Ten Places to Promote Your Business Online For Free
By Didi Zheleva
"Water everywhere and not a drop to drink"... this is exactly how I felt when I began
my journey to finding places online where I can promote our business. In one hand, you have
the vast enormity of the web and all the sites, blogs and platforms I can go onto and talk
about my business and the issues that we were trying to solve. On the other hand, you have
to think carefully which domains you want to be associated with, which ones allow that type
of content and which ones are suitable for your business and its audience.
So if you like me, struggle to find your feet at the beginning, here is a good (by no
means complete) list of the top 10 places online you can promote your business.
1. Changes start from within
Optimize your email signature. How many emails do you send every day? Quite a few of them
I imagine. Now imagine how many people you could have attracted if you had a link to your
website included in your email signature. In fact, today it is becoming quite normal to have
your own or your company's email signature contain not only a name, phone number, email address
and website, but also links to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media profiles.
So, make sure you use every bit of real estate in your emails.
2. Search Engines
It must comes as no surprise that the majority of web traffic comes from search engines.
With that being said, search engines should be the first place you turn to promote your business.
Make sure that search engines know about your business, your whereabouts and your website by
submitting all the relevant information and completing local search forms. It's free and it
only takes a few minutes.
• Google
• Yahoo
• Bing
3. Social Media
Unless you have been living under a rock for the last few years, you will know that social
media is an essential part of business success and it is particularly effective and efficient
tool to use for smaller businesses.
Social media allows you to connect directly with your prospects and customers, but also
gives you the fantastic opportunity to promote your business, website and content. By using
social media successfully you will be able to keep marketing costs to a minimum, measure what
is and isn't working well, and build a community feel that reflects your brand.
• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Google+
4. Video
Because it's a video platform, YouTube may not initially seem like a suitable platform
for marketing your small business, but guess what? It is! Closely tied to Google+, YouTube
is a more social and influential platform than ever.
Creating and posting video content on YouTube is a great way to boost the visibility
and credibility of your small business. Creating video content doesn't require a big budget.
All you really need is a camera.
You can create content featuring your customers saying why they like your business, it
could be a short video of you explaining about your product or even a quick tour of your premises.
A simple video like this can make all the difference!
• YouTube
5. Photo Sharing
Photo sharing sites are perfect for creating more buzz around your business and also creating
some links to your website around the web (this is good SEO practices 101). You can take a picture
of your product, your premises, your logo and share them. Depending on what your business offers
photo sharing websites could be more or less useful to get your point across, nevertheless you
should give them a go.
• Instagram
• Pinterest
• Flickr
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