Beginners Guide To Free Advertising On The Web

Lots of small businesses who start online face a number of challenges when it comes to driving traffic. There are a number of routes you can take including the use of paid advertising like Google Adwords, eZine Adverts, Banner Ads etc.

However for those businesses running on a budget you should also consider lots of free advertising on the web that can help drive traffic to your website. Of course there is no such thing as a ‘free lunch’ and in the case for free advertising a little exta work is required but the results can certainly help provide profits at no expense.

The following represents 5 of the most effective ways of free advertising on the web and should form part of your website marketing online.

Method 1 - Craigslist: http://www.craigslist.org
This is one of the most popular websites online and your advertising can be specific to Countries, Counties & Towns. It allows you to place adverts into specific Categories such as ‘Small Biz’ and people searching Craigslist will be able to find your business.

In order to maximise the power of Craigslist you need to place your advert in multiple Towns/Cities and you should post to the busiest Cities every day, and in some cases a few times per day.

Plus there are numerous other Tips & Tricks required in order to place your ads on a regular basis to Craigslist. For example if you find that a particular Category gets a lot of posts each day then you will need to post to that category a few times per day, in order to keep your ad at/near the top of the listing. In order to have your follow up Ad(s) passed by the Craigslist filters you will need to change your Ad Title and the main body of text by at least 25%. There are other ways around this and you can find loads more ideas on how to get the most from your FREE Craigslist adverts by visiting http://www.craigslistpowerposting.com/

Method 2 - Articles
A well written, keyword rich, article will help feed the search engines with content that people are actively searching for online. What I mean by that is you should initially do some Keyword Research which allows you to see what people are searching for in your Niche. Then write an article relating to that keyword term.
Plus, when you write an article you can place a link either from within the article or in your Biog at the end of the article. This link is also used to optimise your website for that specific keyword term.

Article example: If my site is about ‘making money online’ and I want to optimise my website for that specific term then I would write an article about maing money online. And at the end of the article I would include a link, including he words ‘making money online’ back to my website.

The main article directories you should consider submitting to are:
- http://www.ezinearticles.com
- http://www.goarticles.com
- http://www.articlecity.com

Method 3 - Press Releases
A lot of small businesses believe that this is an option only available to much bigger businesses. However this is no longer true and there are now loads of places online where you can submit your Press Release for free. The power of Press Releases are pretty much the same as articles and as Google likes sources such as online Press Release sites for its contenet you can have some of your articles Indexed and showing in Google within hours.

Free Press releases sites to consider
- http://www.1888pressrelease.com
- http://www.free-press-release.com
- http://www.free-press-release-center.info
- http://www.freepressreleases.co.uk

Method 4 - Video
Although still in its infancy online this method of free advertising on the web should not be overlooked. Apart from the power of being able to ‘talk’ direct to your potential customers the search engines search Video sites like YouTube on an hourly basis and if you submit a Video Clip which is tagged with relevant keywords the clip can be picked up in the search engines. Plus if someone is looking on YouTube for clips relating to your business then this will help them find your business and once again provide you with free traffic.

To maximise the power of using Video clips use a FREE service such as http://www.TubeMogul.com to place your videos on multiple Video Sites.

Method 5 - Blogs
Anyone who has been working online for even a short period of time will have heard of blogs. Blogs are much easier to create than websites and because you can have your Blog posts sent to lots of different online sources the chances of your blog posts getting picked up by the search engines is also a lot higher.

Like Articles and Press Releases you must try and make your Blog posts keyword rich and you should also post on a regular basis to your Blog with topics that will interest your visitors. This can be something very specific to your Niche but you can also provide posts that relate to things happeing in the news etc.

The main purpose of your blog is to provided useful information to your target Niche but you should also use it to reflect your personailty as a Blog is a very powerful way for potential customers to interact with you through comments on your post.

Used effectively Blogs can help direct targetted traffic to your site and you should consider using one of the following two Blog platforms:

- http://www.WordPress.com
- http://www.Blogger.com

Conclusion
The bottom line is that no matter what type of business you want to start online there are plenty of FREE ways to get traffic to your website. All you have to do is ‘take action’ and you will reap the rewards. Lots of multi-million dollar online businesses have been built on the back of little or no money and in order to start your own little ‘online empire’ you can take advantage of free advertising on the web to help you get started and making profits.