How to Drive Free Traffic to Your Small Business Website: 7 Do It Yourself Strategies
Search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO) are complex and dynamic and therefore time consuming (and costly) skills to master. However, SEO and SEM are not the only ways to drive traffic to your website. There are some things that you can do yourself or have one of your Internet savvy staff people do for you. These ideas you can use to drive FREE traffic to your website today!
1. Make sure your website address (domain name) is listed on ALL your ads including your Yellow Pages ad (if you have one), business cards, coupons, flyers, stationary, and the signatures of your entire staff’s business emails.
2. List your business in the local search results of Google, Yahoo, and Bing. A basic listing is free and will show up when someone searches for your services in your city. Be sure to get your customers to write reviews for you. The reviews help your listing to rank better in the local search results.
3. You can post special promotions and advertisements on Craigslist.com and other online classified sites for free. Craigslist is extremely popular everywhere but there may be some local classified sites you can use as well.
4. Use social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook to create a professional profile and add your link to your profile. Maintain a professional demeanor and strive to be helpful and avoid being overly self-promotional. People do business with people they like – if people like you, they will visit your website.
5. Search for blogs and forums in your area with your city’s name plus the word “forum” or “blog.” Spend a few minutes a day posting comments with a link back to your site. Again – strive to be helpful and not overly self-promotional.
6. Register your website with directories – especially those related to your services / products. Search Google using the keywords for your business plus the word, “directories” and you’ll get a list of related websites that will provide a link back to your site. Many of them are free. Keep a list of where you registered so you can update them easily if needed. This will help drive traffic to your website it two ways: direct click-though traffic and increased page rank from the related backlinks.
7. Write articles targeting your important keywords and post your articles online at sites like ezinearticles.com. Include your link in your “resource box” – which is a little blurb about yourself and / or your business at the end of your article.
Now it’s time to take some action. Pick one strategy to drive free traffic to your small business website and implement it today!
