Free Promotional Ideas to Promote your Business

Promotion is something that every business must do in order to grow and let current and future customers know what they do and the services they offer.  Unfortunately, sometimes promotion can be expensive.  There are several techniques that a business can use that cost little to no money, but they do require some time.  Here are a few strategies you can use to promote your business with little cost:

Increase your database

Generating targeted lists of those that would have a need in your product or service is a great way to increase your potential customer base.  This can be done through your face to face networking as well as by providing something of value on your website or Facebook page that entices visitors to give you a name and email address to be added to your list.

Stay in Contact

Staying in contact with your customers and prospects is key to helping reinforce who you are and what you can provide them in terms of products and services.  You need to regularly send items like a tips list, a book review, an article, an interview, or a checklist to clients and prospects to keep your services top of mind.

Ask for testimonials

Clients love to say nice things when they have had a good experience, if you ask them.  Implement a program to ask for a testimonial from your client and then use this, with permission of course, in your marketing material and on your websites.  When asking for the testimonial be sure to ask the client to give as much detail as possible so it doesn’t look generic.

Write Articles

Content is very important in your online strategy and writing articles can help you get there.  Take time to write articles on topics or tips your target market may be interested in, often the questions prospects ask you about your product or service can be turned into a good article. Send articles to print publications, online article directories, and specific online sites that your target market would read.

Send a press release

Creating and sending press releases can be great ways to get your business in the news.  If you can tie your press release to an event that you are sponsoring or presenting in the community it creates a great local news piece.  When writing your press release make sure it isn’t too salesy.

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What Is Social Media SEO?

Social Media and the impact on SEO

 

In times past, search engine optimization (aka SEO) and social media wouldn't have been used in the same sentence. After all, search engine optimization comprises techniques designed to help boost one's search engine rank placement and social media sites, like Facebook, allow you to connect with your friends or customers in a "social" way.

However, recent changes by both Google and Bing make it clear that these major search engines are looking to social media sites as a way to validate the quality of the content found on websites. Those that make the grade are being rewarded with improved search engine rankings… even in "regular" search.

While there are some differences in the way Google and Bing are using information from social media sites to adjust their indexes, there are many similarities. The search engines are looking at the "authority" of the account holder and placing more importance on any links posted on sites like Twitter and Facebook.

While the links themselves may be "no follow" links, that isn't stopping the search engines from adjusting the indexes and increasing the search engine rank placement for the web pages they point to. In fact, some have said that it appears as though "retweets" are the new form of linkbuilding.

Both Google and Bing are looking at the frequency that a particular link is posted (or re-posted) on the social media sites and are also paying attention to who is doing the posting. If your links are being posted by an individual or business that is considered to be an authority by the search engines, the associated web page may see a boost in its search engine ranking.

This development validates what many marketing experts have believed for more than a year now;  Social media's importance is growing  in the eyes of the search engines and this trend will likely continue. It's well known that Google places a premium on relevant content and quality sites and pages so it should come as no surprise that they are tracking the number of people who liked your content well enough to share it with others.

Those who would like to take advantage of these new search engine trends are encouraged to make it as easy as possible for others to share their content or the links they contain. Adding a "retweet" function to your website or blog, for example, can dramatically increase the likelihood that your content will be shared by your visitors via Twitter.

 

If you would like to lear more about Social Media SEO you can request our FREE Report by clicking on the image below:

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