Online Business Promotion - 13 Methods and Tips

Before deciding how we will promote your business on the Internet, you need to understand what we have. Every business advances based on certain answers that we will now find.

We need to draw up the structure of your business in order to determine the next steps. To do this, we answer the following questions and draw up a short report about our business.

- What area is your business in: in the service sector or in the sales sector?

– what are the boundaries of the business: using the Internet, we can sell only in your city, region, country or beyond?

- how exactly can (and should) use the global network: only advertising a business, selling goods, providing services, online communication, providing information to customers, or something else?

- what profits from the business we have: for example, if the business is small, then the Internet will be used only as a free search for customers.

With the help of these questions, we will paint a picture of what is happening and understand how and why we will use the Internet. For a clearer picture, a few examples:

• Example 1. Cellular salon. In this business, you can both sell goods and provide services. Theoretically, you can sell to other cities, but does it make sense for a client to buy from you, being at a decent distance from you and having the same salons in his city? The maximum that we can is to hook the nearest small settlements. The main task of the Internet is to find customers within your area. For a small business, pages on social networks are enough.

• Example 2. Interpreter services. Here you provide services that can be in demand throughout the country and even beyond its borders. The Internet can be used as a job search on various remote job exchanges. It is also possible to expand the business to a professional text translation company. It all depends on the freelancer, what goals he sets. The Internet is used for job search and development.

Based on these examples, we draw up our picture of the business. Whether you're selling canned food or promoting a major project across the country, absolutely anyone can use the internet to promote their business.

Internet business promotion methods

Let's now look at what options there are for promoting a business, their advantages and disadvantages, the amount of costs and the availability of customers, as well as how to promote a business using these methods.

1. Website (online store)

To date, the creation of a website is not the best solution for small and regional business projects. In this case, the exception is the desire of the entrepreneur to make money on the site by placing someone else's advertising and other ways of making money on a non-commercial site. It is also a great way to show your level.

• read the article Earn money on the site for beginners

Large business projects, even if they are assigned to a large city, can freely use this method of promoting their business.

Advantages and disadvantages of sites:

Disadvantages:

1. The downside is that sites lose their popularity. Small projects are not profitable to promote.
2. The second disadvantage is high competition in occupied niches. To find out the competition in your niche, simply type in the main keywords of your business in the search engine and look at the list of competitors (for example: buy a hat in Moscow).
3. The third drawback is knowledge in site building and high costs for site promotion and maintenance.

Advantages:

1. The first is the professionalism of your business. Any business that has a quality website gains credibility in the eyes of the client.
2. Second, online communication, providing all the necessary information, and customers who come from search engines.
3. Thirdly, this is what you can earn on the site by placing someone else's ads. Earnings depend on attendance. Basically, if the site has more than 500 daily visitors, it can bring in about $ 100 per month, which will cover part of the cost of maintaining it.
4. The fourth plus, if you have a small business and you want a website, then there are several services that make it possible to create a website in an hour and it will be free. The quality of the site will be at a low level, but for someone it will be enough that it exists.
5. Well, and most importantly - a great way to deal with competitors and find customers for serious business projects.

Amounts of costs and availability of customers:

To find out the number of possible visitors to the site, you need to make a list of requests for which the business will be promoted, and work with wordstat.yandex.ru. For example, you are a retailer of hats in Russia. We open wordstat.yandex.ru, drive in a request and look at the numbers. If you enter a phrase in quotation marks, you will see specific requests.

Enter your key phrase in the Yandex search engine and view your competitors. The sites that are advertised in Yandex will be the first to come out (the first 3-5 marked "advertising"), then the rest of the competitors will follow. This request is high-frequency (hereinafter referred to as VChZ), since it is entered into Yandex more than 100 thousand times a month, so it is very difficult to compete with such sites.

You can narrow down the topic to 1,000 queries per month, select keywords, and view the competition. For this:

1. Go to wordstat.yandex.ru, enter your request and go to the page where the indicators are below 1500 requests (you can also select a region);

2. Select the desired keywords and copy them into the document;

4. After that, enter these phrases in the Yandex search engine and evaluate competitors;

But let's clarify right away that all this is useless if your site is not competitive and is not in the TOP-3 for key queries. It is almost impossible for beginners to break into this without a lot of work and big investments, so the site can exist as a business card. A domain name can be placed in offline advertising of your business or in other ways to promote your business on the Internet.

• Nuance: many companies on the Internet that occupy leading positions in the TOP of search engines provide low-quality services, so it is quite possible to deal with them. Just analyze them, identify shortcomings and prevent this from happening in your business.

How to promote:

1. Choose a domain name, register it, choose hosting.

A domain name is the name of your site, for example a site, register it here - Reg.ru. After registering a name, you need to pay for hosting services here - McHost.ru and connect with a domain name. More details about the process can be found on special sites or on YouTube.

2. We create content for the site.

What will be on the menu, contact details, other information. On a piece of paper, draw the location of all the data - where is the menu, where are the contacts, etc.

3. We create a site, choose wordpress or something else as an engine, load the template, fill the site.

All this can be entrusted to a freelancer. But if there is no extra money, then in 2-3 days you can figure it out and learn how to do the most basic things.

We launch website advertising on the Internet - in social networks, CPA networks, on bulletin boards, etc. Once you're confident about the site's quality, put the domain name on business cards and brochures and other promotional items to let your customers know you have the site.

Let's summarize:

All this takes time and money, so you will either have to try, or hire an educated person for additional resources. Today, many schoolchildren know how to create websites, so in a simple business, you can resort to their help.

In this case, absolutely any business can be promoted. For large projects, social networks can be one of the sources of traffic to the site, while a small business can create a page in a few minutes and start searching for their customers.

Disadvantages:

1. The disadvantages include low customer confidence. For example, people prefer to buy goods or receive services from large sites with a high reputation.
2. Also, do not forget that this site belongs to certain people who can dictate their terms.

Advantages:

1. Entry into this method of promoting your business can be free. Those. you create a community and advertise it in regional publics, in groups with open walls, tell and invite friends (up to 40 people a day).
2. The competition is negligible. Even with competition, it is not so difficult to get around it by providing better services and constantly advertising your project.
3. Simplicity and convenience. Anyone can promote their project on social networks, even without any knowledge in this topic. Everything is so simple that a person aged 10 to 60 years can do such a thing.
4. Plus for regional business. There are many regional communities, and most of these allow you to advertise for free. Only in extreme cases, advertising is paid. Therefore, regional business can be promoted for free.
5. It is much easier to attract customers from social networks to another resource than from other resources to social networks.

Costs and customers:

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How to promote:

For registration and registration, you need a phone number, your photos and pictures from the Internet. If you own Photoshop, you can make everything beautiful.

2. Fill in the information necessary for the client.

Contacts, goods, services - a complete list. Other data.

For regional projects, search for pages by the name of your city. Advertise in free sources. Tell your friends and family about the page.

For those whose business is not supported by the city, look for pages where your audience is located (write in advance who your customers are), negotiate advertising. Create a high-quality advertising post and start an advertising campaign.

3. Own YouTube channel

The YouTube video platform is one of the largest on the Internet today for finding customers. This resource can be an additional source of income if business topics are of interest to people in the form of videos.

For example, you can record lessons, trainings or keep a video diary about your business, which will also be of interest to many people.

Disadvantages:

1. Videos in a competitive theme of low quality will be in low demand. People have learned how to make incredibly high-quality videos, so video from a phone or audio with pictures will not be as popular.
2. Dear advertisement. It is not so easy to promote a channel, but having groups on social networks, you can post videos there, gaining the first base of subscribers.
3. High-quality videos can cost a lot of money, since a lot of equipment costs tens and hundreds of thousands of rubles.

Advantages:

1. You can earn big money without leaving your home. Having the knowledge and ability to pack them into a high-quality video, you can have a real profitable project.
2. Let's break down one drawback, since entering a business can be with a minimal budget. For example, it will be enough to buy a microphone and shoot video from the computer screen using a special program.
3. It is enough to keep a video diary to make good money. YouTube users like to watch other people's lives. The flag is in your hands.
4. Additional authority to the site. A site that has a lot of videos (products, service descriptions, other useful videos) increases user convenience. Many people want to watch videos and not read texts, so a YouTube channel will solve this issue.

Costs and customers:

There are a huge number of clients on YouTube, no less than on social networks, but most of the users are minors, so adult serious projects are promoted more difficult and at high cost.

How to promote:

1. Register and create your channel, design it.

It's a matter of one hour for the unenlightened, and 30 minutes for the rest. Choose a catchy name for your channel (related to your business).

1. Create and upload multiple videos.

What will be the video for your channel - it's up to you. Do not forget about the quality of the video, since the success of channel promotion depends on the quality and presentation.

1. Advertise your channel.

Let's summarize:

YouTube is a universal platform. If your business needs video content, then use this site to the maximum. Otherwise, low-quality videos can harm the business.

Advantages and disadvantages of YouTube:

Disadvantages:

1. Expensive advertising from serious vloggers.
2. The conversion of visitors into potential buyers may not be the highest.

Advantages:

1. Large selection of channels to select a channel for your advertising.
2. You can promote your channel and attract visitors to the business.

You can create an interstitial - a short video (up to a minute) that vloggers will insert at the beginning, middle or end of the video. It is also possible for the vlogger to simply mention you in their video. A link to your business will be in the description of the video.

2. Make a deal with a vlogger.

Agree on the details in which video, how and where your ad will be inserted, the date of the video release, the cost, etc.

4. Be sure to prepare and after the release of the video, collect all the information about the customers who came to you from advertising on YouTube in order to determine the average cost of a visitor and a client.

Let's summarize:

Look for the right channels from which you can get as many customers as possible. Be sure to collect information on whether it is profitable to conduct your advertising campaign on a particular channel. If you do not have a large business and it does not develop on the Internet (selling goods or services on the Internet), then you should not spend money on such advertising.

5. Free classified ads

Everyone knows free classified ads. Everyone at least once used them in order to sell goods. This way to increase business profits is more inherent in regional projects.

Advantages and disadvantages of bulletin boards:

Disadvantages:

1. Whatever business you have, if it is overloaded with competitors, you will not get ahead of them here. Post only accurate information, all data and contacts necessary for the client. Make it easy for him to decide who to choose - you or your competitors.

Advantages:

1. And the first plus is the opposite of the negative point: if your business is new, the ad will not be different from everyone else.
2. Free additional advertising method, and very simple.

Costs and customers:

How to promote:

1. Subscribe to all kinds of bulletin boards, register on them.

3. On some resources, ads are deleted after a certain period of validity. Don't forget to update them.

Let's summarize:

Bulletin boards are a great way to promote your regional and online business.

The remaining methods are not suitable for all types of businesses, so we will simply list them and give a brief description.

These resources are best used in cases where you have a valuable website or a full-fledged business on the Internet. Advertising is not cheap, and the conversion is not the highest, but it is very popular for promoting specialized sites or online stores.

The first own a YouTube channel (this was already mentioned above), the second a site where people - they are bloggers - write valuable information from themselves in a certain topic. The cost of advertising depends on the content and the number of subscribers, authority, views and the desire of the author to cooperate with advertisers. It is also best suited for business on the Internet.

9. One-page site

The same site, only simpler and has one strong function - either only talks about the business, or immediately sells goods.

11. Forums

You can also find related forums and chat with people, make friends, exchange contacts, advertise your business through moderators, attach a signature to your posts, etc.

12. Online seminar

You will have to seriously prepare, since not everyone is given a lot to talk about their business in an unusual environment (into a microphone and camera, albeit on their portable device). You can promote information about the seminar for free on social networks. Delivering useful seminars is a lot of work, and it's not for every business. If you can sell a product or service nationwide, please use the seminar to attract additional customers from the Internet.

Again, such an idea of ​​​​promoting a business online is not suitable for every business, although you can turn on your imagination. If you have a greenhouse as a business and you are a jack of all trades, you can create a book on the topic of growing vegetables in your area, while looking for customers to wholesale or retail your products. Or you make furniture to order in a large city and are ready to work on a national scale - write an interesting book on this topic. Believe me, there are plenty of such books on the Internet, but no one has opened a business by reading them, so your advice will only be read, not used. And the book will be a great way to advertise your business.

Logo. If you have a serious business, you can always create your own recognizable logo.

Who you are? Tell the client who you are, what knowledge you have, what you have already given people. Present truthful information in such a format that people are interested in learning about you, and they are ready to stay on your site in order to subsequently buy your product.

Principle of incomplete information. When you can sell knowledge to a customer in your business, get more value out of the idea. For example, start a vlog and record videos, additionally advertising your business. Videos should carry useful, but not complete information. For example, partial English lessons - analysis of certain topics. But you can buy a full service or course from you. By the quality of your video, the client will understand that your lessons for money will definitely be useful.

Complete information about the service or product. Shoot videos, write texts, add photos, reviews, descriptions. You should tell the client as much as possible about your business so that he receives all the necessary information and wants to give you his money.

Communicate. Communicate with subscribers, with customers, with ordinary users. Create a separate topic for customer questions and answer them.

What's on the box is in the box. If you have a certain level of business, clients should know only the truth about your business, without fanaticism. Sometimes it is better to understate and surprise the client with your business than to say too much and upset.

Present . If you can give a pen or a notebook with your own logo to clients who come to your business, then you can give your author's book to a client on the Internet. Let it be small, unprofessional, but its appearance and information should be interesting. So you will surprise the client, and he will be delighted, although not everyone will read it. The very fact of the gift is important.

Discounts, promotions, samples. When a person has a choice, and nowadays there is competition in all niches, it is necessary not only to be able to sell your services, but also to attract a client. A great way to do this is to provide a free trial service, arrange a promotion, or give a solid discount. This can not only return the client, but also launch recommendations, and with them word of mouth.

Referral system. The client uses the service, receives several coupons with discounts for subsequent services - one coupon for himself (for example, 10 or 20% discount), 3-5 more for friends (5-10%).

Run contests. People love to participate in different competitions. Offer several prizes under banal conditions (invite friends, for example) and for an inexpensive gift.

Congratulate the client. It would be ideal for the client to leave you their phone number and email address. With their help, you can unobtrusively remind them of yourself, congratulating them on some universal holiday.

Frequently asked questions about online business promotion:

1. How much does it cost to promote a business on the Internet?

The cost of promotion depends on hundreds of factors. The main ones are: what is the niche of your business, what goals are set for promotion, how will the Internet help - searching for online customers or regular advertising, how much are you willing to invest in promotion, what is the scale of promotion - regional or larger?

As a rule, ordinary regional business is promoted with minimal investment.

If there is a search for online customers, then the cost per visitor to your resource (only a visitor, not a buyer) can vary from 0 to 100 rubles.

2. Can I promote a business on my own?

It is possible if the business is simple and does not require hiring professionals. If we are not talking about professional promotion and site creation (although you can do the site yourself), then learning the methods will take a couple of days for inexperienced users.

3. Is it worth it to turn to professionals? If yes, to what?

We will not recommend any website promotion companies, here everyone should study the niche on their own. As for whether it is worth contacting professionals: if your business is not large and its maximum income does not exceed several hundred thousand rubles a month, then you do not need professionals. If the business can grow within the whole country, then a team is needed. At least one person offline is your worker who understands Internet marketing, the rest can be found on the Internet.

4. How to reduce the cost of promoting a business on the Internet?

To reduce costs, choose free promotion methods and resort to the help of specialists on freelance exchanges, where many free workers are ready to create a website and help in promotion for just a few thousand rubles.

5. How to promote services on the Internet?

It all depends on whether it is possible to somehow transfer services over the Internet or not. For example, you can train people through Skype, a YouTube channel, or sell an info business. But direct services can be sold indirectly, for example, it is impossible to cut your hair online, then you can teach it for money or accept applications via the Internet, advertising your business on the global network. The Internet can seriously increase traffic to your barbershop or other service business.

6. How to promote a new business on the Internet?

The methods are no different from whether you are promoting a business that has been running for a long time or a new one. Unless in the new one you can indicate offline information about the site or pages on social networks (links) in offline advertising. Yes, and the preparation for the advertising campaign will be carried out a little differently and will require more funds, since both regional and Internet advertising will be used immediately.

7. How to draw up a strategy for promoting a business on the Internet?

This question needs to be analyzed, starting from the idea. You can learn more about the small business development strategy in the corresponding article. In general, if the business is not large or its initial advertising capital is not high, then with global promotion on the Internet, you can wait and take the time to establish the offline business. And then develop a strategy. In addition, you will have time to study the Internet and methods of promoting a business there.

• read the article An example of a business development strategy

Let's summarize. From the article, we learned several main ways to promote a business on the network: a website, social networks, YouTube, message boards, and others.

The site is best to have large business projects.

YouTube is used if it is really necessary for the business.

Bulletin boards are an additional way to promote, especially for regional ideas, and should be used by everyone.

You can start promoting your project without money, and this is a big plus. If you have time, you can figure out all the ways to promote your business and use all the options, expanding your customer base on the Internet.

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