10 Ways to Promote your Local Business for Free

Local businesses often run on tight budgets and hence don’t wish to invest much money on Internet marketing and advertising. But little do they realize that a lot of valuable business is lost by not creating an effective online presence. Successful Internet marketing does not require a lot of money, and businesses can promote themselves with the use of a variety of free tools and creative marketing strategies.

Here are 10 free ways to promote your business locally.

1. Use Google Local/ Google Base/Google Coupons: Creating an account with Google Local will help you get a map listing for your business name and city. Similarly, Google has a free coupon tool that puts your coupon on relevant local searches. Google Base on the other hand helps gain preferential placement for those uploading their business or special event by trying to give the most appropriate answer from different data sources.
2. Create a Lens at Squidoo: Creating a lens at Squidoo will allow you to provide detailed information to your customers about your various products and services.
3. Submit Press Releases: Press releases submitted to PRLeap.com or PRWeb can provide your local business with the much needed promotion it needs. Be sure to localize your Press Release to a ZIP Code or City.
4. Get Listed in YellowPages.com: Getting listed in YellowPages.com will increase your online presence since they have a strong brand name and are still used by many people. They provide a few levels of basic listings which are free.
5. Register with Yahoo Local: The basic listing in Yahoo Local is free. By submitting to the Yahoo local, which is a directory organized by category and geographic location, you can drive quality leads to your website.
6. Ask for Reviews: Yahoo Local lists businesses with higher ratings as preferential listings. So don’t forget to ask your customers to write reviews for you on Yahoo Local.
7. Connect with LinkedIn: Joining LinkedIn will help you connect with people you know and make connections with people you don’t through introductions.
8. Use Free Directory Advertising: Give free directory advertising a chance. Just go to BOTW.org and sign up for a 60 day free advertising listing.
9. Utilize Free Blog Promotion Tools: Using free blog promotion tools like technorati and mybloglog can help you gain exposure, visitors, readers, and subscribers to your blog which in turn will lead to more traffic to your site.
10. Syndicate your Content: Article distribution syndications like ezinearticles, isnare, and ideamarketers help in gaining brand recognition and driving quality traffic to your site.