The Internet can be an inexpensive and effective way to advertise your business, but you can also quickly blow through your advertising budget if you're not careful. What works for one business might not be the best method for your business, so experiment and track your return on investment to find the best solutions for you.
Email Marketing
When you do email marketing, you're connecting with current and former customers or others who have already showed an interest in your business. This makes it incredibly effective. Send out periodic mailings listing current sales and events. To do this properly, you should use a service that handles your list to ensure that all recipients choose to be on your email list to avoid being labeled a spammer. A service like this can cost about $20 per month, as of 2011.
Article Marketing
By writing articles about your business niche, you solidify your image as an expert in the field. For example, a furniture store can write about decorating tips and a toy store could write about the most popular toys for Christmas. You can place the articles on directories or connect with those who have websites in your niche to see if you could write a guest post. At the end of the article, you should write a brief snippet that leads readers to your site. If you do the writing yourself, there is no charge for this advertising method.
Search Result Marketing
Search engines show paid advertisements to the side of users' web results. Though certain words are competitive -- and thus cost more money per click -- you can find less popular search terms that have lower costs. This puts you on the front page of the search results. You can reduce the cost per click by optimizing your campaign. The site that your ad links to should relate directly to the key words that you are targeting. Google certainly has a popular program, but it's not the only player in the field -- you might find lower costs at Yahoo! and Bing.
Search Engine Optimization
When you optimize your website for the search engines, it naturally comes up in the search engine results. To do this, you should use the main keyword in the page name, the title of the page and throughout the text on the page. Having other websites that link to your website can also boost your rankings.
