Where is the best place to advertise my home business on the Internet?

Question

I live on a small island and I have recently started a home based business with a company in the US. I have been doing promotions locally but now I need to do some internet marketing. I have a website that I got from the company and would like to get people to see it. I am not familiar with internet advertising but I did try a few free sites and got no hits. I would like to know where is the best place to advertise, whether free or paid, so I can get some hits.

Answer 1

This day and age, I'd say post something on MYSPACE.

Answer 2

Have you thought about pay per click programs? The two biggest, I think, are Yahoo! and Google

A few free resources – check out the sources box for links:

1) Create a blog pertaining to your field

2) Use Yahoo! Local & Yahoo! Groups – Be sure to read the TOS for each one!

3) Write articles pertaining to your field and/or expertise.

4) Advertise on Craiglist

Also, consider signing up for an affiliate program. These programs enable you to advertise on other's sites (your affiliates) and once a sale is made to you, your affiliates & the program are paid a commission.

I listed a few handy sites & articles relating to marketing, promotion & advertising. Here are some book titles that are relevant:

* 301 Do-It-Yourself Marketing Ideas: From America's Most Innovative Small Companies by Sam Decker
* Off The Wall Marketing Ideas: Jumpstart Your Sales without Busting Your Budget by Nancy Michaels, Debbi J. Karpowicz
* Guerrilla Marketing for Free: Dozens of No-Cost Tactics to Promote Your Business and Energize Your Profits by Jay Conrad Levinson
* Entrepreneur Magazine's Ultimate Small Business Marketing Guide: Over 1500 Great Marketing Tricks That Will Drive Your Business Through the Roof by James Stephenson

Hope that helps! I wish you much success & happiness in all your ventures!

Answer 3

Well for the first thing , you can go to Google , type add url. Then enter you url in Google's database.(it's free). This will get you listed. Next go to Google , type Google analytical . Google Analytical is free and will track your visits,where they are from, time on page, exit points, etc. This is the basics. Now you are ready to start building traffic. There is a website that works with small businesses , called www.hypedrive.com. They specialize in blogs,reviews,links etc. Check with them or another company and compare quotes. You will have to decide if want to outsource or keep you marketing in house. Good Luck.

Answer 4

The best place is Google Adwords. You need a budget of at least $5 per day and .05 per hit. You can specify that once your $5 is used up for the day to pull your ad. They son't charge you unless you actually get a click on your website. Google will try to intimidate you by recommending that you spend $20K per month but just ignore them.

Answer 5

First of all, my best wishes for your success in Internet Marketing.

The answer to "where is the best place" depends on what is your target market, where your customers come from etc.

If you want instant "quality" traffic, you must try Google Adwords. Done properly, Google Adwords will reward you with instant traffic from among your target, niche and specific segment of potential customers.
--
Joseph Ponnou
http://www.internetmarketingtoolsntips.com

Answer 6

Internet marketing is a huge topic so for the long-term I would recommend that you set out to learn as much as you can about it.

Some resources that have helped me include:

Free e-books on a dozen different Internet marketing topics. They do promote SiteSell products but nonetheless provide a lot of great information:

http://freetrial.sitesell.com/mdw.html (affiliate link)
http://freetrial.sitesell.com (non-affiliate link)

I have a Squidoo Lens that lists many free resources:

http://squidoo.com/best-free-internet-advertising

A few of the links on that page are mine but most of them were contributed by other Internet marketers.

By the way, building a Squidoo Lens (free) is another great way to slowly but surely drive traffic to your site. You can sign up when you visit the site above.

Visit forums, get to know people, help out, ask questions and include a link to your web site in your "sig file" or signature at the end of your post. Some good forums:

http://wahm.com - Work At Home Moms -- you don't have to be a Mom to visit the forum but it is mostly women on the forum, which many women find very helpful. This is a great group of people--they are *very* helpful and many of them have years and years of home business experience. They even tolerate us guys who visit the forum! ;o)

Look for "Message Boards" on the left side menu when you get to the site.

Conquer Your Niche Forum -- A lot of newcomers ("newbies") to Internet marketing visit this forum because there are a lot of other people with experience who help them. You can also earn free ads on the site every time you read someone else's post or make a post yourself. As with the WAHM Forum, ask questions, help others, and include your web site info in your signature. Also post your ads.

http://www.conqueryourniche.com/forum/mworthen - affiliate link

http://www.conqueryourniche.com - non-affiliate link

Note: When you sign up for the Conquer Your Niche Forum, you'll see an offer to upgrade to an "Elite" member for $197. Although if you use my affiliate link and were to buy the Elite membership, I would earn a commission, I do not recommend it. I just don't think you get $197 worth of extra features unless you plan to post several times a day.

To learn how to write great ads, look at the ads that grab your attention on the site. Also invest in Headline Creator Pro, which sells for under $20 if you look around--search on Yahoo and Google and check out EBay. In five minutes it will generate over 50 possible headlines based on basic information you input into the program.

Advertising on the Pay-Per-Click (PPC) programs like Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing can be very effective but you really need to know what you are doing. You can lose a lot of money fast otherwise. There's a great guide at:

http://payperclicksearchengines.com

That site also ranks the PPC programs. You might want to start out using a smaller search engine such as GoClick, MIVA, or Enhance before Google or Yahoo. GoClick in particular is low-cost and has good service.

If you represent a network marketing company, you might be interested a free lifetime subscription to my e-zine (newsletter), Internet and Network Marketing Success!:

http://www.best-mlm-opportunities.com/internet-and-network-marketing.html

I hope this helps and I wish you much success with your home business!

Best Regards,

Mark Worthen, Psy.D.
http://BestWayToGetPaid.com

Answer 7

Here is a new book called "The Web 2.0 Traffic System"
that will get your business recognized and get tons of new traffic to your site and mostly free to set up.

This e-book costs a little pocket change but it well worth it.

http://thewinners.blogap.hop.clickbank.net

I am sure this will work for you as well as it has for me.

Jerry

Answer 8

I recommend you promote your deal with the Business Opportunity Search Engine

Being community driven it’s a cross between a search engine and a Wikipedia. You can add, delete and improve the results for much more focused answers than a general search engine can provide.

http://www.BusinessOpportunitySearchEngine.com

Answer 9

Once you get your site up you need to build inbound links.
Most of the directories online charge a one time fee to review your site and add it to their index. Here are three of my favorites:
http://www.avivadirectory.com/cgi-bin/affiliates/clickthru.cgi?id=kahmer
http://www.kahmer.com
http://www.joeant.com
The more inbound links to your site, the better you will rank
with Yahoo / Google / MSN.
Also work on your meta tags. Here is an
article on how they work: http://www.richkahmer.com/meta-tags.html

Answer 10

by creating your own website detailing your business.