Whether you operate an offline business or an online business your advertising costs can be one of your highest expenses. Many young companies will fail and close down due to not foreseeing the gravity of their advertising costs and not properly budgeting for this in their business plan, if they even thought to make one. Many times a start-up business will just start to spend money on advertising and not even pay attention to how much they are spending. They just think that they must advertise to bring in their customers that will buy their products or service. However with an online business there a number of ways a new or existing business can get FREE advertising, just as there are a few ways offline that a business can attract customers without spending any money. In the following paragraphs are five ways that you may be over looking and not even think of them as advertising.

Sign Guest Books;

When you visit a well designed web site leave a compliment in their guest book. You could give them a compliment on their content, ease of navigation, graphics etc. When you post your compliment include your signature file so other people will see it when they sign the guest book. Follow this same practice when you visit a blog, should the blog not have a guest book look for the instructions on making a comment to a post on the blog.

Write A Review;

When you visit a web site you enjoyed a lot write a review for the web site Write about the benefits you gain from the site, the web site design, interesting online services it offers etc. E-mail the review to the web site. Tell them they can publish it on their web site if they include your resource box at the end. There are now sites on the Internet that people will list their site and blog with for more exposure and link popularity and if you register with those same sites you will find that they have a section for giving reviews of other member sites and blogs. I have my blog registered and it has helped a great deal in getting link backs and increased page ranking by Google.

Send An E-mail To The Editor;

When you read a good article or enjoy a certain e-zine, e-mail a compliment to the editor. Give the editor permission to publish the compliment in their e-zine if they include your signature file at the end. The editor may post it on his or her web site. Again you can do the same thing on many blogs just be sure that your signature file is not SPAM and the same thing with your comments. Always make your comments about the site or blog you are visiting not about you or your business, your signature file is enough. Many site and blog owners have their comment section set up so they moderate all entries before they can be posted, and if they think that you are just looking to advertise your business and your comment really doesn’t say much about their site your comment will never get posted so you just wasted your time.

Leave A Message;

When you visit a web site with a discussion board leave a message. You could post a question, interesting content or a compliment about their web site. Include your signature file at the end of the message. Some discussion boards let you post your banner ad or text link.

Give Testimonials;

When you purchase a product or service and it exceeds your expectations e-mail the business a testimonial. Tell them in the testimonial the benefits you got from the product or service. Give them permission to publish the testimonial on the web site if they include your signature file at the end.

These are just a few ways that you can get some FREE advertising for you online business. You can also join FREE traffic exchanges, tell everyone that you come in contact with about your business, and stay very active in several online forums. Every thread that you start as well as every reply that you make to threads started by other members will get indexed by the search engines and that will be another link back to your business through your signature file. Always be sure to read the forums rules on signature files so you will not get barred and always only make a comment of value. This means do not just say things like sounds good, looks good, or great job and such. Moderators on forums will delete your membership if that’s all you have to say since they know that you are just looking for a link back to your business. If the comment that you are about to make doesn’t help answer the question at hand then just read and learn and comment on the topics you can provide real help in.

Copyright © 2006 Roy J. Keller (All Rights Reserved)

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