So you would like to run an Online Business or already do but … 7

Previously I talked about using paid advertisements as a way of driving customers to your web site or sales pages. Now I will introduce some f.r.ee web sites where you can place your “not paid for” advertisement.

The principles for writing the advertisements remain the same as that for paid ads (explained in my blog yesterday) but you need to follow the guidelines for each of the sites. In many cases you are permitted to have a greater word count. Some of the sites restrict the number of times you can place the same advert (eg, Craig’s List) anywhere on their site. 

Following good marketing practice you need to tailor your ad to the niche you intend to operate in. Many of the sites expect you to select a category to place your ad in. In time, search engines will find your ad but do not expect any high placements in the organic links. 

Writing ads takes a lot of creative energy and time but they can deliver results if you are persistent. Many of the no cost ad sites do offer a premium (ie, paid) service where they commit to giving you greater visibility. Depending on what niche you operate in, it may be worth giving it a try once you have seen the results of the f.r.e.e service. The cost will certainly be lower than Google, Yahoo or MSN but you definitely will not get the same expose that these mainstream operators give. 

So where can you place your fr.e.e ad? As you might guess there are many places on the internet. I did a quick search using the phrase “place free ads online”. This yielded 1.9 million links on Google. You could narrow your search by including your market niche in the search phrase. For instance “place free ads online antique books”. Whatever you do it makes sense to only use the sites that come up in the first few pages of your search. Some sites that I have used are: http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites and http://www.backpage.com/classifieds/index. In the UK you may wish to consider http://www.friday-ad.co.uk/.

If you are using Social Networking sites you may also be able to post ads there.

So you would like to run an Online Business or already do but … 8