How to Promote Your Business For Free

There are many methods now days to effectively promote your business for free. If you are creative and persistent these techniques can be just as effective and in some cases more effective than paid advertising.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

1. Optimize your website for keywords appropriate to your target market. You can learn a lot about the right methods to do this at various sites, forums and blogs online for free. You can also find out about this or any other area of interest at your local library.
2. Write interesting articles that would be appropriate to your target market and submit them the various article directories. supply useful information that people will appreciate without trying to sell anything. Put a tagline at the end of each article describing your business with a link to your site. Write a couple of articles a week and before you know it you will have links pointing back to your site all over the web. Keep your articles brief and to the point, while offering the reader some valuable free information. Generally around 500 words is standard.
3. Submit your site to search engines, directories, specialty listings sites, industry organizations and yellow pages. This is another way to get noticed and get one way links back to your website and some free advertising. Use search engines to find all these places and submit your site.
4. Submit ads pointing people to your site to all the free classified sites you can manage. This is another way to get some bonus free traffic to your website. You can't just place ads with a few sites and expect wonders in the way of visitors though. You need to post to as many sites as possible and on a regular basis.
5. Post to forums, blogs and message boards that allow you to post your tagline at the end of each post. You should always try to post something of value though and not just in an attempt to market your site. Be helpful and polite and this method will serve you well.
6. Start your own blog. One of the simplest, most effective ways to advertise your website is with your own blog. Update your blog with relevant information on a regular basis using targeted keywords in each post. Try to post to your blog once per day or so when you first start. This can be a very effective method to get to the top of the search engines quickly.
7. Place your URL on everything. Place it on all your stationary such as business cards, letterhead and envelopes. Also include your URL in your email signature in all your outgoing mail. Be creative and make sure your website address is seen by as many people as possible.
8. Start a consistent linking strategy. Find relevant sites targeting the same market that you are but that are not direct competitors and ask them to link to your site. If you use this strategy you will need to have something on your website (products or information) that will be of value to your possible link partner's customers. Reciprocal links are another type of link you should try to get. This is when you link to a website and they in turn link back to yours.
9. Write an ezine and submit it to ezine directories. This method is similar to the method used for writing articles. You can use the articles you write in your ezine and vice versa. You can also use appropriate articles from other marketers that you find at the article directories that you think your readers would enjoy.
10. Submit press releases to get the word out about your business. Contact publications and reporters directly related to your industry or area of expertise. If you have something unique or newsworthy to say then this can be an superb technique.
11. Use traffic exchanges. Traffic exchanges are membership sites that you join and in return for visiting other members websites you will get visitors to your own website. This technique take some work but you can get lots of visitors to your site for your work
12. Make joint ventures with people in your industry that offer complimentary products and services that your customers would find useful. You promote your partners products or services and in return they promote yours.
13. Engage your circle of influence. Some of the best advertising you can use is called word of mouth. It's possible to make a fortune with this technique by itself. Just ask any successful network marketer. Make a list of all the people you know and then engage these people in some way, whether it be by email, telephone or in person and let them know about what you do. A lot of these people respect you and your personal recommendations. The people that are actually interested might surprise you.
14. Be your business. If you have a good, honest business that your proud of and passionate about, then let people know about it. Engage everyone you meet, at the local shopping center or your server at your local diner. Don't just scream at strangers about how proud you are because that obviously will not do any good. Engage people in conversation. Ask people what they do or how they like their job. Their natural reaction will be to ask you the same questions in return. Tell them what you do and exchange business cards with them or at least give them one of yours.

Tips & Warnings

• These are just some of the possible techniques.
• Some of these techniques may not apply to you or your business.
• Focus on the techniques that work best for you and be consistent.
• Some of these techniques take time to see results so don't give up and be consistent with your efforts and they will pay off.