Advertising Your Business Online Without a Website
May 8, 2008 – 3:25 am
Many business owners that do traditional brick and mortar transactions have yet to tap into the Internet consumer and business market due to the belief that you need a website. Nothing could be further than the truth and as a WikiAnswer supervisor I have answered many questions about marketing and not one offline business asks about how to advertise online without a website. It surprises me really knowing of the substantial reach and earning potential that a business can achieve online.
FREE Online Listings
Not only can a brick and mortar business actually advertise online, but they can increase their exposure free of charge as well. Yahoo and Google both have a local listings page that a business can list for free. When searchers want to search for local businesses for goods and services the savvy use these local searches and as a matter of fact, some of these listings appear in the normal search functions as well with related keyword searches.
When adding your business be sure to add at least 5 instances of a keyword for your industry in your description, but make sure to spread them out and not cram them into one paragraph. This can be seen as spamming and cause a not so favorable ranking for your listing.
Paid Advertising
There is a company named Ingenio that offers PPC (pay per call) advertising. This company was recently acquired by AT&T and offers an excellent opportunity for local business advertising as well as nationwide advertising. Through their network of local directory sites which has millions of viewers each month they place an advertisement for your business. The ads look a lot like Google AdWords however these ads do not get clicked on. Instead of the advertisement being clicked on, a toll free number is advertised. When someone calls that number it redirects to your business number. The toll free number is used to track reader response and you pay only for calls generated through the advertising.
The service works on a bidding system that starts at $2.00 a call so you will want to try to get in on your specific industry locally before your competitors do. The more competitors there are, the more per call you will pay to get listed. To date it only costs $25.00 to get started so you can test how well this service works for your business with very little start up capital.
If you have any resources you know of that work well for businesses without websites ONLINE feel free to comment this blog!
2 Responses to “Advertising Your Business Online Without a Website”
Make a website then!
By Craig Bezares on May 9, 2008
Hello Craig. Yes, making a website is always an excellent option but for some businesses the quick turnaround the Internet provides for advertising makes this a realistic option for those without a website yet.
By TopSavingsNet on May 15, 2008