Whats the best online FREE advertising for your business?

[SocialMediaUncovered]

I've come across lots of companies that have given me stories of free advertising - the type that actually converts.

But does the quality of the leads suffer when you are sourcing customers for free? or does it just take more time than a paid for "big hit" advertising campaign?

What are your stories and results from advertising that did'nt cost a bean but brought business your way?

 

[Jay147]

Hello

I just joined as stumbled across this on google so thought I would leave a reply. This is a really good question. I have spent the last 12 months trying, researching and testing free online advertising and marketing ideas specifically for the UK to see what they can actually bring.
I think the answer is both good and bad results really. They can be poor and you have to go through alot of leads to get success and they can also be really good and you go through a few to get good results. But it varies alot and also depends on what you are selling.
A friend of mine in an MLM business bought 800 leads at a cost of nearly £6000 and all she signed up was 3 dists. Yet with free leads and somone i have worked with in my test group she signed 4 dists in a week all from free leads. (around 150). But........I had gone through 1000 leads with absolutely nothing until a success came by. It's is not the fact of generating leads as we generated free leads within an hour but how well they convert.

But if your job in marketing is to get your name out as much as possible then free stuff may be a good place to begin.
I think the main thing is to go through all the free techniques first to learn more about marketing and advertising and with new skills honed start to pay for targeted niche marketing. At least you will be better equiped to do paid for stuff.

In short free advertising does work if you know what to do and how to go about it so you don't waste lots of time but remember that sometimes you have to go through some numbers and sometimes you get fast results.

But from my experience it is much the same for paid for leads anyway.

Jay Roberts

 

[Silky]

I've had some great results from forum posts on targetted sites. It does take time - anyone simply making one post about their business is soon spotted and discredited - but if you're an active forum member and are genuinely answering someone's query then you can get some really strong leads.

Silky

 

[streetslocal]

I think its quite hard to find any particular site that offers results across a generic spectrum.
There are many directorys that serve certain types of business better than others.
So to an extent its trial and error finding one that works for your business..

 

[andrewsimon]

The most effective and easiest way of online advertising is Article marketing....

 

[Jay147]

Article marketing is an excellent way of getting free leads thats for sure. If used with keywords / phrases that have little or no competition it can be even more fruitful quite quickly. Its very effective to search out your niche keywords and phrases with google free tool and then write the top 5 into a relevant article and submit to your free article sites. If you then use this same article (maybe extended) as another page on your blog, also as another page on your website then the same article with those great keywords / phrases has served 3 places and increased your online presence greatly. Do this a few times a week and watch what happens.
Now you can also use the 5 top keyword pharses as a headline on adverts on gumtree and craigslist london as google bots pick these up fairly quickly as they are high ranking sites.

So now if you had found out that a term "I want to earn some cash" was searched for a google 500 times a month in the UK but had very little competition for that term you have now got several ways of keeping your business top for that term.

Jay

p.s. I am not a one post kind of guy . LOL.

 

[streetslocal]

Im expecting somebody to come along and say yes we write articles for only £....

 

[Jay147]

I am hoping somone does. I hate writing the damn things!! LOL

So are there any great article writers out there if I gave you the keywords to include?

 

[SocialMediaUncovered]

I am hoping somone does. I hate writing the damn things!! LOL

So are there any great article writers out there if I gave you the keywords to include?

I know some good people that I can pass on to you - if you are interested I can PM you...

 

[juicyjobs.biz]

I'm using a freelance graduate journalist. She's very reasonable in price and has her ear to the ground. I posted the vacancy on gumtree and 47 people applied. Some seriously crazy in price and others very good.

So far the only sites we've received hits from our articles are:
ezine articles
twitter
goarticles
wordpress
stumble upon

We've also listed with many free business listing websites and have received quite a bit of hits from those sites (only the ones in the same fields as us, ie ethical, environmental, charity, etc). Probably a good idea to find business directories that specialize in your field.

Good luck!

 

[TumTum]

i don't think free advertising is always the best route. instead you could consider starting an affiliate program like Unique Skins has done. this allows you to only pay for resulting sales instead of paying for an advertising campaign that doesn't bring results, or using a free advertising campaign that doesn't bring results.
check out their website and seriously consider getting into affiliate marketing.

good luck!

 

[Jay147]

Hi

I thnk affiliate selling is great for certain things but not everything. Also if one of your businesses is an MLM then I am not sure I see how an affiliate can recruit for you but I am open to idea's always.

Great for info products as the margins are greater but for something where you are only able to give 10% of the sale?? Not sure.

Jay

 

[G. Lasagne]

The uk small business directory has out performed my other free listings.
I am a tradesmen though but would expect it to be quite good for any small business.

Dave

 

[greeneast]

Hi,

I am also looking for ways of increasing traffic to my site, but only UK traffic and lots of it, but like everyone else my budget is crunched.

I get lots of visits from forums and social network sites, but they tend not to convert to customers.

Genuine customers seem to come through search engines or direct hits to the site but that is very slow as yet because the site has only been up six weeks and I am still trying to get the word out. We have done all the SEO and have to wait it out now and should be going in a local paperback directory but again have to wait for the print to circulate.

Yes I also know a lady who actually copy writes specifically for websites and keywording but what might be more interesting for you, I just googled 'copywriting norfolk' and Creospace who is a member here came up on first page. If you want top keyword ranking, use someone who can actually achieve it!

 

I can't belive this thread has got this far without mentioning that being No1 on google for your product ,is by far and away the best free advertising there is.

Earl

 

[greeneast]

I can't belive this thread has got this far without mentioning that being No1 on google for your product ,is by far and away the best free advertising there is.

:redface: Agree by far, but for one of my sites there are only around 5,000 people a month searching for my Key word 'fuel treatment'. Only some of them will land on MY site and only a small percentage of them will convert, so I need to increase traffic in other ways too.

For my new site Green East, I have more products and more keyword options but this takes time to get the traffic coming in. What else can be done to boost this?

 

[Jay147]

hi

absolutely google is great for free traffic but it needs multiple methods all working at the same time to get that boost. money saving expert forums are ranked high so good place to start a topic using a keyphrase with less competition as a subject title. also gumtree and craigslist london with the same idea. gets you leads from the medium itself and google pick you up multiple times for that keyphrase in several places. Keyphrases in article releases, press releases, blogs and your website give you 6 or 7 prongs of traffic attack.

Hard graft but worth it.

Jay

 

[greeneast]

Hi again

That takes me back to my original question "Why don't directories have a category for Eco Friendly Products?"

I tried Gumtree and there is NO category to suit - so what's the point in posting in the wrong place? Same with most of them!

I looked at banner exchange as that is free, but the banners that showed on my site...
A) Weren't appropriate on my site. They were clean, just wrong - ie. Gambling and MLM!
B) Made my site's download times longer.

I then tried another one but with a better repertoir of banners and only had about 80 shows in two weeks with 2 clicks. Not quick enough to guarantee xmas off this year!

There's not much point in paying for banner adverts as the conversion is too low for my low priced products.

Sent a press release, 1 week waiting list - got refused as wrongly formated. Try again.

What about Web Rings - haven't heard of them for yonks!
What about Affiliates? Seriously considering this.
Traffic rotators? Wrong target market.

Google is fantastic, but not the holy market so - What next?

 

:redface: Agree by far, but for one of my sites there are only around 5,000 people a month searching for my Key word 'fuel treatment'. Only some of them will land on MY site and only a small percentage of them will convert, so I need to increase traffic in other ways too.

For my new site Green East, I have more products and more keyword options but this takes time to get the traffic coming in. What else can be done to boost this?

use various variations on your keywords I.E "fuel economy" e.t.c.

SEO is about getting traffic to your site,someone looking for "fuel economy" may well be interested in your product.

Using one keyword tool does not return accurate results ,especially adwords tools.

Earl

 

[Accomplished SEO UK]

Winning a Free 12 month SEO Contract would definantly help you advertise online. Search Engine Optimisation is a popular form of Intenet Marketing that uses keywords in order to naturally increase a websites rankings within the search engines.

Accomplished SEO UK have launched a competition to enable one lucky entrant to win a 12 month Free SEO contract with Accomplished. This would be an ideal opportunity to market your website improving your online sales. For more information visit the Accomplishedseo.co.uk website and click on the banner at the top for more details. All entrants will receive a free website anaysis from Accomplished, therefore there is nothing to lose by entering the competition.

If you need any more information feel free to email me on my profile email address.

 

Winning a Free 12 month SEO Contract would definantly help you advertise online. Search Engine Optimisation is a popular form of Intenet Marketing that uses keywords in order to naturally increase a websites rankings within the search engines.

Accomplished SEO UK have launched a competition to enable one lucky entrant to win a 12 month Free SEO contract with Accomplished. This would be an ideal opportunity to market your website improving your online sales. For more information visit the Accomplishedseo.co.uk website and click on the banner at the top for more details. All entrants will receive a free website anaysis from Accomplished, therefore there is nothing to lose by entering the competition.

If you need any more information feel free to email me on my profile email address.

I can only advise anyone looking for good SEO to make sure the company advertising can show good rankings for competative keywords or phrases across a wide range of industries.

If a site does not show examples of actual rankings achieved beware.!

Earl

 

[UKSBD]

Hi again

That takes me back to my original question "Why don't directories have a category for Eco Friendly Products?"

Some do

http://www.uksmallbusinessdirectory.co.uk/cat_count.asp?strBusinessCatergory=Eco Friendly Products

 

[Valeri]

Well, there are many ways you can do some free advertising for your business... Start a blog about your business and build a squidoo lens directly related to your business... Then do some article marketing, its free and all you have to do is write 300-500 word article focused on a keyword related to your business and include a url at the bottom of the article to your website and you will have heaps of direct visitors to your business website for free! ITS easy to do...
Hope This Helps everyone

 

[Accomplished SEO UK]

I can only advise anyone looking for good SEO to make sure the company advertising can show good rankings for competative keywords or phrases across a wide range of industries.

If a site does not show examples of actual rankings achieved beware.!

Earl

Hi Earl,

You make a very good point here, and we are an agency which pride ourselves on building and maintaining rankings for clients, one thing we never give out is rankings for our clients without their consent, as we believe client confidentiality is paramount!

It is for this reason we are giving away a free SEO contract, as we wish to have relevent case studies on our website, as the lucky winner will be published, along with all of there rankings.

To help people on here see us as a transparent agency, I have had a quick search around for some of our targetted keywords and have included them below, Column 1 is the keyword, Column 2 is Google UK and Column 3 Google WWW

SEO Blackburn 1 1
SEO Blackpool 3 3
SEO Bolton 5 5
SEO Bradford 1 1
SEO Bury 12 12
SEO Cannock 1 1
SEO Castlefield 1 1
SEO Chester 7 7
SEO Chesterfield 1 1
SEO Chorley 1 1
SEO Crewe 1 1
SEO Derby 1 1
SEO Doncaster 4 4
SEO Ellesmere Port 1 1
SEO Halifax 11 30
SEO Harrogate 7 6

I hope this helps in anyones decision to enter our Free SEO competition

 

[greeneast]

use various variations on your keywords I.E "fuel economy" e.t.c.

SEO is about getting traffic to your site,someone looking for "fuel economy" may well be interested in your product.

Using one keyword tool does not return accurate results ,especially adwords tools.

Earl

We have optimised for multiple keywords especially on the new site. I am trying to get 50 keywords to first page as a personal goal, by January.

Thanks Valeri I will give that a try. I did actually set up a new blog last night but need to add some content as yet.

Thanks UKSBD will take a look at that directory too.

 

[UKSBD]

Thanks UKSBD will take a look at that directory too.

Ignore the prices, set up a free listing, PM me, and I will give you a free upgrade.

 

Hi Earl,

You make a very good point here, and we are an agency which pride ourselves on building and maintaining rankings for clients, one thing we never give out is rankings for our clients without their consent, as we believe client confidentiality is paramount!

It is for this reason we are giving away a free SEO contract, as we wish to have relevent case studies on our website, as the lucky winner will be published, along with all of there rankings.

To help people on here see us as a transparent agency, I have had a quick search around for some of our targetted keywords and have included them below, Column 1 is the keyword, Column 2 is Google UK and Column 3 Google WWW

SEO Blackburn 1 1
SEO Blackpool 3 3
SEO Bolton 5 5
SEO Bradford 1 1
SEO Bury 12 12
SEO Cannock 1 1
SEO Castlefield 1 1
SEO Chester 7 7
SEO Chesterfield 1 1
SEO Chorley 1 1
SEO Crewe 1 1
SEO Derby 1 1
SEO Doncaster 4 4
SEO Ellesmere Port 1 1
SEO Halifax 11 30
SEO Harrogate 7 6

I hope this helps in anyones decision to enter our Free SEO competition

I take it you get a lot of work promoting other SEO companies.?

Earl

 

[Accomplished SEO UK]

I take it you get a lot of work promoting other SEO companies.?

Earl

We have targetted these areas as they are all within around a 60 minute commute of our base office in south manchester, allowing us to serve a clientbase with a face to face approach. However we are more than comfortable working on a telephone basis or travelling around the country for clients as per the big boys in the industry.

 

[Valeri]

I Have 3 favorite advertising methods that i use day to day to run my affiliate campaigns...

These Are:

Blogs: Blogs are free to set up and can send some great traffic to your company website if you optimize that blog, make it relevant to your business, post in it nearly every day and make it interesting FREE to use

Squidoo: Squidoo is becoming very popular tool in marketing world and it allows you to build a little information page about anything... You can build a lens based on your business and send the traffic you get from this lens straight to your website... FREE to set up and use... Go to http://www.squidoo.com

Article Marketing : This is a powerful method to let people know about you and your business... You can join a free article submission online and post as many free articles related to your business as you like... You need to write an article containing about 350-500 words using main keyword that is related to your business 5-7 times in the article to optimise it for search engines and include a link to your business at the bottom of the article to send traffic to your business site

Hope This Is Helpful...

 

[neil358]

Hi,

i have been using UPAGUMTREE, it is mostly area specfic and requires reposting advert every month (or there abouts), also i have been using freeindex.

Both of these i have found have performed pretty well, Google seems to favour UPAGUMTREE for some reason, which performs very well on searches.

With freeindex i have put a link on my Blindology Blinds of Plymouth website, which then entitles me to have a premium account (also good link), customers can leave feedback also, market your products etc.

Another is Google itself, sign up for a business account (FREE), I think it is business solutions you need to click on, then fill in your details and viola.

I hope this all helps, it has helped my business out, hope it helps yours.



Blindology Blinds of Plymouth: "Enhancing your window to the world"

 

[Accomplished SEO UK]

Hi Earl,

You make a very good point here, and we are an agency which pride ourselves on building and maintaining rankings for clients, one thing we never give out is rankings for our clients without their consent, as we believe client confidentiality is paramount!

It is for this reason we are giving away a free SEO contract, as we wish to have relevent case studies on our website, as the lucky winner will be published, along with all of there rankings.

To help people on here see us as a transparent agency, I have had a quick search around for some of our targetted keywords and have included them below, Column 1 is the keyword, Column 2 is Google UK and Column 3 Google WWW

SEO Blackburn 1 1
SEO Blackpool 3 3
SEO Bolton 5 5
SEO Bradford 1 1
SEO Bury 12 12
SEO Cannock 1 1
SEO Castlefield 1 1
SEO Chester 7 7
SEO Chesterfield 1 1
SEO Chorley 1 1
SEO Crewe 1 1
SEO Derby 1 1
SEO Doncaster 4 4
SEO Ellesmere Port 1 1
SEO Halifax 11 30
SEO Harrogate 7 6

I hope this helps in anyones decision to enter our Free SEO competition

For everyone that is interested in this competition, the exact url is:
http://www.accomplishedseo.co.uk/Free-SEO-Analysis/free-seo-contract.html

 

[G. Lasagne]

Hi,

i have been using UPAGUMTREE, it is mostly area specfic and requires reposting advert every month (or there abouts), also i have been using freeindex.

Do you have a link for upagumtree i know about gumtree, but cant find any link to upagumtree

Cheers

dave:|

 

[neil358]

Hi Dave

i have the link but i cant send on forum :| (not enough posts yet) i am a newbie!!!

try this worldwideweb.gumtree.com

Does that make sense.

If it works good luck, you can add 3 pictures to adverts, very easy to update etc.

All the best

Neil the newbie!!

Blindology Blinds of Plymouth
"Enhancing your window to the world"

 

[G. Lasagne]

Thanks mate try www.uksmallbusinessdirectory.co.uk i have had 10 visits to my website in the last month. the owner is on this forum(uksbd), top bloke and he upgraded my listing for free.

 

[UKSBD]

Thanks mate try www.uksmallbusinessdirectory.co.uk i have had 10 visits to my website in the last month. the owner is on this forum(uksbd), top bloke and he upgraded my listing for free.

Posts like that make it worth while

 

[JustOneUK]

For everyone that is interested in this competition,

You rank 1 for SEO Blackburn (and all other locations) with a page I cannot reach via your navigation..... that's a bit grey for me

what's the prize? 1 hours SEO per month? 15 minutes?

what's this line all about?

If the quotation is above the upper limit of £10,000, the client is only liable to pay the difference in Accomplished SEO's costs, and not liable for labour charges

:|

Thanks in adv...
James.

 

[jcoutts]

Hi,

I have an SEO article writing service if any of you are interested.

John.

 

[SocialMediaUncovered]

I'm using a freelance graduate journalist. She's very reasonable in price and has her ear to the ground. I posted the vacancy on gumtree and 47 people applied. Some seriously crazy in price and others very good.

So far the only sites we've received hits from our articles are:
ezine articles
twitter
goarticles
wordpress
stumble upon

We've also listed with many free business listing websites and have received quite a bit of hits from those sites (only the ones in the same fields as us, ie ethical, environmental, charity, etc). Probably a good idea to find business directories that specialize in your field.

Good luck!

Just out of interest - where did you find the student to do the work for you?

 

[Accomplished SEO UK]

You rank 1 for SEO Blackburn (and all other locations) with a page I cannot reach via your navigation..... that's a bit grey for me

what's the prize? 1 hours SEO per month? 15 minutes?

what's this line all about?

:|

Thanks in adv...
James.

Firstly to answer your query regarding the SEO blackburn listing, using seo blackburn as a example, if you hover over local locations, move the mouse down to SEO Lancashire, and across to seo blackburn (top of the fly-out) you will find seo blackburn - so im not exactly sure whats grey hat about that? please elaborate?

The contract is for a full seo optimisation of your website, if this takes 1 months work non stop and 3 days a month then its not a problem, and the only reason the line is in there (which will be amended to be clearer - thank you for pointing out this [FONT=&quot]Ambiguity) is if a brand new website looking to appear under the keyword of mortgages, with a website completely lacking any form of basic seo ie built in flash. In this case we would require the website to be rebuilt using static HTML.

We build all of the links in house, however in an industry which requires a campaign which would be over 10k per annum, we would strongly reccommend entry into certain paid directories, and this is another instance where the client would be liable to pay those costs only.

I hope this clarifies your concerns, and if you have any other queries, please do not hesitate to contact me direct.
[/FONT]

 

[Jay147]

Hiya Neil358

So it is Gumtree?? your post was confusing with upagumtree. Sorry probably just me being stupid. LOL.

Gasangel if you need any help with gumtree I can do that for you.
The key to Gumtree is to post loads of ads every day to really make the most of the 6 million monthly visitors to the site. You will need to know the main demographic and the busiest categories to go at.

Let me know as I have a whole instruction written up in word on exactly how to post hundreds of ads every week on gumtree.
I am in MLM and recruit people every month without spending a penny online.

Happy to help if I can.

Jay