Promoting Your Home Based Business on the Internet
A Home Business Article Contributed by Amber Mcnaught
Promoting Your Home Based Business on the Internet
The internet could almost have been made for the home based business. Not only is it a fantastic source of information for home based business owners, it also offers countless opportunities to promote your business online - for very little money. Let's look at a few of them.
Websites for the Home Based Business
Now that the internet is so widely used, no business can afford to be without a website. This is particularly true of the home based business. Your website is your calling card for the world; think of the internet as a newspaper with unlimited circulation, and your website as your story. You can't get better advertising than that. A professional looking website gives your home based business credibility; make sure yours is the absolute best it can be.
Online Advertising for the Home Based Business
- banner exchanges
A "banner" is a logo which, when clicked, takes visitors to your website. Many high traffic websites operate banner exchange programs, whereby they allow you to place your banner on their website if you allow them to place their banner on yours. This can be a great way to bring traffic to your site, but be careful where you place your banners! If you sell cars, for example, there wouldn't be much point in placing your banner on a site mainly visited by children under the age of 16.
- link exchanges
Similar to banner exchanges, you can place your "link" on certain websites in exchange for their link on yours. Be careful not to go overboard, though: too many links on your site can look messy and unprofessional - not a good look for the home based business!
- pay per click advertising
When you start up your home based business, you're probably not going to have a huge budget for adverting. Pay per click advertising could be a good answer; your adverts appears on search engines such as Google (who run a pay per click advertising scheme) and you pay only when someone clicks on the advert and visits your site.
Online Networking for the Home Based Business
We all know what networking is - and how important it is to the home based business owner! Thanks to the internet, you can now make contacts with other business people and prospective clients without even leaving your desk. A number of online networking groups such as ecademy (www.ecademy.com) are springing up online: they allow you to upload a profile of you and your home based business, chat to other business owners just like you, and make those all-important connections!
Another good way to network using the internet is by joining forums, or discussion boards. There are literally thousands of online fourms focusing on every subject under the sun! Some forums focus particular on home based businesses, and these may be a good place for your to start your online networking, but really it doesn't matter where you start.
Just pick a forum that interests you and join in the conversation, remembering to add the URL of your website in your signature file (the little piece of text which appears at the bottom of every message you post to a forum. Not only will you hopefully enjoy a good chat, you're also exposing your website to potential new visitors!
