Online Marketing: Some Of The Best Tools Are Free

your business for free...if you are willing to put in the time and effort.

Job #1: Search Engine Position

The primary goal for marketing online is to drive traffic to your website. More traffic equals more sales. The best way to achieve that objective is to show up at the top of the search engines. That is, when potential customers search for a product or service that you carry (your key words), your business should be on the first page, the higher up, the better. Even if your business serves only a local area, your customers need to find you easily on the web. The way this works is people enter, for example, "pest control Las Vegas" and the search engine returns websites that are optimized for those key words. The trick is to get your website to the top of that list.

There is not quick and easy way to get there. You cannot buy your way to the top of (or even into) search engines. The search engine companies like Google, Bing, and Yahoo use complicated, secret algorithms to determine which sites rank the hightest. The rules are ever-changing, mostly in an attempt to combat scammers. However, there are legitimate tools, referred to as SEO (search engine optimization), that can be worked to build your site's status. For the most part, these tools cost no money, but do require time, effort and patience to achieve.

Most people understand SEO to be about placing the right keywords on your website pages and setting the appropriate tags for the search engine crawlers to find. While these factors are important, there is a lot more you can do by utilizing other existing websites to get the word out about yours. One of the factors that all search engines rely on are the number of links back to your site from other, well-ranked websites.

Social Networking and Bookmarking Sites

As soon as your website is posted, even if it is a "coming soon" page with a limited description, begin spreading the word. Start with the popular social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn. Users of these sites can create or join professional groups and post business pictures and videos. Join in with forum discussions relevant to your business. Be sure to include a link back to your website, when possible, but do not spam the boards. That is, be sure you respond appropriately to the question or discussion. If you just post your link to every forum, you will be kicked off the networking site and develop a bad reputation for your business.

Other users can join your business's profile and be kept up-to-date on your postings. Twitter and Tumblr also allow users to keep tabs on what is happening with you and your business. These networking sites take a while to build up, but over time can be an effective tool for virtual word-of-mouth marketing.

Other websites, called social bookmarking sites, allow you to select and bookmark noteworthy web pages or news articles for others to view. These bookmarks also allow comments from other users -- a great opportunity to market your own business. Of course, be sure to stick to relevant topics and offer pertinent comments. The same rules apply here as with other social sites. Some of the more popular bookmarking sites include Digg, Del.icio.us, Reddit, Mixx, Fark, and StumbleUpon.

Content is King

Building content on and off your site is critical. Whatever your business idea, there is a lot that your target market doesn't know about what you do. In a bizarre twist of modern consumerism, your customers expect free information or free samples before they buy. Your site should contain enough valuable, relevant, free information to get your potential market interested in your product. For most products, tell them why they need it and how they will benefit from purchasing your product. Write articles about particular features or uses. Write product reviews of the products you sell. Start a blog that discusses relevant news articles or opinions of interest to your target. Then, post announcements of these articles to your social networking sites.

Also consider writing informational articles (not blatant advertisements) to submit to article directories, other free content websites, and even magazines and newsletters that are read by your target market. The articles should be useful to your market -- the intention is to become known as an expert in your field. While for the most part you should not (and, for some cases, can not) include links or references to your business in the body of the article, you can usually include two or three links to different pages of your website in your byline. Be sure these links include the key words you are trying to optimize. For example, an article by the owner of a pet supply company might be about the health benefits of dog sports. The byline might read as follows, with the bold words linked to pages on the website:

Mutt Trainer, owner of DogSportsStuff.com is a Certified Pet Dog Trainer. During his 28 years in the dog world he has competed in conformation, obedience, and agility with his pet Chesapeake Bay Retrievers. His first love is dog sports, especially dock diving and flyball.

If your articles are well-written, interesting, and informative, they may be picked up by other online e-zines to be distributed through their newsletters and websites. A single article, then, can result in at least two and as many as hundreds of links back to your website. Depending on how crowded your key words are on the web, these links can make a big difference in moving your site up the search engine results.

The Payoff is Worth the Time and Effort

Boosting your ranking on the search engines takes significant time and effort, but the payoff is significant as well. Once your business hits the first page of the major search engines for the right key words, your business will reach a far broader market base than through any other single form of advertising. How long it takes to get there depends on how crowded your key words are and how much effort you put into SEO. Key words like "starting a business" are especially difficult to crack. It can take a year or more of concerted effort to consistently show up on the first page. Less common key words take less time but still require the links back and content to get you to the top.

Be warned -- those SEO consultants that guarantee your business will be in the top 5 of the search engines do not guarantee the key words you want. That is, if you are in the pizza oven business, they cannot get you to the top of "pizza oven" searches any faster than you can. However, they probably can get you to the top of "Mike's Pizza Oven, Inc." relatively quickly...because you are the only business out there with those key words.