Jay Berkowitz 
As many businesses are finding out the hard way, discussions about whether we are in a recession or not doesn’t impact the hard fact that we are clearly in economic down times. Many business owners, particularly small business owners, have begun reaching out for free tools and ideas for marketing on the Internet. That’s why the team at TGR has created a list of “Ten Free or Low Cost Ways to Use the Internet to Help Your Business in Down Times.” These Internet marketing ideas, tools and technologies are immediately available online to maximize your website traffic and help businesses weather the current tough economic climate.
1. Companies can maximize web site traffic by using Free Search Engine Optimization techniques. Generating additional search engine traffic results from two things, using the right words on your website and creating links TO the site. Step 1; adding words to your website. Search engines read words that are on your site, and when someone searches those words, you must have them on your site. The easiest way to accomplish this is to write many articles about your industry. Free tip – you can find the word phrases that people search most frequently through a free trial at Wordtracker.com. Step 2; Build links to your site. When another site links to your site, that is giving your site more importance and credibility which can move your site closer to Google’s first page. Ask to get links from industry associations and your local Chamber of Commerce.
2. Create a FREE Offer on your site to get leads. A free brochure, a free eNewsletter, a free white paper, or a free industry rate calculator will attract people to sign up and when they do you can ask them for permission to send a free eNewsletter or more special offers in the future.
3. Measure the cost to acquire a lead and a sale. You now have the ability to measure your Internet marketing promotion and advertising efforts using a FREE product from Google called Google Analytics. This tool enables you to see details about your visitor and learn more about them and where to spend your advertising dollar.
4. Intelligence Tools such as Spyfu.com and Compete.com. These websites offer free products that can show you where your competitors are advertising on the internet and how much they are spending.
5. Take advantage of FREE Internet products like Google Optimizer to improve conversion on your web site. Optimizer allows you to test different offers, different prices and different designs on a web page to determine which is the most effective and could maximize your website traffic.
6. Generate greater awareness for your business or product by using Free or low cost Internet Press Releases. Another Internet marketing idea is to use free press release options include PR.com and Click Press.com. Tip - we recommend PRWeb.com, for just $80 your press release will have an excellent chance to get picked up in search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN.
7. Develop an eNewsletter. eNewsletters are a staple of effective online communications. A FREE eNewsletter is a great reason for people to sign up with you and become a lead on your website and then you have permission to send them great articles about your industry, profile your expertise, and provide case studies and client testimonials. It allows you to stay top of mind with current customers and prospects and gives them a ‘send-to-a-friend’ feature to forward your information. Tip – make sure you add the articles to your website so the words in the articles get picked up by the search engines!
8. Create a virtual internet sales force using Affiliate Marketing. Affiliates are marketers who will send traffic to your website in exchange for fee for leads or percentage of the value of a sale. Some Affiliate networks we work with are Commission Junction, Linkshare, Share-A-Sale. Tip - Determine how much it costs you to get a sale and offer the affiliates slightly less. Affiliate marketing is very direct - you only pay for a lead or a sale.
9. Build your company’s position on high traffic Social Media sites like Facebook and LinkedIn. Another way to maximize your website traffic is to link from social media sites to your company’s website. Both sites just started allowing company pages and it is a good way to build presence and links for a website.
10. Cut out the middle man by selling direct at eBay, Amazon and Yahoo stores. Many businesses are developing a whole new branch of their business by selling direct to the consumer through online stores. Many companies have started to refocus their internet marketing promotions and advertising efforts and began utilizing trusted name website to sell products. While you do pay a fee to the website, they have built in traffic and they offer easy to use tools to build virtual stores with eCommerce functionality.
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Jay Berkowitz, CEO Ten Golden Rules, is a small business internet consultant with more than 20 years of marketing experience. He has been behind the marketing for Fortune 500 brands: McDonald's and Coca-Cola, developed online and offline strategies for AT&T, Sprint, and managed the marketing department for leading health and fitness website eDiets.com.Mr. Berkowitz is the CEO of Ten Golden Rules, a B2B internet marketing agency based in Boca Raton, Florida, specializing in internet advertising and marketing consulting services.
http://tengoldenrules.com/Host.htm
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