What If I Can't Afford Search Engine Optimization?

Let's assume you’ve got a great web site. You just need web surfers to find you.
What if you can’t afford to do Search Engine Optimization? If you don’t budget at least $2k for a local promotion or $4k for a national promotion, you won’t get the results you seek in most cases. What else can you do to drive traffic to your site?

Contribute Articles
Your marketing message doesn’t have to be relegated to just your web site. For any profession, you will find related web sites, online articles, newsletters, blogs, etc. to help drive others back to your web site. There are lots and lots of resources on the web where youcan post online articles and have a link back to your web site.

Email Newsletters

Start sending a company newsletter via email. Collect subscribers to your newsletter by having a sign up form on your home page. With each newsletter you can draw attention to areas of your web site you’d like to emphasize that month. Prospects and customers that hear from you on a regular basis are more apt to be repeat customers, instead of one time sales.

Blogs

Blogs are fast becoming effective marketing tools. I use my blog as an archive of all my past email newsletters. Since it links back to my web site it also assists with my search engine optimization. If you don’t want to start your own blog, consider posting articles and contributing to other industry blogs that accept outside writers. Again, it will be another way to link back to your web site with a link.

Since blogs are updated more frequently than most web sites, the search engines favor them because the content is evolving constantly. I should update my own blog more than once a month. Ideally, you might consider updating your blog weekly if you can.

By using the methods mentioned above you can begin a grass roots effort to drive traffic to your web site with little to no budget at all! When your web site begins generating more revenues, then you can re-invest into search engine marketing.

Tom Anderson is the owner of Excelleweb, LLC and can be reached at 614-679-0912 or by email at tom.anderson@excelleweb.com.

Quote of the Month:

"Selling to people who actually want to hear from you is more effective than interrupting strangers who don't." --Seth Godin, author