How To Advertise Your Business Locally
With millions of internet users and potential customers online these days it’s imperative you advertise your business online. Afterall what would be the point in having a beautiful looking website design if nobody ever sees your showcase of products or services? There are unlimited resources you can utilize to expand your business to local customers and clients.
This article will cover specific areas where you can advertise and market your business. Low budget or no budget this will indeed help your business. Keep in mind this is not a complete list of areas where you can advertise online but the most useful and important of the many options available to small to medium sized business.
First let’s cover the free services
* Online classifieds. The most popular free classified ads sites are Craigslist and Kijiji. Before you post we recommend you look around the niche market you are going after to see how your competitors write effective ads.
* Directories for indexing your website. Examples of these types of networks are Cylex and MerchantCircle
* Google Places. You can add your business to Google Places for free. Google places works in conjunction with Google Maps so potential customers can look up your business address and phone number and get a map to your location.
* Facebook Fanpages. Fanpages are not the same as using your Facebook profile. Fanpages allow you to customize with graphics for your business, followup with people that “Liked” your fanpage and Google indexes fanpages. Did you know you can actually send notifications to all of your fans?
Resources which will cost you money,
* Look for websites of charitable organizations which will provide a link to your website in return for tax deductible donation. This will showcase your business as a sponsor and provide a backlink to your website which has value for your search engine ranking
* Facebook Ads. Facebook allows for business owners to advertise on their ad network. It’s estimated there are presently 800 million active users. You can even customize your ads so they are only displayed in the area of your choice. i.e. You live in Belleville you can customize your ad account to display ads to users which are from Belleville. More targeted and indeed more effective.
* Google AdWords. Google is another popular medium for showcasing your business. Much like Facebook you can customize which geographic locations your ads will be displayed.
* 411.ca and yellowpages.com Print media is far less popular then it was which means very few people are using phonebooks and yellowpages. You should have a 411.ca or yellow page listing for your business.
Whether you are a designer, renovator or scrap booker you need to focus your attention on the massive amount of business you can derive from the online community