|
Successfully advertising and marketing your business online requires a combination of patience, common sense and a bit of general know how! If your website is ready but you have a lack of visitors, then it's time to start marketing your business! Free Advertising, Web Links, Marketing and much more...In simple terms, the likes of Google decide the importance of your website by the number of other websites that link back to it. The more (quality) links you have, the better ranking you will get, which in turn will mean more visitors. The challenge is to generate these links! Business DirectoriesLove them or loathe them, they are an established way to market your business as well as generate links. But online directories do vary in quality, so we have assembled a number of reputable directories. Some have free options, some may require a fee for a link, but they all offer good marketing opportunities for your business. If you have any feedback or want more advice, feel free to speak up in our business forum. |
|
| My Local Services | Ok, so as you're already here, I hope you have taken advantage of our own listing options. We have a free listing, but why not showcase yourself with a low cost Lifetime Listing. A one off admin fee, then as many years advertising as you want. |
| Qype | Qype run a large European wide business review and advertising site that is growing very quickly here in the UK, and the business reviews are a good way to help with Google Places Listings. |
| FreeIndex | A large and popular UK & US Business Directory that as it's name suggests is free to use and can generate a good supply of visitors. |
| Google Places | Completely free, and well worth a little time to create. Google Places allows business owners to manage and update their physical business location information and works in conjunction with Google Maps. To get a decent ranking on it, it helps to have a number of local business directory listings, and as well as some positive reviews on your Google Places listing. |
| DMOZ | You may never have heard of this, but it is the Open Directory Project. It may not be as important as it was a few years ago, but it's worth trying to get your business listed. There are multitudes of forum posts about trying to list, it can take 6 months or more to get accepted. But for the lucky few, it's a very valuable back link, so give it a try. |
| BOTW | One of the Internets oldest directories. They have free trials, and also a one off fee lifetime listing, which may be a bit pricey for some, but they are a very established and respected directory. |
| UKSBD | The UK Small Business Directory. As the name suggests, another directory specialising in the small biz market, that has built up a great reputation and is well respected. |
Business ForumsBusiness Forums are a great resource for small businesses. Most forums will allow you to post web links in your signature after a set number of posts, which gives you the advantage of gaining a nice link back to your website, as well as networking with like minded people. Business Forums can be a goldmine of information, so if you are not familiar with them, go and try one out today. As with all things, forums vary in quality, ranging from smaller friendlier advice forums, which often become part of your virtual office, to much larger and busier forums with varying degrees of spammers and pressure selling. But there is something to suit all tastes.
|
| My Local Forums | My Local Forums is a 100% free business advice and sanity sounding board, offering marketing, SEO and general business advice. It's a friendly spam free business community, so leave your sales pitches at the door, and simply soft sell via your forum signature which can contain web links. |
| UK Business Labs | UKBL is another popular and friendly Business Forum, which will also let you leave links in your post signature. |
| Free Business Forums | Yet another great community. You will probably start to spot some regular faces across these forums, but that's the nature of networking, and the FBF will also let you leave web links in your signature. |
| KashFlow Business Forums | This was until recently known as the A1 Business Forums, but has been taken over Kashflow. It was a large community, that has been quieter more recently, but no doubt will be back to it's former glory after some marketing. |
| UK Business Forums | The largest of the UK Business Forums. A very busy board, which can be quite daunting for the uninitiated, and not as friendly as the smaller forums. Web links are only available for paid members which is an annual membership, but it is a useful resource and worth investigating. |
For more marketing advice, including 100 ways to market your business for free, then have a look on our forum. |