So you finally got a website for your business? Great. Is your website appealing and actually have useful information? Even better. Now comes the confusing, arduous process of promoting your business and the website which represents your business. There are a good number of ways to promote your business online, and I recommend trying as many as you can.
Online Classifieds
One of the best ways to promote your business (and you can do this without even having a website up) is to registry your business into the endless amounts of online classifieds websites out there. Registration is usually a quick and easy process that would take no more than ten minutes per website. Since there are so many online classifieds out there, it’s a good idea to get into the heads of your clientele and think about which websites they would likely use. It’s also not a bad idea to ask your customers which local listings sites they use through a survey that might accompany a purchase. Some good online classifieds pages to include are the following:
E-Newsletter
If you don’t already have an online newsletter arriving in your clientele’s inboxes, you should start now. If you need email addresses, this would be a great prompt to include in a customer survey. How often should you send out the newsletter? Unless you update or make additions to your business monthly, I would just send them out quarterly or case-by-case. If you are moving locations or changing inventories, obviously let your customers know. If nothing much is happening, don’t annoy your customers with pointless emails.
Social Media
This is actually somewhat of a tough call, as I don’t believe it is necessary for all businesses. Not every business needs a Twitter or Facebook account; in fact some customers might be confused or even laugh at the idea for some businesses. Then again, places like restaurants or bars with a changing menu or varied specials would have good use for a social media account. I would advise you to survey if your clientele are active social media users and which social media they use. Giving your customers any easier way to contact or access you is never a bad thing.
Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) should have a post all to itself. Essentially it is the process of optimizing your website with the best keywords possible that would bring in search engine traffic. To do this, you have to spend a good amount of time brainstorming keywords that potential customers would type into Google to find your company or service. It’s also a good idea to look at your competition’s websites and see what keywords they have for their sites. Often times, you will find that many business’s websites have language that is too highly specialized and probably doesn’t bring in much search engine traffic. Once you think you have a good set of keywords that people would search to find a business such as yours, implement them into your website every way you can: Page titles, navigation menus, picture captions, paragraph text, and so forth.
Advertisements
This could also be its own blog post. There are an infinite amount of spaces on the internet where you could advertise. The key is finding the places that would give you the most success. Personally, I don’t think Google AdWords is the way to go for most businesses; too many people pass them up, and your SEO should give you results on Google anyway. Instead, I think specialized blogs related to your business are a decent avenue. Particularly if the blogs are localized, it would probably have an even more direct effect on your customer base.
By-line:
Mariana Ashley is a freelance writer who particularly enjoys writing about online colleges. She loves receiving reader feedback, which can be directed to mariana.ashley031 @gmail.com or you can leave a comment below.
I’ve been making money online since 2006 and I have to admit that there is a pretty simple formula that I use time and time again. No matter what new tricks I learn, or what the hottest new product is, when push comes to shove and I HAVE to make some money using the internet, here’s what I always return to.
In a previous article I showed you my 
3 Easy Ways To Create Backlinks And Get Free Traffic To Your Blog
When it comes to creating backlinks, most of us know it’s important. But what most of us don’t know are easy ways to do it. I have to confess, when I was getting started online I always knew I needed backlinks. But, getting them seemed like something only SEO gurus knew how to do.
Well, flash forward a few years later and I’ve cracked the code on some of the easiest and fastest ways to create backlinks and get traffic to your blog or website.
And that’s an important point. While you’re building your backlinks, it’s definitely nice to get traffic as well. Beats waiting around for google to find you and rank you decently for a well searched keyword phrase or term.
So, here are the 3 easy ways to get backlinks to your site and drive free traffic.
1) Leave Blog Comments On Other People’s Blogs
This is one of the easiest strategies you can do. I once had a person doing this full time for one of my sites and I became a PR4 site quickly and got hundreds of unique visitors everyday.
But, if you’re going to do this, let me let you in on a little secret. Make sure you target “DOFOLLOW” links. Let me explain.
Many sites are coded so that all links that point out have a tag that tells the search engines not to give credit to that link as a “true’ backlink. Basically, it says “yeah we linked to them but they didn’t earn it”.
The search engine doesn’t give you as much credit for these type of links. So the answer is to look for “DOFOLLOW” blogs that allow comments.
And how do you find these? Simple. A website already exists that you can use right now to find these blogs. The site is called DoFollow Diver. DoFollow Diver allows you to search for blogs that will count as a backlink for you. This is great. And it’s free. So you really can’t beat it. A good method is to find 5 websites each day and leave comments.
It shouldn’t take you more than 20 minutes. And the more you do it, the better you’ll get at it. You can also outsource this to someone else. Like, maybe even a neighborhood kid or your own kid.
So, to create backlinks and get traffic. Just look for topics related to your site or blog and leave a comment. Make sure it’s a good comment. If you want to get a little sneaky, instead of leaving your name, you could put your keyword phrase in the name field.
And viola, you have created a backlink pointing your website. Now, keep doing it!
Here’s the link to the website you can use to find related blogs that are dofollow:
http://www.inlineseo.com/dofollowdiver/
2) Tap Into Traffic From Youtube With Your Own Link On Someone Else’s Video
This is something I’ve just heard about and I’m definitely going to take part in it. All you do is look for current youtube videos that are getting a lot of views.
Usually this will be on movie trailers, songs with lyrics attached, etc. You can also search for videos that have to do with your website or blog.
You’re looking for a few key things:
a) No link in the description
b) At least 50,000 views so far
c) The traffic is on an upward growth
d) How relative is the video to your website*
This can all be seen instantly when you find the youtube video. Once you’ve found a video, simply contact the person who put the video online.
Let them know you’d like to pay them money to put a link in their description. Some won’t go for it, but many will. And before you think you have to spend a ton of money, think again.
The examples I’ve seen so far, people have been paying about $20 to get a link. This is a good backlink and as the traffic increases, you should see a steady growth of visitors.
*This type of traffic is best suited for broad offers like “make money”, “weight loss”, etc.
3) Ezine Marketing – Having People With A List Promote Your Website (and you!)
Did you know there are tens of thousands of ezines about all sorts of topics. Many are about your niche or website or blog. If you’re unfamiliar with an ezine, it’s just an online newsletter about a certain niche or topic. The equivalent of an online magazine.
All you have to do is find them and offer to provide free content to them, like an article or a video teaching something you know.
Many times, the people who run these ezines are starving for content and will gladly accept your article. What they get out of this is content for their list, and what you get is your website put in front of potentially thousands of people.
And here’s the really cool part. Many ezine owners maintain a blog or website that houses prior issues. If they don’t have this, suggest it to them. It will get them more traffic and grow their list.
So, if they accept your material, they will of course send it out to their list. But, if they also add your content to their website guess what you get?
An instant backlink.
And that’s powerful. There’s more than one ezine out there that you can work with too. Heck, you could probably even use the same content a few different times with different lists.
See the potential? You’ll get traffic from the ezine when the newsletter goes out. You’ll get traffic from the ezine owners website, and you’ll get a backlink from their website that will help in your long term SEO plan.
So, there are 3 quick and easy ways to get traffic and backlinks. The key is to find out what you’re best at and focus on that. Don’t get scattered in too many areas. If you did these 3 things everyday, you’d be doing awesome.
So, get out there and get some traffic and backlinks…