There are so many options available it’s often difficult to know how to promote your business online. Luckily we have advice from the inside with extra tips from Keel-Over Marketing.
With the right tools and knowledge you can compete with the biggest brands online with your own business. The internet is an even playing field as everyone, no matter if you’re Tesco’s or the local deli has the same sized shop front in order to entice customers.
However unless people know about your product or service you could have the best website with very little traffic. Although it’s incredibly important to make sure your content and design pulls the visitor into your site, you also need to make sure they know how to get there.
There are plenty of cost effective ways in which you can use online resources to promote your business.
Take Advantage of Free Business Sites
There are many online directories that will allow you to sign up for free giving you a great platform to promote your business. For example, for authors there are over a hundred directories where authors can create their own profile and add links to their own website.
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This is true of any product or service, by becoming involved in the internet community you become part of the internet itself.
Guest Blog
You can also guest blog on other sites that have a need for information relating to your business, such as parenting advice from a children’s toy shop or DIY advice from a shop that sells tools. As long as your posts are informative and add value, people will enjoy having you and your own self-serving link on their very own blog.
I regularly blog for Huffington Post, MOZ, Blogger and Buzzfeed. Follow me on social media, or add me as a friend 🙂
Press Releases
No longer is a press release a piece of A4 that hits a journalist’s desk and is quickly relegated to the slush pile. Now you can submit your own press releases to hundreds of free sites that promise to target millions of customers. The free sites however do not guarantee exposure but for a small fee you can find sites that do.
Article Submissions
Many free article submission sites will allow you to submit an article with your keywords and a self-serving link or two. This will not only boost business but will also serve to increase your ranking on the most popular search engines. Check our advice on “What to Include in an Article” to make the process simple and quick.
Social Networking
Those that overlook the power of the social network are missing out on hundreds, thousands or even millions of potential customers. If handled correctly you can soon build up followers on twitter creating the perfect audience to pitch your products to. Facebook also allows you to create a free business page, take advantage of this, update regularly and make sure all of your contact information is there, as many forget that their fans may want to visit the website or call.
LinkedIn is also a wonderful social network that can be used to its full potential if only you spend the time to get involved. Join the groups relating to your product or service, resist the urge to spam your contact list (as you will soon be deleted) and ask happy customers to recommend you giving you your very own testimonials you can use anywhere.
Trade Links
You can also approach other businesses or blogs that are relevant to yours (although not in direct competition) for instance the children’s toy shop may approach a parenting blog or a children’s clothes shop, whereas the tool shop may approach a wood supply merchant or a DIY blog. You can then trade advertising space swapping a link on your site to their company with a link on theirs to yours. Remember however that quality is gold to Google, so choose carefully and make sure each site is relevant.
SEO
Organic SEO is a great way to promote your business online and I offer this service myself, through white hat techniques that please Google, as they are always focused around good, clean, quality content. It does take time though and so, while you wait, it’s a good idea to hire a PPC Agency for your Adwords campaigns, so you claim a piece of the Google pie before you start to rank organically.
Thank you to Keel-Over Marketing for the tips
