How to promote your business online

“If your business is not on the Internet, then you are not in business” - the worldwide network offers many options for promoting goods and services, various methods of promotion and promotion on any scale. It all depends on understanding the mechanism for attracting buyers, creative ideas, applied efforts and efforts (and they will be required, because promoting a business, product or service on the Internet is not an easy task).

So, let's figure out how it works, who suits it, what methods of promotion and search for "your" client exist.

How internet promotion works

Today, many people create websites to promote their brand. There are many success stories of small businesses that have taken off online. And these are not legends, promotion on the Internet really works. So, consider the mechanism by which many businessmen have achieved financial success.

Step 1. A website or landing page is created

We need a website with a description of the proposed product (service). For those who don’t know, a landing page is the same site, only a one-page one, where on one page there is a description of the product, the seller’s advantages and the opportunity to place an order. Landing is suitable for small businesses that offer one or more products or services, because while the client is “walking” through the tabs, he may change his mind.

Step 2. Traffic is attracted

Traffic is visitors who come through multiple channels that bring buyers to your site. The more of them, the higher the potential of the resource.

How to attract traffic? There are many channels from which you can get to your site on the Internet. It could be:

The more traffic sources are created, the faster the page will become visited and interesting to the user. Where to place a link to the site, whether to order advertising - it is up to the owner of the resource to decide based on financial capabilities.

By the way, there are free ways to promote the site, and they should not be neglected. This is advertising on social networks on your page and in free groups, posts on forums and on special resources. Especially creative people can start a channel on YouTube or leave comments on the videos of famous video bloggers. And sometimes it’s enough just to tell your friends about your site and word of mouth will do its job.

Step 3. Application processing

Delivery of goods or provision of services. You always want the visitor to return to the site and place an order again. Therefore, it is necessary to timely and efficiently deliver the product or service that you are promoting and keep in touch with customers. You can use re-advertising methods, hold promotions, etc.

How long does it take to get traffic? It all depends on the end goal. If the business is not large, having built up a client base, you can stop promoting. For example, a self-employed confectioner, cosmetologist, masseur, simply physically does not have the strength to take on more clients.

If we are talking about large companies or organizations that have the prospect of expansion (for example, large-scale production, a construction online store, a chain pharmacy, a hotel complex, a restaurant, a cafe), then they need to maintain traffic sources on an ongoing basis.

So, does a novice businessman need a website? Yes. Especially if he plans to expand his activities and wants to reach the regional level and above.

Masters working on their own just need to create a page on a social network and fill out a profile with information (photos and videos) about their product or service. Ask satisfied customers to leave reviews and comments.

Let's take a closer look at ways to promote a business on the Internet and dwell on individual methods of attracting visitors to the site.

Ways to promote your business online

The list of ways to promote a site is very long, there are many classifications and methods of promotion on the Internet. Novice owners of a store or information resource on the Internet are usually interested in the price of the issue and the time required to achieve the desired result. It’s worth saying right away: the smaller the budget, the more efforts will have to be made.

If there is no question of money, you can turn to the type of marketing known today as "b2b" - business to business, whose specialists provide Internet promotion services to legal entities. True, these companies cooperate mainly with large businesses.

To independently promote a resource, you need to familiarize yourself with the following paid promotion methods:

purchase ;
contextual advertising in search engines;
seo-promotion and internal page optimization;
promotion in social networks using targeting.

Basic free ways:

advertising on blogs, forums, bulletin boards;
opening a channel on YouTube or other video hosting - self-shooting video cases, training videos work perfectly;
free mailing services;
in social networks and in mobile applications (however, you will have to spend a lot of time promoting your account).

These methods are used by absolutely all owners of sites that have advanced to the TOPs of search engines.

Ways to quickly attract visitors to your site

The most effective promotion option is well-known advertising. By applying an integrated approach to the promotion of your page, you can achieve tremendous popularity in just a month of the site's existence! In addition, competent advertising always pays off. Specialists in the field of sales promotion on the Internet promise a high percentage of payback (up to 300%) already in the early stages of the existence of the resource.

The fastest and most popular are the following:

contextual;
media;
targeted;
search engine.

Is it worth spending money on promotion? Of course, only the site owner can answer this question. Many accountants who record advertising costs in the ledger note that over time, not only does the cost of advertising decrease or disappear, but the site begins to generate good profits. Indeed, having promoted your page, it, in turn, becomes interesting as a platform for advertising to other advertisers who are willing to pay money for displaying ads on your site.

Search promotion

You should start creating and filling an Internet resource with its internal optimization.

The better and more correctly the site is filled inside, from the point of view of the search engine, the higher it will be in the rating of links issued to the user. Search promotion is necessary for the resource to take the best places or be at least on the first page of the results.

Thus, you need to create conditions that satisfy the search engines. There are two main components of these conditions: the content of the resource (its content) and quoting the site in other sources.

The content must be understandable not only to the user, but also to search engines - the set of resource pages should make it easy to determine the subject of the site and issue it when searching at the right time. To do this, you should deal with the semantic core - key phrases (keys) that should be present in the content of the site, corresponding to search queries. A list of the most frequent queries for your niche can be found on the Wordstat service from Yandex.
Search engines value citing a site or link, as it is believed that the resource that is referenced by another, similar in subject matter, is more important. Therefore, many owners of Internet pages, in order to rise to the TOPs, buy links on more promoted sites. Why is this needed? TOP places can be compared with the elite areas of the city - they are more trustworthy, these sources are considered trusted and safe, and 95% of users will pay attention to them. The chances that the user will scroll through the list of given sources at least to the fourth page are reduced to a minimum.

Conducting contextual advertising campaigns

It works as follows: the user enters his query in the search bar and ads related to him pop up at the side or at the top of the results. The response rate is high - users often click on such links. But there is also a significant drawback - significant traffic can only be attracted while you are investing money in it.

This method is not suitable for advertising, for example, a new trademark or for remembering the brand. The purpose of setting up contextual advertising is to attract customers and buyers. Conducting contextual campaigns is especially important when it is necessary to establish a quick sale of a product or promote a project as soon as possible.

The most common services for this are Yandex.Direct and Google AdWords. Many campaign settings allow you to manage ad delivery and control the cost of advertising. As for the price level, they may seem quite high - you need to beat the rates of other advertisers.

Do not forget also about the relevance of SEO-optimization for ads. Put yourself in the place of the user and think about how you would formulate a query for a search engine. The number of ad impressions directly depends on the correct choice of query. For example, how to advertise a tourist product? Most likely, the user will write: “tours to Egypt”, “cheap tours”, “cheap tours”, etc. Compare your wording with the Wordstat service.

Promotion and advertising in social networks

The modern Internet is hard to imagine without Instagram, Facebook and Vkontakte. offers a solution to many advertising problems by communicating with subscribers and interested audiences. With the help of social networks, you can make the brand recognizable, promote the product and inform customers about interesting events.

Internet technologies have stepped so far that today almost every social network boasts an abundance of settings to attract the right audience, sorted by gender, age, region, etc.

You can promote anything on social networks - from various goods to information products. By the way, the possibility of holding online conferences with subscribers has recently become available. This is a great way to show how the company works, provide an initial consultation, or even provide training to show that your firm's professionals know about user problems and can provide the necessary services.

Direct advertising on platforms

Banner on Yandex search page

Direct advertising differs from indirect advertising in its explicit nature. We see it every day in the form of banners, commercials, teasers, text and other messages. The purpose of such promotion is not so much to attract traffic, but to inform about the brand, aimed at remembering it.

Banners – suitable for remembering a brand or reminding customers about a product. The percentage of clicks on such ads is low, so banners are relevant at the first stages of an advertising campaign. It is also effective to use them to inform users about promotions or discounts.
Teasers are small pictures posted in groups on a variety of popular sites. They usually stand out with flashy headlines or an interesting image. Remember how many pictures there are with inscriptions: “Shock!”, “Incredible!”, “Everyone needs to know”, etc. They often distract from the main information on the resource, but are effective. Teasers are effective for information resources and for the sale of small products (for spontaneous sales).
Promotional videos - they can be added both to other videos, and just to the site. Of course, you need to be able to shoot a good video, so the method is costly, but effective. A well presented idea through video pays off 4x.
Text and image blocks are various ads that are especially effective when they organically fit into the content of the site and resemble a recommendation, not an advertisement.

Additional tools for promotion on the Internet

In conclusion, I would like to say about a few additional promotion methods that are effective for business.

- special services offer services for distributing ads through the mail. You should not get carried away with this type of promotion especially - users have the right to welcome spam and then the advertiser can be punished.
Videos are by far the most popular promotional videos and training cases. It is very effective to advertise services with the help of videos - if you are a specialist in some area (banking, legal, tourism), do not be afraid to share your experience with people and invite them to cooperate.
Traffic arbitrage is the redirection of visitors from one resource to another. To promote their site, some users resort to buying traffic on third-party resources. This is an interesting way not only to promote, but also to receive additional income over time.
Internet PR - promotion of the brand on the network through the organization of public relations. This is not only work for the client, but also cooperation with other segments of the economy and comprehensive activities in order to keep pace with the times.
Guerrilla or is hidden advertising distributed among users at high speed. After being launched into the network, it does not require money and effort on the part of the advertiser. Users must like the ad or video so much that they want to show it to their friends. Of course, it is necessary to work on the creation of such advertising, but the result is achieved in a matter of days and is worth the effort.

There are many ways to promote a business. The main thing, having created a high-quality website, is not to give up and try different strategies to attract customers. Promotion of a resource is not only a great way to sell products and services. Over time, the site will be able to generate a lot of passive income, so don't be afraid to invest in the future.