How To Advertise Your Internet Business For Free - Part 1

There are several very effective ways to advertise you business without having to pay a fortune. It can in fact be done for free, with incredible results. Even if you have a large budget available for paid advertising, the free methods should still be utilized because they are so affective.

There are some methods of free advertising that work like a charm, other free methods fall flat and are useless. If you are fairly new to the internet business, you will not know which one's work and which one's don't.

A colleague of mine, Julie, spent $1000's on her advertising campaign when she first started her online business. It almost 'broke the bank' and the business nearly went under because the paid advertising wasn't working as she had expected it to. Out of shear desperation, she turned to free advertising. She tried every method that she could find. After a solid 18 months of setting up and promoting her business she was about to lose the lot if she couldn't turn the financial situation around. Julie trawled the internet, read every free report, article and ecourse that she could find. Frantically, she set about her mission of free advertising.

How many ways are there to get free advertising?

There are actually many ways, but as I mentioned, some work, some don't. Julie used them all. Each time she discovered a method, she put it to use.

She started off placing free classified ads. It took her days to manually place 100's of ads. There is software out there that will practically automate this procedure, but by now Julie had no many left to purchase it.

As she was placing the classified ads, she varied the wording. She changed the title, ad copy and the categories in which she posted them. Even though they where all leading to the same thing, the effect of changing words can have a profound result. Different people process information in diverse manners. What appeals to one person will have no effect on another. So in order to apply to a larger audience, differing the wording of ads is important.

Julie found the sites to post her ads on by typing 'classified ads online' into the search box of her browser. She also used similar searches, varying the description slightly. Then she discovered another way of placing classifieds, other than the traditional approach.

Forums!!!

This has recently become a very hot way of drumming up business and is swiftly growing in popularity. Even the big guru's use it. You'll find postings from most of the 'big boys' in the internet world all over the forums.

After a few days, Julie started to see a lot of new traffic visiting her site. They where signing up for her newsletter and her conversion rate started to creep up. At least things where going in the right direction, slowly, but at least it was moving.

Concentrating on placing her ads on forums had a very worth while result. Within 12 hours of her first postings, she got a lot of emails from people that had seen her ad and wanted more information. She had more email queries in a week than she had had in the previous 6 months.

Some of the forums that Julie visited, she was a bit reluctant to post on. They didn't seem to be 'very busy' and where also only recently started. But being the desperate woman that she was, she decided anything was worth a try at this point.

Surprisingly, it was the newer forums that she got the most response from. Because her ad wasn't buried amongst 1000's, it was far more noticeable. She also found that some of these newer sites where growing very rapidly. As long as you follow the rules that the forum set out for posting and don't abuse the system, this is a very successful way to advertise for free.

So what's the difference between posting traditional classified ads and posting on forums?

A classified ad is only seen if someone specifically goes looking for it. A classified section is just that, a section. Forums are different. They are 'sociable'. Otherwise known as message boards or discussion rooms, they are a place where random types of people interact and 'share'.

Some forums have dedicated boards where you can freely advertise your business. Others forbid advertising in a blatant, obvious way. You have to be slightly indirect and discrete. The best way to learn how to do this is to visit the forums and see what everyone else is doing.

It is quite easy to master 'discrecsion' advertising; it just takes a bit of research and practice. To explain the ins and outs of this method would be a whole article in itself, which I guess I will get around to writing soon. By advertising on forums, your ad will be seen by a wider section of people. They might not be actively seeking what you have to offer, but will 'discover' you through the means of the forum. This then makes them targeted traffic. You just have to post in the right kind of forums to get the best results.

What forums should you use?

The type of forum to use depends on the type of business you run. The niche that you specialize in will be a guide to where to advertise. If you sell porn (tutut, but it is the biggest industry on the net) it wouldn't be very productive if you advertise on a 'Christian Content' site. Not that there is necessarily anything wrong with dealing in the porn industry, after all a lot of people have become multi millionaires through it, but the chances are that YOU deal in something completely different, I just used porn as an example.

There are several ways to find the forums that suit your genre. Visit websites that offer similar or complementary products/services ect... as you. Have a look to see if they have a forum.

I have an advertising and discussion forum where you may advertise any type of business, except porn/adult content. This is a good a place as any to start. It is a new forum and will expand rapidly over the next few weeks. So get YOUR ad posted there now and make the most of the expose explosion that is about to happen there. You'll find the forum at http://www.instantmessageboards.com/viewforum.php?f=68803

You can search the internet for forum directories. You will find all the forums categorized, so it will be quite easy to see where the best place to post your ads would be.

Another idea is to start your own forum. They are very easy to set up and manage. You can then advertise your forum to your opt-in list, website visitors and through classifieds ads directed at 'free advertising' on your forum.

What happened to Julie?

Luckily she turned her business around and is now earning a more than respectable living from it. She has abandon most of the costly advertising methods and now concentrates her efforts on the freebie option.

This is not to say that paid advertising is a waste of time. It has to be done effectively to produce good results, just like anything else.

Julie still runs paid ads in other ezines and newsletters, but covers the cost by accepting paid advertising in her own eZine. Julie also sometimes chooses to pay for 'feature' positions when submitting articles or advertising in certain editions of highly popular online media. The bottom line is, she now pays a fraction of what she was paying, and is receiving higher amounts of targeted traffic. Free doesn't necessarily mean lower quality, in fact it can be the best quality.

Can advertising in free classifieds and on forums drive enough traffic?

Julie did not make her failing online business successful just through traditional and forum based classified ads alone. She used other methods too, such as writing articles and reports, ad and link exchange, traffic surfing and additional methods. I will be producing separate articles covering all of these methods of free advertising. If you read them you will find out exactly what else Julie and other successful online business people do to get free targeted traffic.

In conclusion, advertising on forums is free and affective. It is simple and straight forward. It also has the bonuses of 'getting you known as an expert' and driving extra traffic to YOUR website if you run your own forum. You could even make money by offering 'paid feature' posting on your own forum. The possibilities are endless.

If you have an internet business and you are serious about making money online, you should earnestly consider using this free opportunity to increase the traffic to your website. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Post your ads on specialist classified ads websites. More importantly, cover the forums and see the results for yourself.

Here's to your internet success.

Jane Harper, Webmaster
Contact me webmaster@successcreatesmoney.com

Post your free ad at http://www.instantmessageboards.com/viewforum.php?f=68803