Everybody says that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. While this
principle may hold water in the real world, online this internet is
anything but true. Let’s face it, the Internet is awash with low and no
cost advertising solutions. Everything from blogging to social
networking is 100% free. There are even free online TV Stations like
YouTube that provide instant programming to a worldwide audience. So let
me count the ways in which every business from startups to
well-established firms can jump on the free advertising bandwagon
online.
1. Free Websites – Simply Google “Free Websites” and
you will encounter 1,920,000 results that include everything from free
website templates to free hosting. While you can’t expect these websites
to give you the kind of full court press SEO advantages of one that is
professionally built, they can get even the smallest of businesses into
the game. Plus, they can help take an established business to the next
level online by providing landing page opportunities galore. Speaking of
Google, the 800 lb gorilla in the room recently jumped into the website
development business by launching their “Get Your Business Online”
program, which covers domain registration, hosting and a tutorial
designed to help neophytes design their own website. The first year is
free, followed by a fee of $2 per month for the name and $4.99 per month
for the hosting, starting the second year.
2. Blogging – Life is the ultimate reality show. As anyone who
has ever watched HGTV knows, people love to watch other people work. It
doesn’t take Hollywood to turn your business into must-see-online-tv. In
fact it doesn’t take video at all (although it helps). The easiest way
to generate an audience online is to document the drama that every
business person goes through on a daily basis. The simplest way to
accomplish this is via blog. With free blogging platforms such as blogger.com and wordpress.com being both available and time tested, creating your business’ online diary couldn’t be easier.
3. How Social is Your Social Networking? While
social networks can be used to generate an audience and augment the
bottom line, there is a right way and a wrong way to go about doing so.
The best approach is to create an environment in which compelling
stories, humorous insights and helpful hints about your business are
produced and promoted online. The key is that unlike ad copy which is
90% pitch and 10% information, when it comes to social networking, this
equation is turned on its head. In fact, the best way to turn a reader
into a customer when using social networking is to show them that you
are an authority who can save them time or make a problem disappear.
Interacting with an ever growing audience is what social networking is
all about. This is also a great place to link your blog and add photos
and short videos of projects, before and afters and testimonial videos
of happy customers.
4. Do You YouTube? While many businesses have a
video or two on YouTube, the businesses that learn to feed this
combination video portal/search engine/social network on a weekly or
monthly basis are the businesses that generate most of the action. When
it comes to breaking out of the box, online video can be your elevator
to the top if employed properly. As with social networking, no one wants
to watch a 60-second commercial online. What people want to see is what
I refer to as “infotainment.” If you can entertain and inform your
audience you will get your message across and have the opportunity build
a vast audience who wait with baited breath for your next installment.
Plus, since Google owns YouTube, by optimizing your videos, it is
sometimes possible to jump onto page 1 or 2 of the world’s most popular
search engine with video alone.
5. Craigslist - While this free advertising portal
isn’t a be-all end-all for every business, any place you can plug in
product and service offers, run free classified ads and in short milk
this online cow for everything she’s worth, you should. I personally
know a number of local retailers, etailers and auto dealers who think
that Craigslist is the best thing since sliced bread. The trick of being
a power user on this portal is to know how to phrase an ad and under
which categories to post. The best advice I can give is to see what
other power players are doing and emulate them.
While there are literally thousands of other free directories,
portals and search engines out there onto which to hitch your online
wagon, remember that in order for the web to work, you need to work the
web. This means that if you want the Internet to feed your business, you
need to feed a steady diet of content to the web. So the next time that
someone tells you that, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch” show
them this article and ask them if they want fries with that.
