Marketing your business is the single most important task you are charged with as a business owner.  The amount of time and effort that you put into getting the word out about your business directly correlates with the amount of money your business will make.  It is important to understand that you do not need to drain your bank account to market your website effectively.  In fact, there are many tried-and-true tactics to reap results from your marketing efforts without spending any money!

There are several free online classified ad sites that can be very useful to your marketing efforts.  Sites such as Craigslist.org and Backpage.com allow you to post ads for free to targeted locations and categories.  Placing an ad containing a coupon code can be an effective way to bring traffic to your site.  In your Site Manager, you can create a coupon of, for example, 25% off any product on your site and set the coupon to expire within a few days in order to create a sense of urgency for this promotion.

Another great way to get the word out about your site for free is to use safe lists.  A safe list is an e-mail list that you can join for free.  In exchange for joining the list, you are permitted to send e-mails to all of the members on the list.  The members of the list agree that they will not report each other as spammers.  There are both free and paid safe lists.  Both often contain thousands of members that you may e-mail.  Many free safe lists regulate the frequency that you can send e-mails.  For example, you may be allowed to send one e-mail per week to all the members of the list.  Paid safe lists typically allow you to e-mail the entire list daily or every other day.  Safe lists are a good addition to your marketing strategy.  You can join several safe lists at once and get the word out in bulk.  Do a search for safe lists on Google.com or Bing.com and you’ll get plenty of results.  

One tactic that may seem obvious but should not be overlooked is to place a link to your website in every e-mail that you send.  This can be done by adding a signature in your e-mail program.  This is an indirect and friendly way to let your friends and colleges know about your business.  You should also consider placing a coupon code in the e-mail signature.

Once you place the signature in your e-mail, consider participating in forums that relate to your niche or target market.  Most forums are regulated and do not allow posts which directly market your business; however a signature at the bottom of your message is a perfectly acceptable practice and a great way to let others know about your site. 

Similarly, you can also comment on blogs and leave your website address in your signature.  Or, consider starting your own blog.  Services like WordPress and Blogger are free and easy to use. On your blog, write messages about whatever interests you.  If it interests you, chances are it will interest someone else out there and they may decide to visit your website, which is included in your signature.

One extremely popular micro-blogging service that you may have heard about is Twitter.  Twitter allows you to send short messages called Tweets to those who choose to follow you.  Consider creating a Twitter account with a username that uses your business name or your website’s address.  For more information, click here to see our newsletter article on promoting your business with Twitter.

Social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook can be extremely effective and valuable resources to help keep yourself and your business connected with a potential pool of buyers.  eMerchantClub’s Version 9 and 10 Deluxe websites offer a tool that allows you to create a Facebook business page for your website.  You can use this feature to create a page focused on your business and niche that can help you attract followers.  For more information on Facebook, see our Introduction to Social Networking – Facebook article. You can also view the Facebook manual page, or our Jump Start your Business with Video and Social Networking article which contains a section dedicated to Facebook.

MySpace is another extremely popular social networking site that you can utilize to bring business to your site.  eMerchantClub’s Version 10 Deluxe websites offer a tool which allows you to easily post your products on MySpace.  This is a great tool to use to alert your friends to new products on your site or to offer tempting discounts.  Remember to focus your content on interesting information pertaining to your niche or topics that might be of interest to your followers.  While posting your products on your social networking profile is a great way to gain visitors to your site, be sure that these are not the only types of posts you make or you may be seen as a blatant self promoter which could result in a decrease in followers.  For more information, see last month’s article eMerchantClub's Version 10 Offers MySpace Integration or click here to view the MySpace Integration manual page.

One method that is sure to result in longer stays by visitors is article marketing.  While this approach takes some effort to implement, it can prove to be an important and successful strategy.  Write a short article containing information on a subject that your target audience may be interested in.  For example, if your site contains a lot of home décor items, write some home décor tips or holiday décor do's and don’ts.  If you sell chess boards, write an article about chess.  Do some research and fill your article with pertinent content.  Read your article objectively and make sure that it is interesting to you.  Place the articles on your website as html pages by using either your Site Manager’s Page Creator tool or another html editing tool.  Put a link in your navigation bar to a listing of articles available on your site.  This will increase the number of keywords on your site and will likely lead to people finding your site in search engines as they search for various topics. 

In addition to placing articles on your site, there are several article directories on the Web that will accept your article submissions for free.  Be sure to place a link to your site in your signature on the article.  Some popular article directories are AssociatedContent.com, ezinearticles.com, ArticleCity.com, web-source.net, and buzzle.com.

Another similar tactic is to write a press release about a new product offering or discount on your site and submit it to some free distribution sites such as 24-7PressRelease.com or
PRLog.org.

It is also very important to create a sitemap for your website.  A sitemap is a map of all of the links and content on your site and is used by search engines to find pages on your site.  eMerchantClub’s Version 9 and 10 contain an easy-to-use sitemap feature in your Site Manager.  With this tool, you can create a sitemap in one click and follow the instructions to submit the sitemap to Google, Yahoo, and MSN.  A sitemap will greatly increase the likelihood of your site to be indexed by search engines and directories and can result in an increase in traffic to your site.

These are some of the most essential tactics to bringing business to you site.  Many business owners have experienced a significant increase in their sales by using some or all of these methods.  Staying connected with your community of potential shoppers is vital and the more time and effort you spend doing this, the greater your likely reward. 

If your site does not include some of the mentioned features, give us a call at (888) 806-2081 for information on getting these features.

As always, if you have any questions please contact Technical Support via e-mail at techsupport@emerchantclub.com by going to Live Chat Technical Support at http://www.emerchantclub.com/support.html or by calling (877) 384-4691.
Thank you,

Your eMerchantClub Team
eMerchantClub LLC
996 Flower Glen Street
Simi Valley , CA 93065
(877) 384-4691 Phone
(888) 201-2680 Fax

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