromoter.com also notifies you when it's time to resubmit your site.

5. ANNOUNCEITAMERICA.com:
This is one more free utility that submits multiple URLs to 300 search engines, indices, FFA links, classifieds, etc. at one time. This works like Associate-it.com Free Submit and Thepromoter.com.

By using the five utilities noted above, you have the ability to submit your school's site - including the deep-submit option - to most of the search engines and indices. It may take anywhere between three weeks to six months for your site to be indexed; there is no way to control this process, which varies from site to site, search engine to search engine.

6. OPEN DIRECTORY:
Recently, when Netscape purchased "NewHoo, the Open Directory," savvy webmasters were quick to submit their sites to be included. The only complaint they have with the Open Directory Project is that the editor in the category you are trying to submit your site to may be your competitor and may try to list your site lower in the list. But you can submit your site to three or four different categories - if it belongs. Recently, Lycos and HotBot adopted the Open Directory, and Altavista is adopting it soon, so getting listed with the Open Directory may bring you a lot of traffic.

7. DIRECTHIT.com:
A lot of search engines like HotBot, MSN and others have recently adopted the Direct Hit search technology. Getting listed with Direct Hit may also bring in considerable amount of traffic, but your site has to be somewhat popular - it's a "which came first" dilemma unless you have a built-in audience.

8. GOTO.com:
Even though (unlike the other sites and services mentioned here) it is not free, GoTo.com can bring targeted traffic to your site at a low cost. To get listed with GoTo.com you have to open an account with a minimum of $25, then bid on keywords that you would like to target. The minimum bid for each keyword is $0.01. I recommend bidding $0.01 on 500-1000 keywords related to your site. You can bid high on 5-10 keywords that are really important to your site and bid $0.01 on others.

To generate 500-1000 keywords related to your site, use JimTools.com's keyword generator at http://www.jimtools.com. If you type in two or three keywords related to your site, the keyword generator searches the web for similar sites and compiles list of keywords by reading their Meta tags. Usually, if you bid on 1000 keywords, you will get between 75-100 hits a day.

9. YAHOO!:
Even though getting listed on Yahoo is a pain and it may take up to six months, most sites get the majority of their traffic from Yahoo!. Also try submitting to "Yahoo! Local" or "Yahoo! International" if your site fits. If you submitted your site to Yahoo! and nothing happened for four or five weeks, try submitting again in the same category, as well as in a different category. You can get good tips on how to get listed on Yahoo! at search engine forums at http://www.searchengineforums.com. Do what ever you have to do, but get listed on Yahoo!.

10. PRWEB:
Press releases are one of the most effective ways to generate traffic to your site. If written well, they can be very effective. Your press release can be distributed free of cost using PRWEB.