Out of Money with Loads of Time: 10 Ways to Advertise Your Website
for FREE
by Mitoné Griffith
Published on this site: April 12th, 2005 - See
more articles from this month...
The best laid advertising plans usually contain a large sum
of money. But not every new "NETtrepreneur" has
a big marketing budget. Either you're still working a "day
job" and sitting there hacking away online at night,
trying to convince your family you're right, or you've been
displaced from work in some way, and so—rightly—you
turn to the net. I'm not rich by any means, but I haven't
punched a clock in over two years. Not all my business comes
from people I don't know all over the world—but a lot
of it does. So this article will include local and regional
advertising ideas for your website as well.
I'm starting with order of importance here—the things that
are going to do more for you for the time investment. That's the
thing about advertising—it either takes time OR money OR both.
And if you don't have the money, be prepared to spend the time.
- YOU MUST WRITE. I know you know something about
your business. Maybe there's a little something you could
teach me about what you know? That's what writing articles
is all about. It's just sharing your knowledge FOR FREE
with others who are interested in that same subject. In
exchange, you get to have a "resource box" and
byline. Your resource box tells others about your business
and has links to your website and email. You don't have
to write a sales letter of an article—your resource
box does the "selling" for you. There are plenty
of articles online that tell HOW to write an article—but
the basic formula I follow is an intro paragraph, followed
by "x" number of bulleted points to back up my
intro, followed by a summary paragraph. Once you have your
articles written, submit them to article directories. The
main four I use are: www.ideamarketers.com,
www.goarticles.com,
www.fresh-articles.com,
and www.valuablecontent.com.
I know there are others. Just do a search with the terms
"submit my article."
- YOU MUST OPTIMIZE AND SUBMIT. Again, there are
tons of articles on optimizing your webpages for search
engine submission. The basic premise is to fill your site
with keyword rich content, full meta tags and then submit
your site once a month to search engines. I have found a
great and free website service: www.submitexpress.com
which only submits your site to actual directories and engines,
not all those free for all link pages.
- YOU MUST GET OTHERS TO LINK TO YOU. And not just
anybody— the websites that link to yours have to have
something to do with your website. It takes time to research
similar yet different sites, email the webmaster and request
a link exchange. (Writing articles and submitting them solves
this problem too.) If time is an issue, at the very least,
do a search for "_____ directories." The "____"
of course is the topic of your website. For example if you
had a website about Old English Sheepdogs, you might search
for "Old English Sheepdog Directories." The first
five actual directories in the search results are the ones
you want to exchange links with —they have the highest
rankings and this means something for you in making your
rankings better.
- YOU MUST WRITE A PRESS RELEASE. Is your website
brand spanking new—or have you done something really
cool like donate a portion of your sales to a local charity?
Write about it and send it to your local paper. Be sure
and put your web address somewhere—either in the release
if the release regards the site, or in the resource box
if it's a secondary issue. If your message has a more global
impact, consider sending out a larger press release online.
Do a search for "submit press release" and you'll
find a bunch of places to submit your PR for free. One site
is
www.free-press-release.com/submit/.
- YOU MUST WRITE AN E-BOOK. After you have taken
the time to write a slew of articles, it shouldn't take
much to combine them in some sort of congruent fashion,
put a spin on it andcompile it into one PDF document. Give
it away for free. There are several sources (directories)
that offer to list free e-books. It will get downloaded
and passed around—a "viral marketing" scheme.
One such site is www.free-ebooks.net/submit.html.
- YOU MUST START A NEWSLETTER. Or, just collect
leads somehow. Newsletters, to me, do seem to be getting
old and tired. But the principle is still a sound one. Considering
you've done steps 1-5, you now should start to get traffic
to your website. Maybe it's not the numbers you'd like,
but that's okay—you're just getting started. Theoretically,
you should have an email newsletter built into your site
from day one. You'll want to contact your sign-ups regularly
with information as well as your sales message. Offer your
free ebook for signing up. Or give something else away for
free. You can host your newslist at www.topica.com
or www.groups.yahoo.com
for free. Just remember that SPAM is tightening up now.
I just read about a NC man who was sentenced to prison for
9 years for spamming. Make sure you have permission to send
newsletters. I'm pickier now about how I advertise my newsletters.
I usually just market to people who have already purchased
something from me. It is a fact that 80% of your business
will come from 20% of your customers. Good customers will
buy from you again and again if you run a good business.
Another idea I read recently is to publish information in
an autoresponder that people really want. The first thing
I look for when I go to a website is a price list. So, it
makes sense if you publish your rate sheet in an autoresponder
that you can collect good leads this way.
- YOU MUST PUT YOUR WEBSITE ON EVERYTHING. It never
ceases to amaze me that the very people who think they need
a website so bad end up doing a lot of local print promotion
and never put their website on any of it! If they do put
their website address in their printed materials, it's like
a secondary thought, not the main marketing message. It
makes more sense to me to get a smaller ad and put the focus
message on "Visit our website." And then make
your website do the lead collecting or selling. Although
this is technically not "free," you don't spend
any extra by adding or changing or your message to focus
on your website. If you're already paying for print, put
the website on there. In Virginia, you can even get a ".com"
license plate. I
chose MITONE as my letters, and the state provides a specialty
design that has a ".com" illustration after the
letters. If you can do things like this, you CAN increase
your web traffic.
- YOU COULD TRY BANNER AND TRAFFIC EXCHANGE SITES. You
have to be careful with these. Sometimes they work if you
have a good banner and you exchange with the right sites.
Having banners on your site and windows popping up behind
your pages isn't the most aesthetic thing in the world,
but it might work for a one week blitz. One that looks more
promising (and doesn't mess with mucking up your website)
is www.instantbuzz.com.
You actually download a browser toolbar (like a google toolbar)
that displays one liner ads. For so many that you see, you
can put up your own for free. A few ads have actually caught
my eye while
surfing around, so this one might be worth a try.
- DON'T FORGET YOUR SIGNATURE FILE. It may not seem
like much, but how many emails do you send, networking,
every day? Explore your "Tools" option in Outlook
and fix up a dandy little signature file. Put in a "call
for action." And link to your website.
- AND THEN THERE WAS A FORUM. If you find a few
forums that are well visited—and you visit and contribute
regularly, then this can help you. You can't just go to
a forum or message board and start advertising your site.
You have to get to know the "regulars" and become
a regular voice yourself. And jump in when you actually
have something to say. Use your signature file to link to
your website. And try and pick a forum that is related in
topic
to your website.
Whether you're investing in a huge pay per click advertising plan—with
a side blitz of magazine advertising or not—it is still a good
idea to do as much of these freebies as possible. It can only help
build up your reputation and drive home your name brand. Remember
YOUR GOAL in all of your advertising is to first just get people
to your website. The goal of YOUR WEBSITE is to capture a lead or
make a sale—or maybe both. Don't sell in your ads—just
get them there and let your site do the selling.
Mitoné Griffith has been designing websites since
1999. Her streamlined 24 Hour Website Wizard will create your website
in less time than it takes to get that book on HTML to ship from
Amazon. Give her Wizard 24 hours. Invest a low $199. You'll have
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to learn more, or email to
mailto:[email protected]
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