This question has been thrown around a lot. People want to get known, but their budget is smaller than the number of chicken on mars. So what do they do? They amke a thread about it of course!

Just starting my comic a week or two ago, I noticed that my stats show some pretty interesting information. My first three or four days had the most views, then after that it is ridiculously low. So I must now resort to advertising because the forces of luck aren't smiling on me.

I hear a lot of terminology that I am not sure of on these forums, ad space, trading banners, paying money. What the heck do these mean?!?

If trading banners means what I think it means, then it is free advertising... but are there any tips I should take into consideration before selling myself out? Any concerns, or even some good places. I know approximately 0% about advertising on other sites, so any help would be liked.

First off, note that viewership always dips during the holidays. I think someone did a census one year proving that most people read webcomics and check out the backlog while at work. People on holiday are usually sleeping or hanging out with family so they're not as inclined to be reading stuff on the internet.

Now then, there are free ways to get your webcomic known.

The New Belfry WebComics Index : Add your comic link and image and it appears in this massive list. Not guaranteed to bring in large visitors unless your image is really catchy but any publicity is good publicity.

The Webcomic List : This is the largest list of documented webcomics and it's also the most popular. Since there's so much competition, you pretty much have to whore your comic to get anywhere.

Webcomicz : Another list that's pretty popular. For 15$ a month you've got a guaranteed spot in the headline.

Anyways, Project Wonderful is the leading in paid advertisement. It was originally designed for Webcomics but a lot of video game and blog websites support it as well. Basically, it's eBay for webcomics. You auction off space on your site and people pay per day to host their ads there. Revenue isn't particularly high (unless you have a popular webcomic like Questionable Content which gets 6$ a day on good weeks) but it's generally enough for you to use the money to advertise on someone else's sight. Basically, revenue generated from it circulates and helps out the community.

The only other cheap way to get popular is through networking. Go to as many forums as you can, put your webcomic link in your signature, and just post. Comment on other people's webcomics and generally they'll comment on yours. If someone likes your work, they may blog about it or email someone... and they'll blog about it and all of their readers will blog about it and eventually you'll generate a large number of readers through word of mouth. This phenomena is called slashdotting after the website Slashdot which would post about a website and generate a huge number of readers because of it.

A good 'technique' for getting the most out of project wonderful is to find one of those beefed up popular comics(ex: I used misfile), bid 12$, and then cancel it as soon as it reaches 3$. Got 40k views that way. Keep in mind what your ad looks like carries a lot of weight too make it special,colored, and neat slogans help-lesbians helped me personally, and I hear breasts do wonders.

Another thing to do is stalk popular comic ads in the afternoon(for example Flipside) PW bids tend to start in the morning, dull off in the evening- I got an adspace that was normally 10$ for 3$. It wont always dip though, after site down times are always perfect for this.

It's a good idea to have an ad of your own while you advertise, for example I spend 1.60$ for an adspace and my own jumps up to 1$, i've only spent around 60c for that space.

I actually found a plug in the right place can actually be worth a lot, even if you don't consider it an ad.
I play a particular MMORPG, and the last time the servers went down for maintenance, I found I had posted on the first page of the notification thread. I edited in a plug, hoping to attract some of the bored players reading the thread, and it worked great. What was even better was that the maintenance went longer than expected, adding to the bored readers.

Granted this doesn't always work, and depending on the strictness of moderators it could get nailed for spam. But hey, it was free, and some came back to see my most recent page.

I've done what Skullbie's done for some other comics with high bid prices on Project Wonderful. :D It's amusing to see your stats spike all of a sudden. (I've been meaning to get PW addspace for a while, but I think neither of my comic pages meet the requirements yet.)

Do slogans really help? In all the time I've been reading comics (I'm sure I've covered at least a hundred now, and a lot I like), there have only been a few (maybe three) which carry slogans that actually appeal to me. But I'm VERY picky. I don't even like my own slogans. ()
A lot are based off of comfortable cliches that don't really do anything motivating but add text to advertising.

I have two words for anyone looking to promote themselves on the cheap.

Targeted Marketing

The biggest thing about getting the word out there is to get it to the right people who actually will give a crap about what you have to sell/show/promote. In this case, your comic.

Most comics are sort of already catering to a particular group based on subject matter. For example if you have a horror comic, you are going to be looking for horror fans, because they will most likely be interested in your comic. You sort of need look at your own comic and figure out what sort of person would be most likely to read it, and then look for the places where those people hang out. Because when you have no budget, obviously ever cent (and effort) counts.

For free promotion:
Link/banner exchanges - Look for other comics that are similar, or would have a similar audience/subject mater/appeal as yours. If they are smaller, you have a better chance of getting one of these than if they are big. But link exchanges can pay off in the long run.

Comic collective - A lot of comics band together these days based on subject matter or association to share traffic. Some are as informal as a drop down, others are much larger with rules (such as Palace in the Sky)These have the benefit of having a large, reading audience in the general subject that you already are looking for and getting you link exchanges with much larger comics than would be possible otherwise.

Guest art - Doing guest art for a comic that's like yours is a prime way to show an audience your stuff while flattering a comic that might be much bigger than you, and also can get you a permanent link back without begging for space on a probably already crowded link page. People tend to look at credits of guest pages, especially if you did a good job, and are usually willing to look at your stuff.

Forums - Going to forums where your target market mills about (likely bored at work..) and getting involved ( yes talk intelligently about posts on the board, DON'T just go and plug..) and putting a banner and link to your comic in your signature will get you some mileage, particularly if you sound like you are a cool person and actually contribute to the subjects at hand. Often times forums have a place to show off art and such, take opportunity to show your work. Your work will do a lot of selling for you if you do a decent job of your promotional art.

Search Engines & comic lists:
There is something called the DMOZ.org, which is where Google tends to take its listings from. If you can, try to get your comic listed on it. Also, there are a LOT of comic lists out there. Onlinecomics.net, thewebcomicslist.com, webcomicz.com, frumph.net, etc. Make sure you get listed in as many as you can. Pick your tags/keywords carefully. Think about what sort of things people people who might read your comic would search for.

Twitter - Very popular lately for webcomic peeps I've noticed. You can tell a large group of people when you update, what you are working on, stay informed, and generally.. well be addicted I guess. But It seems to be really gaining steam as a way to keep up with your favorite webcomics.. and their authors. More social networking.

For a little money:
Project Wonderful - I have personally had a lot of success with this, and for a real pittance too. The key was targeting ads on sites with better traffic than mine with a subject matter that was similar. So with Brymstone, it was looking for fantasy/fantastical type comics, specifically those on drunk duck were ones I targetted because I wanted to reach out to DD readers who would be most likely to read brymstone on DD. I spent about 5$ or so on some of the top ranking comics on DD, but I got about a thousand unique visits out of it. Which is pretty great. And usually I retain a handful every time I do it. And I put an ad out for a couple of days every time I update. But ONLY when I update. So that whenever that ad is out there, there's something new. You can also take the other route and set up a bunch of 0$ ads (works particularly well for buttons) for a long period of time (like a month or more) and at times when the prices dip low enough, you'll net yourself a bunch of free advertising.

Facebook - For as little as 1$ USD, you can do highly targeted advertising on facebook. I know other people have had great success with this, although I haven't tried it myself yet.

Onlinecomics.net sponsorship - I did this, and got some very good results.

Deviantart - Deviantart has a promotional/advertising program that if you have a gallery there you can advertise relatively inexpensively to drive people to your gallery. If you put some of your comic work there, particularly well done promotional works, and then take advantage of the feature, you can link to your main comic site from each promo work, and it should net you some eyeballs. Its often good to have a 'gallery' site anyway, since its a good way to passively ( and freely! ) attract people to your webcomic who might not be webcomic readers (yet).

Go to cons - A great way to promote yourself is to attend conventions. Give panels, lessons, or hang out in the artists alley and hand out fliers. Its always good to get out and talk to people, readers, and hear what they have to say, and do your best to make sure they get what you want. If people get talking to you, and like you, chances are they will be more willing to check out your comics.

There's probably more I'm forgetting, but ultimately your best champions are your readers. If they help spread the word, add you to their favorites, and tell their friends, it sort of starts a snowball going on in terms of creating a steady trickler of new readers. Rarely does a new comic rocket to stardom within a few short months or even after a few promotions. Generally its something you kind of have to have an ongoing strategy for. You have to continually promote your comic and yourself. Eventually it gets to the point where you don't have to do *as much* but you have to constantly do a little bit. Even if its just posting in those forums...

Hope that helps.