Where can I get free advertising for my business /website?
Answers:
At the outset, I recommend looking in your yellow pages for people, companies, gov't entities, etc., who use your type of products, and get your info to them. You must have a good, attractive and succinct brochure in color that tells of something you make that is UNIQUE, to be handed out, mailed or emailed. Contact your local newspaper and learn who handles announcements regarding new companies in town, then provide that person with your single-page news release about your company and background. Same idea with TV sources. Find out if your town permits windshield notices to be stuck under car windshield wipers in parking lots. If this is okay, prepare a 4 x 6 or similar smaller sized ATTRACTIVE flyer and go to work. Tell about your offer of some FREE service or product you offer with a purchase of X dollars or more. Have an open house with free coffee and cookies (need an announcement of letter size or slightly larger that friendly restaurants, coffee shops, groceries, etc., etc., will permit you to place in their windows. Think how to get the attention of many people without spending a ton of $$, and get going. How about merely flying a bunch of colored balloons to attract attention to your place of business, with a BIG one up high above your roof that has your company name on it for all to see.
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I have over 35 years experience in advertising.
Now, regarding free advertising on the web...
This is the most commonly asked question on Banswer.com in the Internet Marketing area.
Everyone that has a website seems to think that there must be great ways to advertising it for FREE and get zillions of people to go there.
THINK ABOUT THIS; If it were that easy, why would anyone pay for a Google Adword program or any other type of paid promotion?
With millions of website all hoping to get visitors, does it make more sense to attract them with marketing? If you opened a restaurant, would everyone just come by because it was open?
Of course not. You have to advertise and that takes money. So stop whining and waste time. If you have a good site and it's a true business, invest back into it with a proper planned marketing strategy including SEO, PPC, and other online approaches.
There is no free lunch. Nuff said.
Otherwise, consider the local Yellow Pages for the shop.
I sold the YP for 25 years and it's still number one for small businesses like yourself. Good luck.
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The most effective way to advertise on the Internet is to first set up a website and publish its domain name on major search directories such as Google.com, Yahoo.com [at http://www.google.com/addurl/?... and MSN.com since 85% of Internet shoppers rely on these search directories to provide them with goods and services. In a sense, these search directories are a very large Internet Yellow Pages.
You may want to consider some simple algorithms which, when observed and committed in designing of a website with placement of various critical metatags that can surely achieve a high search engine presence and increase Internet traffic to your website. These metatag strategies work well with published webpages at Google and Yahoo.
Design: Should you create an extensive Flash-based website, make sure to fill-in the property entries such as the Title, Description and Keywords. Failing to do so, leaves no hard HTML or ALT resource that can be readily indexed by search robots.
A non-Flash-based website which relies on hard text, is far easier to be indexed by search robots. Limit the use of stylized text saved as .gifs since as a graphic, they are not indexable by search robots.
Avoid use of frames since any number of search robots are unable to properly classify textual material.
Placement of Metatags:
A ranking or search order does take place with Google and Yahoo and it begins with the "Title" metag which should consist of no more than 65 characters separated by commas. The "Title" should describe in generic terms, the goods and services, followed by a location from which the resource is located, i.e., city, state. The placement of a domain name which is not generic within the "Title" is not appropriate, unless your domain name is a major recognizable brand name.
The second metatag is the "Description" which is usually 25-30 words to form a complete sentence which best describes one's goods and services.
And the very last category - "Keywords" are also somewhat limited to 15-16 words which can be plural and compound in nature. Again, avoid multiple entries which could be mistaken as "spamdexed entries" which is defined as the loading, and submission of repetitive words into a particular metatag category. "Spamdexing" when discovered on a webpage and reported to Google's spamreport.com can result in the elimination of your website from their search directory.
Here's an example of a very highly-placed website on Yahoo.com: Begin with the search query "pizza downtown los angeles." It will bring up some 1.4 million+ websites as results. Check out where "Pizza Next Door" is ranked. It's in the Top Five! Again, Pizza Next Door's high web presence was achieved by proper web design and placement of relevant metatags according to Yahoo's publication guidelines.
Good luck!
Marketing has never been easier the web is 10x better than yellow page(s), its just a matter of tuning your website to attract the most useful visitors in addition to a standard print campaign.
You need a 2-prong approach.
1. Traditional Print media : Using postcard mailings you can buy a list of potentially intersted customers, create a good postcard and then use something like Quantum mail to do the mailing.. Also simpyl classified ads are inexpensive and surprisingly effective.
2. Web marketing: Create an easy to understand and friendly website.
- Focus on getting as many links pointing to your website , especially from related or partner businesses.
- Spend some money on Google Adwords or Yahoo Search Marketing, these can be quite cost effective.
That should help you get started.
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