1st Guy: “How much does it cost?”
2nd Guy: “It’s Free.”
1st Guy: “I’ll take 2 of them!!”
Who doesn’t love getting something for free? Follow the steps in this article to get free traffic to your website. Yes, it will take work and time on your part. If it was free and required no effort then “you get what you pay for.” (BTW – these marketing tactics are used by professional agencies and they charge big bucks for doing them.)
Social Media:
A) Join Social Media Groups – Join groups on platforms such as Facebook or Linkedin. Find groups that relate to your business or contain people that would be your target market. You don’t want the group to be an exact match to your business because then you may not be the “expert” in the group. Become an active member. Respond to questions, offer advice, share helpful content. DO NOT SELL!! The purpose of engaging these groups is to position yourself as an expert in the industry, not to spam them. Monitor the group for posts relevant to your business and then be helpful, NOT salesy. Don’t focus on selling to this one person. Focus on the several hundred people that will see your response and think “This guy/girl knows what he’s/she’s talking about! He/she must be an expert!” Continue proving your value and it will attract them to your page or website. On your own site is where you try to sell to them. For example: if you sell running shoes you can join groups related to running or exercise. Share your knowledge on the topic, especially anything related to the actual shoes such as which shoe brands are better for certain activities or which are more comfortable, etc.
B) Create Your Own Social Group – Create a group where your current customers (or anyone else that joins) can discuss topics relevant to your business. Once again, be helpful and supportive to any questions or advice anyone needs. Having an engaged community of your existing customers will lead to 1)happier customers, 2)exposure to your customer’s relatives, friends, anyone in their circles, etc., 3)prospects researching your business online will feel more comfortable and confident in doing business with you when seeing an engaged social presence, 4)people searching online for something relevant to your business may come across your group which leads to added traffic and sales. For example: if you sell kitchenware you can start a group related to cooking.
C) Sponsor A Giveaway – Find a social media group or page with an audience that would fit your target market. This generally won’t work if the owner is a competitor. Reach out to the person managing the group and offer to sponsor your product as a giveaway contest to their audience. Require participants to like and share the post, or visit your site and join your own audience, etc. This could lead to a huge amount of exposure for only the cost of a single item. For example: if you sell gardening tools you can sponsor a free tool giveaway to a group of people with interests in gardening.
Listings:
A) Google My Business (GMB) – Every local business must have a GMB page. This will enable your website to get visibility on Google Search, Google Maps and Google+ (Google Plus). Customers will also be able to leave a review of your business. Local business reviews receive higher rankings in the search results. Signing up for Google My Business is free and easy to do by visiting google.com/business.
B) Yelp – Yelp.com is the largest online review site and is a must have. Although local businesses will see the greatest impact, all businesses could benefit from it. Yelp has about 150 million monthly visitors, and Yelp’s organic ranking are generally high. Signing up is once again free and easy, visit biz.yelp.com. Once your listing is set up, ask your satisfied customers to leave good reviews.
C) Angie’s List – This listing is for service-based businesses only. Creating the listing is free, it is the users (customers) that pay a monthly fee. Visit angieslistbusinesscenter.com to claim your listing.
Other Ideas:
A) Guest Blogging – Find blogs related to your industry and ask to post as a guest. You can find bloggers that welcome guest posts by searching Google for keywords relevant to your business and adding + “guest post” to the end. Make sure to create good content that this blogger will actually want to post on their site. For example: if you sell luxury travel services you can do a Google search for luxury travel + “guest post”.
B) Q & A Sites / Forum Sites – On Question & Answer sites, such a quora.com, you can find people asking questions relevant to your business that you can answer. Responding to these questions is a great way to build your “expert” image. Forums sites are great for this as well. Be helpful, add value and they will come.
