Free internet advertising for your home based business

Time and time again I see both women and men asking how they can advertise for little or no cost. Advertising does not always mean “an advertisement”. I advertise constantly, but I hardly ever use an ad.

Here are several forms of free advertising:

1. A signature line on outgoing emails. I send and receive emails every day. While some emails are from my kids or mom and dad, many emails are from people who could benefit from visiting my website. I never send an ad by email, but I always put my first and last name and my URL. I know some people use a one line ad in their signature. I choose not to, but one line is great.

2. When you join an online community, use your profile and introduction board to tell people who you are. Do not use this space for an advertisement. Use this space for people to get to know you. I always tell people that I live in Santa Barbara. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten emails from other people telling me they visited Santa Barbara and loved it. By simply letting others know where I live, I have built relationships and made sales. I also use this space to list my hobbies. How can someone make a connection with you if they don’t do anything for you? Turns out I have two dogs. I almost always tell people that I have dogs. This has also started conversations with strangers. We tend to buy from those we know and if we find something in common with someone, we feel that we know them.

3. Start a blog. A blog allows you to talk about any topic you want to talk about. I know many people who have both a personal blog and a business blog. So often I’ve searched the web for something specific and been led to someone’s blog post.

4. Post comments on other people’s blogs. Not all blogs allow you to put your URL. I choose to post comments on blogs that allow me to put my URL. One of my favorite blogs to comment on is whatcanimakewithit.com. This blog lists a food ingredient and asks what you can do with that particular ingredient.

5. Writing articles. This is one of my favorite forms of marketing. Every person who reads this particular article will see a link to my website. Some will click, some won’t. Of those who click, some will make a purchase, some will not. If a publisher sees my article and likes it, they will use it in their ezine or on their site. This gives my link even more exposure. I wrote an article almost 10 years ago about children’s password. From time to time I still get emails from moms telling me that my article has helped them. I wrote this article more than 10 years ago. That’s a lot of free publicity for my sixty minutes of time to write the article. The more you write, the less time an article will take. This article you are reading will take about 30 minutes to write. If you spend 30-60 minutes per day and write one article per day, you will have 365 articles online in a year.

Try some of these forms of free advertising and watch your web visits and sales increase.