So you have just created an exceptional website. Right? Remember that, even the best product in the world needs effective advertising; otherwise no one will know about it.
When it comes to website advertisement, there are several services out there to help you out. However, since not all businesses can spend a big budget on advertising and marketing, this post brings some practical tips that help you advertise website for free.
These tips are surely going to help you kick-start your business without breaking your bank. So, without any further delay, let’s have a look at them.
1. Take Advantage of Business Listing/Review Sites
Don’t underrate the power of review sites for promoting an online business. According to Search Engine Land, around 88% of people trust online reviews as much as much as friends.
You can take your own example, you probably read a few online reviews before shopping for clothes, purchasing subscriptions or even taking a haircut. Usually, you go for a business or service that has more positive reviews.
You can also get reviews for your online business by listing it on different review websites. They are ideal platforms to advertise a website for free.
There are numerous popular review sites out there that let you add basic business listings for free. It would be better if you can find a review website that is particularly on your business niche.
For instance, TripAdvisor is meant for travel-related businesses whereas Zomato and Yelp are considered good for restaurants, food, etc. If you’re doing really good, review websites will willingly start reviewing your services.
If you’re into general business, you can get listed on sites like:
Better Business Bureau (BBB)
2. Focus On Website SEO
Do you know what is the first thing people nowadays do before making a purchase? They Google the product or service they are going to buy. If your website is not properly optimized for Google, it will never be found in the results. So, focus on SEO optimization of your site first.
Most newbies don’t know that search engine optimization is one of the best techniques to promote a website for free. It is an important step to get organic traffic from search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.
For those who don’t know, search engine optimization or SEO is a set of rules for optimizing a website for search engines. Not only this tactic improves searching engine ranking but also helps in making a site user-friendly and easier to navigate.
SEO also has a close relation with your website’s speed. A poorly optimized website loads slowly and that can be a big ranking factor. According to Google, page speed is a ranking factor in mobile search.
Reliable hosting services that provide state-of-the-art servers should be your first concern. Also, to increase your website speed you may try following steps:
- Optimize images
- Minify CSS and JavaScript
- Enable Compression
- Consider using a content distribution network (CDN)
So before you start working on your site’s content, you should know about the different SEO tools.
For the basic search engine optimization, you can start using the Google Keyword Planner tool. It is a free tool from Google helps in finding the best keywords for your niche. The tool allows you to find the most relevant keywords for your business niche along with their competition and average monthly searches.
According to SEO experts, you should focus on long-tailed keywords as they are easier to target and account for 70% of all web searches.
3. Try Google My Business
Undoubtedly, Google is so popular that “Google” is considered synonymous with web searches. Still, most people are not aware of its all incredibly useful products and services. One such service is Google My Business.
Google My Business (GMB) is a free tool for businesses to manage their online presence in Google. It allows you to manage how your business appears on Google search and Maps. Using it is quite straightforward. It all includes adding your business name, location, hours and other relevant information.
Let’s take a look at the advantages and features that Google My Business has to offer you.
Helps People Find Your Physical Location
GMB lets you list the exact location and address of your business on Google Map. It ensures that your target users no longer need to rely on a paper map to find you. It helps people reach you with the precise directions. Moreover, it is mobile friendly, people can search for your business anywhere, anytime on any device.
Offers Better Search Visibility
When searching on Google, you might have observed a high-visibility panel below paid ads. Usually, it contains 3 local business listing and their information. Don’t forget that only a complete and optimized listing will land in this section.
Display All Your Useful Information
GMB provides you a place to make important business updates which are seen by people immediately. You’re allowed to add followings:
- Description of your business
- Hours of Operations
- Pictures
- Directions
- Busy Periods
- Call now button for mobile users
4. Harness The Power of Content Marketing
Content marketing is a great strategy to advertise a website for free. It does not just revolve around the creation and publication of good content. Until you are able to distribute your content to the target audience, you can’t bring traffic to your site.
A good content marketing tactic helps your business in plenty of ways. Like it builds trust with your audience; brings brand awareness, and generates leads to your business. If you’re not that much good in writing, you may seek the help of a professional writer.
You may also think starting a blog. It alone can help you promote your website for absolutely free. Having a blog on your site can increase your ranking in search engines to a great extent. Moreover, it can be helpful in building authority in your industry. You can better establish yourself as an expert in your field.
In addition to creating your own blog, you may try guest blogging to promote your business. Here are some tips to use blogging to advertise your website.
- Create an integrated content strategy. You should start with a clear vision of your desired outcome. Use your blog to offer value to your audience. Try to establish yourself as authority, share case studies to build trust.
- One of the most effective blogging tactics that you can use to advertise your business is to interview influencers and thought-leaders. An interview series can help you reach out to those you know in your industry.
- At the end of each post, you can use some call to action. You can request your readers to join your email list or share a post on their social media platforms.
Some popular platforms to share your contents are:
5. Reach Out to Your Audience Using Social Media Platforms
To advertise your website for free, you can’t find a better way than using social media platforms such as Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. Nowadays, they are much more than just a platform to communicate with people and share your pictures. They have been widely used for promoting businesses as well.
You can use them to announce new products and services. Here are some effective ways to promote your business on social media platforms
Choose The Right Platform:
There is no dearth of social media platforms on which you can share your content. However, not all platforms will be equally beneficial for you. For example, if you’re in the retail sector, probably you can benefit from Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. On the other hand, for a video production company, YouTube should be an obvious choice.
So, always consider a platform that best fits your business.
Build a Community:
Don’t just try to get as many followers as possible. You should be focusing on searching for people who are interested in the services you offer. After all, such people are more likely to repost your content and become customers.
When you create a community around your business, more people engage with each and other and help to promote your content. Moreover, you can ask the community people to review your products.
Share Videos:
People react more on visual content. According to an article posted on Social Media Today, social videos generates 1200% more share than text content and images together. Visual content works better on social media as well. You can use them to grab people’s attention.
Videos are a perfect way to say more without taking up much room. Focus on creating a narrative-driven video to get the best engagement.
Stay Engaged:
Social media marketing is not just about what you share. You should also stay engaged with your followers. Have an engaging conversation with them. It can be wishes, appreciation, condolence or just anything.
6. Make Use of Question-Answer Platforms
Nowadays, people jump to specific forums to find the answers to their queries. You can see people trying to solve their pain point on websites like Yahoo Answers, Quora, Linkedin Groups, etc. You can benefit from such platforms too.
You have to create accounts on these sites and start looking for service and product you offer. For instance, you should search for “obesity-related queries”, if you deal in weight loss machines or gym equipment.
On such platforms, you will get a lot of queries related to the business you’re into. By resolving the queries of users you can turn them into your customers. You can start with answering the easy questions and then move towards complicated questions.
You can do the same with Linkedin Groups and Yahoo Answers. All these networks are highly influential and indexed by Google as well, which is a good thing from the search engine point of view.
7. Market Your Services/Products on YouTube
Did you know that Youtube gets over 30 million users per day? Every day more than 4 billion videos are played on YouTube. These figures are growing with every passing day. So, why don’t you take advantage of this platform?
The good thing is that YouTube doesn’t charge anything to upload a video. It means you can advertise your business for free. For your product or service promotion, you can upload a testimonial by a client. Don’t forget to give your video a relevant title and description.
Below have a look at some tips for using YouTube to advertise your business.
- Choose an attractive thumbnail image for your video.
- Ues multiple call-to-actions such as Please rate this video, Subscribe to my channel, Please post your comments, Check out my channel, etc.
- Before you upload videos, make your channel look nice. It must have info about you and a link to your site.
8. Go for Email Marketing
Another great way to advertise a website for free is taking advantage of email marketing. According to a study, for every $1 you spend on an email campaign, the average return is $38.
The good part is that this cost-effective marketing tactic lets you generate new leads for your business while engaging with existing customers. There are many ways you can promote your business via email marketing.
For example, you can send a newsletter featuring upcoming specials or any helpful content. Moreover, you can be generous by offering discounts on your service via emails. After all, everyone loves saving money.
Remember that, building an email list of interested people takes time and patience. You can take advantage of your social media profiles to collect email addresses. Some other ways you can try to build email list faster are:
- Ask people for the business cards whenever you meet them face-to-face for any reason.
- You can host an event that allows people to enroll by providing their email address.
- Word of mouth helps too much. Ask your existing and new customers to refer new subscribers.
- In your emails, you can include call-to-action like “Forward to a friend”.
9. Offer a Deal
Offering deals is a good way to quickly draw people into your business. It may seem an expensive way to advertise a business but in reality, it is not. If you’re doing it in the right way, it can offer you a better return on investment (ROI).
Deal websites like Coupons.com, DealTaker, RetailMeNot attract millions of users to their portals. So, if you’re able to come up with mouth-watering deals, you can take advantages of these websites.
Final Words
There can be more than just 9 ways to advertise a website for free. For that, you will have to be creative and think out of the box. Tactics mentioned in this post may take some weeks before you start seeing results. If you don’t have a big budget to promote your website, invest your time to find some inexpensive and effective ways to promote your business.
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