1. Become a Destination

What does your company specialize in? What are you consumers most interested in? Figure this out and make your website a leading destination for your specialty by creating great content. If you are targeting people who enjoy fitness and health then create the best blog/content for fitness and health. Produce interesting articles, great tips, fun pictures etc…Make it a top destination for your target demographic. The more traffic this produces the more your posts and content will be shared across the internet by visitors. As a result, this is free and organic sharing that occurs to create traffic instead of bidding on keywords and creating ads.

2. Get Social!

I am still amazed that even after the Social Media boom not every company is utilizing Social Media channels. Recently I read only 30% of businesses can be found on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Linkedin etc…ONLY 30%!!!! That is a number I still can’t wrap my head around. Social Media is a free way to set up an online presence other that your website for customers to find you, it is a free way to show off your products and services, it is a free way to interact with customers, and it is a free to give your company a voice. The theme here is free and also very effective. More and more consumers before making purchases, go online to learn more about a company or product and also are influenced by their friends and peers purchasing activities online. If your competitor is being ‘Liked’ and ‘Shared’ on Facebook and other social sites and you can’t be found on those sites you can surely bet they are getting the new business over you.

3. Learn from your Visitors

 With all the tracking and data that is available it is easy to learn about your visitors. Check to see what content on your site is driving the most traffic, see which posts are getting the most engagement on social media sites, test different variations of reaching out to your audience to see which is more successful. By figuring out what works and what doesn’t you can make sure to continually create content that your audience will love and share with others.

4. Bing It!

This post is not meant to discourage search advertising, but instead to try alternatives that can be cheaper. However, search should still be part of most online marketing budgets, and I would recommend giving Bing search a chance. Yes there is not as much of an audience available as Google, but because of that bidding on keywords is much cheaper. The amount you would spend on your keywords on Google, will cost much less on Bing and you will show up much higher in the search results. Spend less and show up earlier in results, why not give it a chance?

5. Paid Advertising on Facebook and Twitter

Yes signing up for Facebook and Twitter is free, but they both offer extremely effective paid advertising options if you want to take your presence on those sites to the next level. On both, you can target potential customers based on age, sex, location, interests, occupation, education, date of birth etc…. With this you can really fine tune your ads to only show up to people who fit your exact demographic. You won’t be spending money on advertisements that show up on people’s screen who have zero interest in your product or service.

6. Be Creative with your Marketing

We share interesting things we see online not for ourselves, but for our friends and family to see and react to. As companies create content, keeping in mind the value of sharing content online is extremely important. Vibrant pictures, fun videos, useful tips and content all get shared among users online and have the ability to go viral. If you create great content, but its boring it will get lost in the shuffle.

7. Become an Expert in your Industry

Get involved in online communities. There are countless forums, communities and social sites online where people are asking questions and seeking advice. Seek out these sites and establish yourself and your company as a leader in the industry. Once people get a first hand look at the knowledge, service or product you can provide they will likely be converted to customers or will share your information to their friends and families.

 What online marketing tools and tactics do you use? Do you use any of the tips above or have any others that work well? Share below!