So you’ve got a company website, what next? You want to make people aware that it is there of course! However, what if you simply don’t have the budget to afford paid advertising? Don’t worry, there are some great ways in which you can advertise your website online for free.
Social Media
You can set up an account for your business on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or Google + absolutely free. Social media has proven to be a powerful tool for driving people to websites. Analyse each social medium and choose the platform that is right for you. B2C & B2B businesses can use all four aforementioned social media platforms to drive visits to their website successfully. However, if you have a limited amount of time, stick to just one or two accounts that you can wholly dedicate yourself to managing your business presence. B2B businesses find Twitter and LinkedIn most successful for promoting their business. B2C businesses find Facebook & Google + to be an excellent source of traffic. Run competitions for your products or services, participate in relevant discussions, post relevant videos and content in relation to your business and reply to any interactions to get your business out there.
Blogging
Blogging about topics related to your business can be a great way of getting your business in front of the eyes of potential customers. People are always searching for information and your blog can provide a way to attract these searchers by detailing valuable information related to their search.
Blogging displays your level of knowledge and expertise and shows people that there is a real person behind your business. Blogs are most likely to be shared socially too hence if your content is good; you could additional exposure as people share your blogs across social media platforms.
There are lots of free blogging platforms like Tumblr and blogspot but if you really want to build an audience you should invest in your own domain and hosting account. There are many affordable hosting options like BlueHost, FatCow and HostGator.
Directories
Make sure that your business is listed on all relevant local, national and industry directories. This qualifies as a link-building tactic, and can boost your search engine performance. Google takes the number of backlinks to a website into account when devising search engine positions. Directory links are deemed as lower value links but are counted by Google. Most importantly for the links to count, they have to be free. Google do not like paid links as they do not want people to pay to earn a better search engine ranking, they would rather that their ranking was earned. Aside from this SEO benefit, online directories are actively used by people searching for a product or service, so the presence of your website in these directories can put it in front of the eyes of people actively searching for a business like yours.
Guest-Blogging
Have a rummage through your contacts – are there any relevant businesses, suppliers perhaps, upon whose website you can guest blog in return for backlink to your site? Back-links from sites relevant to your industry of business are deemed as high value links by Google and can greatly benefit your search engine performance, increasing the visibility of your website in search results. By guest-blogging, you can display your level of expertise and put your business in front of the eyes of the visitors of that website, who will be a close match to your target audience.
Before you fret about online advertising budgets, try your hand at the four aforementioned tactics. They are proven, effective tactics in gaining exposure for a website and most importantly for you, they cost nothing but your time.