know of any free advertising?

[sonia]

Has anyone got info on where to advertise my childrens wear shop for free?(mags/leaflets/internet etc) i have paid alot on advertising lately and as a new business this is hard to fund!

Also if anyone is interested in childrens wear, gifts and toys, thats not your average design and quality, please see my website from Jan .......
www.bambookidz.co.uk for a fresh approach to childrens clothing!

Thanks all.

Sonia.

[SillyJokes]

What you are doing now is free advertising as we all have some kids (nearly all), however it's a waste as you don't have your site up and running, so what is the point of mentioning it?

Other 'free' advertising is to doing your own PR and contacting newspapers with on topic stories that promote your business.

Do a fashion show with the local school for charity - these are popular as everyone wants to think their kid has what it takes to be a model.

[DeveloperBloke]

PR PR and more PR

create a story which a journalist will like.

make it sound good, a journalist doesnt care about your business, just a good story.

sillyjokes idea of a fashion show is good. i work with a site that sells fairy gear, and they do them all the time, and they work cos its fun.

j

[JustOneUK]

you can submit your business name address and phone number to my free site, it's all publicity :)

I assume it's a SHOP with a location other than the internet?

[bwglaw]

JustOneUK

Your site looks OK. Just wondered if there is a search facility for YOUR site otherwise a user is tied down to choose a town. Moreover, advertisers tend to not like advertising in a particular region because only people who click that region will see the advert. That is why yell.co.uk offers a search by category and not just by town/postcode.

I would like to advertise our companies but we do not like region-based advertising because we cover the whole of the UK. Take for instance, an internet company is not going to advertise just in Leeds because technology allows the customer to be anywhere in the world.

Just a critique thought

[JustOneUK]

Thanks for your comments, I will go and prepare my reply :)

[bci]

I could be wrong - but I would think the first step is to put up a website! A good converting website following good SEO practices. Then use PPC ads while waiting for the organic SERPs to kick in.

[mattk]

Do a survey that proves something we all already know. That'll assure you coverage on the BBC News Web site!

[JustOneUK]

JustOneUK

Your site looks OK. Just wondered if there is a search facility for YOUR site otherwise a user is tied down to choose a town. Moreover, advertisers tend to not like advertising in a particular region because only people who click that region will see the advert. That is why yell.co.uk offers a search by category and not just by town/postcode.

I would like to advertise our companies but we do not like region-based advertising because we cover the whole of the UK. Take for instance, an internet company is not going to advertise just in Leeds because technology allows the customer to be anywhere in the world.

Just a critique thought

Thanks for your kind words, to even be thought of in the same paragraph as Yell.com is praise indeed, especially at such an early stage.

You cannot sell your car on Yell.com, especially not for free, or sell your house, let a room, sell household items or even kittens and puppies. We believe we are offering something that the public can actually use, something free. Hopefully this will mean visitors will use our site time and time again, not just when they need a plumber once every 10 years. This will offer our advertisers better branding for their companies and a foothold into any community they advertise in, both for the small business with only a £10 advertising budget and companies covering the whole UK.

Finishing the rebuild and pressing on with opening the next site, which is (as you suggest) a directory focused on business types instead of location, is the goal of the moment. Taking on the task of competing for traffic with the likes of Yell.com can wait for next year.

We receive a lot of visitors to JustOneUK already and can only move forward.

James

[properhost]

A free advertising is easy when you have a website , than use some free submition sites or any free way to promote it.
Your website is best way to expand your business.

[billhilton]

If you have a web presence then the most important type of free advertising you can possibly get is free links - because they advertise your business and build your Google PageRank, so you don't wind up having to spend a fortune on PPC.

Put together a press release and send it out through www.PRweb.com - it's free. I got one of my clients (www.faremax.com) to do this a while back and he got about eighty links to his site within a few months.

Good luck :-)

[DarrenC]

They are so many ways how you can promote your business on the internet - some take longer than others, but here are a few of my suggestions (some maybe repeated - so apologies!)

Press Release - Submit the PR to www.prweb.com make it newsworthy, and something that is going to attract the news reporter.

Write Articles - Write interesting and useful articles about the business subject, include one of two links in it to the site, and submit it to one of the many article submission websites like www.articledepot.com

Forums - Your already doing this by including your website in your signature, over 3 years I've had a small number of clients sign up for my services through the forums I participate in.

Classified Ad sites - They are a number of classified ad sites like JustOneUK, AdTrader, FridayAds, Diamond ads, FreeAds etc. etc. Some classified ad sites are free or charge a nominal amount.

Search Engines - Optimise your website to attract visitors from the search engines. Don't believe all the whitewash that getting your website well takes specialist search engine companies - you can do it yourself with time, patience, and by reading articles about the subject. The main thing to focus on is research what keywords people will use to find your site, and get links to the website. I have a basic search engine article I wrote ifyou would like a copy PM me.

Internet Directories - They are literally hundreds of directories that you can submit your website to, I'd be here all day if I listed them all - but the main ones are Yahoo (Takes a while or you can pay) DMOZ (Takes an age) and many more, do a search on Google and you'll find them all.

Sponsor an event or charity even - Sponsoring a charity event or any type of event can raise the profile of your business. It can be more costly than the ideas above, but you have a good chance of raising your profile quicker.

Exhibitions - visit Exhibitions or set up a stall at an exhibition, get yourself known to the business area that you work in. Again these cost more to set up a stall but your raising your profile direct to your customer base.

PPC - Pay Per Click advertising on search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN. Brings traffic to you website quickly, you need to research your keywords and read up on PPC before jumping feet first, as you can spend alot of money and not see any results.

I hope these help a little

Darren :)

[Jayne]

Thanks Darren,

Helped me. Great post! :D

Jayne

[DarrenC]

Thanks Jayne :)

I do have my uses occasionally :lol:

[bwglaw]

suggest this thread is a 'sticky' and we can all add sources of free advertising when we discover them.

[DarrenC]

suggest this thread is a 'sticky' and we can all add sources of free advertising when we discover them.

Good idea :)

I have a ton more suggestions but didn't want to bore people so early on :lol:

Darren

[clairemackaness]

Thanks Darren, both of those sites are great. My husband wants to get into writing so I've found a couple of articles wanted threads that suit me and set him the challenge of getting me some publicity!!!

[DarrenC]

Hi Claire, writing articles is a fun (if you like writing) way of bringing in traffic to your website, and the links help you rank well in the search engines

Here's a few more;

Article Alley - http://www.articlealley.com/
Articles Factory - http://www.articlesfactory.com
Article Finders - http://www.articlefinders.com
Buzzle.com - http://www.buzzle.com
Ezine Articles - http://www.ezinearticles.com/
GoArticles.com - http://www.goarticles.com/

Always make sure you put a section at the bottom 'About the Author' and a statement about copyright - asking to contact you before publishing the article.

With PRweb.com you can pay $30 and get the article submitted to Yahoo and Google News, or you can submit the PR for free to be listed on the PRweb site.

Hope this helps

Darren

[WelshPixels]

I would suggest doing a charity fashion show.

By making it a fund raiser for a charity the local press will take more interest, especially if you make a charity that has a high local profile or is even supported by the local press.

Charities dont expect to make much from such events and they use it to raise their profile.

In the past I have always found charities a great way of raising a profile. Most charities are aware of why you are doing it and are more than willing to help because it helps them as well.

[sonia]

Thanks everyone, even if not all messages were intended for me, there's some great ideas on here to get stuck into!

Cheers.

Sonia.

[Babsy]

good strategies listed :D