"Marketing an online business for less"

Marketing an online business can get really expensive. If you are like most people, just starting an online business, you may find your bank account and your credit cards maxed. That is unless you learn how to market you business using free techniques and some cheap ones.

There exist many techniques to market your business but not all methods deliver the same results. Because every business is different you can start promoting your business using the free or cheap methods before you spend all your money in something that is not right for your business.

Here are three tips for marketing an online business for a little or almost no cost. Some will work faster than the others and some will take longer to show results. Your homework consists on finding which is the right technique for your business as well the pro and cons of each technique.

First tip about marketing an online business:

Posting free ads in web sites. Yes you will find a lot of these web sites where you can post your web site ad or link. How does it work? You have 40 characters with two lines and you must use keywords to set it up and make it work. When you apply this technique always make sure to be in the right category. For example, if you are promoting your sports web site don't post in the cooking category make sure to post on the sport category. Always use alexa.com to check what amount of traffic that site is receiving.

Pros: good quality visitors.

Con: you won't receive a lot of traffic.

Marketing tip number two:

Forums are online communities that hold discussions about a specific topic. You will find a discussion about any topic you can think of. Where can you find a forum? Just go to google or yahoo and type your keyword plus the word forums and you will find plenty of them on the results page. They are usually for free. Another good source that you can use is yahoo answers. Let me mention that you have to use your signature on every question your answer and on your signature you can include a link to your site.

Pro: high quality of traffic and you build credibility.

Con: always check their guidelines because if you don't follow the rules you can be market as a spam. Keep in mind that it takes a lot of time to be answering your questions.

Marketing An Online Business Tip Number Three:

With a short list of emails you can make a good amount of money. After you have built up your opt-in list you can send them a monthly newsletter with a specific offer plus something for free. You might offer a free report or an e-book. It always takes up to seven contact for a prospect to buy.

PRO: Permits you to contact interested prospects again. Helps you build relationships with future prospects.

CON: you need a lot of effort in order to provide quality information on a given date. It doesn't attract new visitors.

Each marketing strategy listed above is proven to work. It will depend on what your business is about, the time and effort you can spend marketing, and the unique content you can provide to your audience. Whether you use one of these methods at a time or all three you will be creating a solid marketing foundation for your business.