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Places to Promote Your Website for Free- Part II
In my last post, I began the discussion of where you could promote your website for free in spite of our tight economy. Some of the resources I covered ranged from free website directories to popular social networking sites that any website owner could potentially get their brand in front of thousands of visitors. In this post, i would like to discuss some additional media outlets to push your company’s brand, however may take a little more time on your part to take full advantage of each channel. As they say, nothing is truly free, but with a little hard work on your part, I believe that you will find the below resources extremely valuable and ultimately translate into new business for your company. So lets get the the brass tacts as they say!
Shopping Comparison Sites- up to this point I have discussed free Websites that you can submit any Website to. Shopping comparison sites on the other hand, are typically only for company’s that sell products or goods. Although many shopping comparison websites charge a fixed fee to get listed in, there are many excellent free websites sites (including Google) that you can submit a product datafeed that will list your products for free. However, there is a very comprehensive list of shopping comparison sites worthwhile to submit to, but don’t be discouraged by the word “free.” Just because some shopping comparison websites charge nothing to get listed, doesn’t mean that they don’t provide excellent results. (Note of interest- if you are interested in going beyond the free shopping engines, my favorite “Paid” shopping channels are PriceGrabber and Yahoo Product Submit…I have had best ROI experience from these paid sources.) Anyways, here is a short list of free engines that I believe any an e-commerce owner should submit to:
- Google Product Search (formerly Froogle)
- The Find
- MSN Live
Video Sharing Sites- as video has revolutionized the way we share and disseminate information, online video gives your visitors the kind of content they can easily digest and share with others. Additionally, if you produce a video about your product or service, you can add it to your website as well as submit to virtually 100’s of free video sites that will give you worldwide exposure to millions of viewers. Best of all, most video sharing sites will give you a valuable link back to your Website, thus increasing your sites link popularity. If you are new to video sharing sites, I recommend the following to start with: YouTube, Blip.tv, Google Video, Vimeo, Yahoo Video. If you are still hungry for more, here is a list 180 video sharing sites for reference.
Free Photo Sharing Sites- if you don’t have videos to promote your company, the chances are that you already have a digital photos that you may want to consider sharing and adding to some of the Web’s favorite free photo sharing sites. As many of you may already know about Flickr, I would also like to recommend one of the best-kept secrets of a free photo sharing site called www.PhotosYourWay.com. I’m not sure exactly when this Website launched, but its obvious that they are serious about giving you even more for less. What I find truly great about PhotosYourWay is that its not only a great site to upload and share your photos, but you can also opt to sell them on their sister site ImagesYourWay, which follows a similar format to iStockPhoto. I’m not sure why many others haven’t taken notice to this site, but its not at as all commercialized (filled with ads) and has more features than the others put together. Getting an account is free and only takes a minute or two to set up.
Press Releases- for some reason, many companies either forget about public relations or don’t fully realize the benefits that PR offers. For search engine marketers, PR (press releases in particular) are a great tool to maximize the great linking potential that ultimately helps Websites rank better in the search engines. In addition, public relations give companies great exposure and branding that other advertising mediums lack. There are many paid press release distribution networks on the Web that would be happy to publish your press release for a fee, however there are also many free resources available to get the word out. Keep in mind that although though press releases are great to get your company’s news out, PR distribution sites are not a dumping zones for junk news, general articles, or non newsworthy content about internal affairs. If you are new to issuing or submitting press releases, I suggest contacting a company such as TMA E-Marketing that knows the ins and outs of the media outlets to get the most of your news story. Here is a short list of some distribution sites to consider
For more a more comprehensive list of free places to submit your press release to, please see Naked PR, written by Jennifer Marten (a very talented PR specialist) whom gives a very comprehensive overview of the ins and outs of what PR professionals are looking for in delivering a news pitch.
Articles- last but not certainly least on the top of my list to promote your Website for free are article sites. As the old saying goes, content is king, and there are literally thousands of free article sites on the Internet that are ready to accept free articles to publish. But just as I finished stating about press releases, your articles should be creatively written and offer something substantial to your prospective audience that’s worth reading. In any respect, free articles are great to add to your Website and allow others to read about your industry and company. When executed correctly, you can gain significant exposure over your competitors and win over prospects that are interested in doing business with an established company. Again, there are literally hundreds (if not thousands of Websites on the Web ready to accept free articles), but the below are some of my favorites:
As you can see, there is light at the end of tunnel to promote your business even if you dont have a dime to spend. When clients ask me about how they can quickly increase their exposure online and their search engine rankings, I recommend many of the above resources to jump start their promotion efforts. Although many of them may not sound “ground breaking,” they are proven tactics that even the largest companies in the world use to increase their company’s online exposure. Some may appear easier than others, but if you are truly serious about getting the most output from your website, i sugest that you review each tactic carefully and make an effort to execute each of them in a well planned media planning schedule. Should you come across any road blocks, dont hesitate to drop us a line.
