Written by Leeron Hoory
Tech and Finance Specialist

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Reviewed by Yoni Cohen
BusinessHeroes Staff

Digital marketing levels the playing field for online business owners. Instead of relying on word of mouth to get your message across, you now have countless opportunities to reach potential customers. Regardless of your budget, you can get online and start promoting your business. Here are proven strategies to promote growth. 

Free Strategies to Promote Your Business Online

There are many ways to advertise your business online without spending money. Here are a few ways business owners can boost the visibility of your products or services for free. 

Leverage Social Media

You don’t need hundreds of thousands of followers for your social media to help boost your business. You can simply start by choosing a social media platform to share content and build out your presence organically. When you first open an account, connect with people in your field. Before selecting a platform to invest in, consider the pros and cons of each and which one best supports your business. For example, Instagram is geared towards visuals, while X is better suited for text. LinkedIn is a great place to share professional thought leadership and Pinterest is a good platform to promote ecommerce products and brands. 

Create a Google Business Profile

A Google Business profile boosts your presence on Google Search and Google Maps and helps people find you. Setting up a Google My Business profile is a relatively straightforward process. 

Use SEO Techniques

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of optimizing your website so that it will rank more highly in search engines. There are many factors that determine which websites rank highly in search engines. In fact, Google’s algorithm has over 200 factors. However, one of the important ones is incorporating keywords your potential customers are looking for into your text. You can use Google Trends to learn how popular phrases are. You can also look at the “People also search for” feature on Google for ideas.

SEO tools like Ahrefs and Semrush will give you detailed reports of SEO terms, but you don’t need to buy them to pay more attention to your SEO. Once you know the terms you want to optimize for, make sure they are prominent on your website’s copy, URL, metadata and more.

Publish Content Marketing on Your Website

Content marketing refers to text on your website that has the main purpose of informing rather than selling. Content marketing is usually hosted on a company blog. High-quality content can be a very effective way to promote your business because this type of content boosts your website’s SEO, informs and engages your audience and builds brand recognition and authority. Plus, you can share your blog posts on social media, expanding your reach. 

Paid Strategies for Online Business Promotion

Paid online advertising can yield significant returns when done strategically. As a general rule, paid online marketing campaigns can deliver results much more quickly than free promotion, but requires ongoing payment to keep seeing results. 

Running paid ads on social media and Google is a form of digital marketing called pay-per-click (PPC). The benefits of PPC are that you can keep costs low and don’t have to put thousands of dollars upfront to get your business in front of potential customers. But the downside is that you have to keep paying each time you reach new customers, and this cost can eat into your overall profit.

Here are a few of the different types of online paid advertising: 

Google Ads

When you search for something on Google, the first few results and bottom results are usually paid advertisements. This is an effective way to get in front of people who are interested in the services or products you provide. In fact, Google Ads are seen by 90% of internet users. Google Ads will charge a per-click rate, which means that you pay for each person who clicks on your website. While the cost will vary depending on many factors, including how competitive your industry is. Once a customer clicks on your ad, they will be directed to the page you choose, such as your landing page, and you’ll have the chance to convert them.

Facebook Ads

Facebook Ads are another way to get your business in front of the eyes of a targeted audience who are already likely interested in your business based on factors like age, location, and profile information. Facebook also enables you to target users based on location, which can be helpful for local small businesses. When you set up Facebook Ads, you’ll be paying every time someone clicks on your ad. 

Influencer Marketing

You can reach out to influencers to ask them about promoting your product or service. Influencers will vary in how they work with brands, and established influencers will charge a fee to work with brands. However, the reach can yield significant results, especially when you connect with an influencer who is in your niche. You can also consider starting small and working with an influencer with a smaller reach who might have a lower fee.

Email Marketing and Building Relationships

Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to promote your business over the long term. While social media algorithms change constantly, and new social media platforms come and go, your email list is the one asset that you actually own. Being able to directly communicate with people who have actively said that they are interested in your offering will go a long way in promoting your business. Email marketing can help you maintain relationships with existing customers so that you aren’t paying each time to acquire new customers. 

Consistency is one of the most important parts of email marketing. When people receive regular communication from you, they start to develop trust in your business. 

Your email marketing strategy will depend on your business, but you’ll want to take the time to brainstorm and strategically plan how you can deliver value to your customers and potential customers on an ongoing basis. For example, a yoga store might want to share weekly yoga tips weekly. A jewelry company might decide to regularly feature products and offer discount codes to their email list. 

Implement a Mix of Free and Paid Strategies

As a business owner, you have countless tools at your disposal to advertise your business. Discovering the best ones for your business will likely take trial and error. The good news is that you don’t have to figure everything out from the start. Experiment with a mix of free and paid strategies and make improvements as you go.

About Leeron Hoory: Tech and Finance Specialist

Leeron, based in New York City, writes about technology and finance for top publications like Forbes Advisor, Quartz, and Popular Mechanics. With her expertise, Leeron simplifies complex subjects, guiding you through the latest trends and strategies to boost your business.

About Yoni Cohen

Yoni Cohen is a contributing writer and editor for BusinessHeroes.com. Yoni started out in journalism as a breaking news editor, but soon moved on to become a senior lifestyle and technology editor and has 15+ years of experience in creating content on topics that really matter to people.