Advantages of Advertising Your Site and How to Do It for Free

One of the most difficult phases of your business’s life is advertising or lead generation. If you are simply starting up at the moment or trying to compete in your industry, you know that this process is the most crucial of all. Why?

Well, because this is where you get potential customers. You don’t expect to have customers who will buy or avail of your products or services if you do not advertise — online or offline — right? Through advertisement, readers become potential customers; potential customers become, well, (loyal) customers. Also, advertisements allow you to let everyone know about your company, products, and/or services. Without awareness, there is no chance you or your company can compete with the rest.

So, how do you exactly advertise your site? The easiest way is to pay an advertising agent and let them handle it for you. But if you want to do it for free, there are some media where you can advertise your site with very minimal cost.

1. “Advertise” your site whenever possible. Print your web site’s URL in every possible medium that you have control of: on your and your staff’s e-mail signature, company letterheads, newsletters, flyers, business cards, or even in front of your building or office door.
2. Utilize social media. Millions of people are browsing the Internet for so many reasons — research, e-commerce, social networking, and many others. Social networking accounts for more than a hundred million online users. In a recent study, social media hold half of the Top 24 most visited or famous web sites. The range of users of social media like Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, Blogger, Wordpress, and others is from 30 million or 135 million. Creating a profile and building up your network gives you access to these numbers, and yes, potential customers.
3. Create a blog. There are a number of free blogging platforms available (e.g., Wordpress.com, Blogger.com, and Livejournal.com). A blog is an avenue for you to make a press release about your product or service, to make an announcement of your plans, to provide “after-sales support,” and other things.
4. Join online communities. Believe it or not, no matter how specific and relatively new your product or service is, there would be a group of people talking about it in Internet. You’ll find them in different forums. Join these and participate in their discussions. In doings so, you can show your expertise or knowledge on the topic, build up your reputation, and eventually advertise your product.
5. E-mail lists. Find a way to collect your customers’ or potential customers’ e-mail addresses. You may regularly e-mail them with announcements on your new products or services, probably improvement or development on old ones, and basically anything that will make them feel that you care for them. This will help you create new customers and also transform existing ones to returning and loyal patrons.
6. Free classified ads. There are sites that offer free advertisements. An example is the Yahoo! Classifieds (http://classifieds.yahoo.com).
7. Utilize “evangelists.” You may have enthusiastic staff of business partners. Encourage them promote your website — by adding your URL in their signatures or links, or even directly promoting it in the medium (blog, social networks, online communities or forums, etc) they are really active at.

These are just a few suggestions on how to advertise your site online or even offline. But if you have a fund or budget specially set aside for this endeavor, it is still best to hire professionals who can do the work more effectively.