Waving for customers is useless, and having a tight budget for advertising your business will not be helping either. However, there is good news. You can use free advertising on Google if you have no room for advertising on your budget.
For instance, If you are working at a small business on a limited budget, it is impossible to shell out $350,000 for a 30 second TV commercial or $10,000 for Email marketing.
It gets frustrating when your budget dictates your business approach or how many customers can reach your business.
In this blog, we will illustrate in detail how to take advantage of free advertising on Google to promote local business.
These platforms are vital sources for small and local business owners who are just starting their business and have limited marketing spending.
Let’s look into it, shall we?
How to advertise your Local business.
- Using google my business to optimize local search results is one of the powerful free ways to advertise your business. Google my business helps local companies to manage their presence through google search and Google maps. This free advertising on google tools will help boost your local search ranking.
Ranking high on the google search result shows the legitimacy and relevance of your company. In this fast-paced world, people will choose your business over other competitors if you rank on the top of the search result. Convenience is the key!
- Checking out Yext. For more places, your business is listed online, and you will have better chances of showing up on the search results. It is the source of potential customers to find your location. If you want to ensure great local SEO, you need to make sure that the details of your listing on every Website and local directory aligns perfectly.
For instance, if your Website lists a new phone entry, but your search result on Yelp shows an old phone entry, it will hurt your SEO.
Yext searches the Website for every place that your business is listed to use that result to guarantee success for your business rankings.
- Attending networking mixers and events is a great way to meet potential consumers eager to discuss business ideas. This sort of networking event ensures that you will be completing high, experienced, and qualified leaders. They will be interested in your business and provide insightful ideas to help your business grow.
This is notably useful for smaller businesses who are looking to make connections, and networking is a chance to meet potential partners and help you find the opportunity to grow your business. Additionally, it will help you keep up-to-date on the current trends in the industry.
- Speaking at an association or a local event on a topic related to your industry is always an excellent way to showcase your expertise. Giving an enlightening and powerful speech to your audience will draw attention to you and your business. By default, this will increase your brand awareness and prove that your business is qualified to tackle any customer challenges.
First, such as provoking speech, different research ideas, and volunteering in various upcoming networking events. If you are nervous about being vocal in public, then there is nothing to worry about; you can enroll yourself in classes to be at the top of your game. The more you gain experience in such networking events, you will gain more ideas to talk about.
- Using brochures and Flyers is a traditional way to increase business visibility in offline districts where people spend an OK amount of their time. You create your own or use professionals to create the ideal flyer and brochures for your clientele, depending on your current industry.
Use this opportunity to hang eye-catching posters that will increase your business’s awareness by grabbing the attention of such people. When using such a medium, make sure you present a highly relevant message to the people gathering there.
- Using geo-targeted Facebook ads presents the best-targeted advertising capability than any other platform. Along with that, you will be able to advertise to groups of people that fit your criteria in a particular location.
Using geo-targeted Facebook campaigns, you will be building a local audience for your business in no time. Be sure that you are posting great content that will keep your audience engaged over time.
- Supporting your local community will have a positive impact on your business advertisement. Being active and helping out your community puts your name out to the local consumers and results in an immediate increase in sales. When people have a positive reception about your business, they will refer our name to others.
Sponsoring for a school or event, volunteering for an important cause, running a group that adds value to your community are great ways to increase business visibility and improve your brand image.
- If you have something exciting or noteworthy about your business, you can submit a press release to your local newspaper to increase your news spread. It usually does not cost anything, and it will get your business on the front end of the people than you will be able to reach otherwise.
- If you are looking for the best alternative for free advertising on Google, social media platforms are your best options, and they are free! You can use Facebook to post your informative blogs or thoughts and encourage your friends for a Q&A in the comments.
Additionally, you can use Instagram to offer how-to videos for your products and services and use LinkedIn to post leadership thoughts and connect with leaders in a similar business. You will get the right exposure in front of the right audience as you drive traffic for your business and build your credibility.
- Partnering with an Influencer can earn you free exposure to your targeted audience. Collaborating with a respected influencer will help you achieve free experience in the industry.
Ask your audience to try your new products or service and review your Website, blogs, or social media. Moreover, you can ask your audience to publish a guest post on their blogs or Website.
These sorts of opportunities require nothing more than your undivided attention and time. Along with providing free advertising for your business, it will also help you strengthen your network.
- Using social media giveaways and content creates excitement among your audience. It will get people talking who share the same interest. It is an excellent way for business promotion, and often people will tag friends that will expose your business further than you had anticipated.
Social media platforms are vital for business marketing strategies, and therefore it is essential to choose a platform that best suits your audience. You can post links, photos, videos, and texts about your business, product and services, and any other promotions you would like to share.
Most social media stages offer a way to share videos, photos, and text to share with a large user base or to a regular base audience if you are starting.
- Encouraging user-generated content will get you double the publicity as this sort of content results in a lot of sharing. It further increases your business’s reach, and the followers will share your content on their accounts.
Therefore, you will reach your intended audience and get a lot of free advertising along the way.
- Investing in direct mail campaigns, you will be confident to know that your target audience is receiving the right promotion in your area. Using direct mail campaigns will increase the number of impressions you make on your audience and raise your brand awareness.
By using free advertising on google tactics on your direct mailing strategy, you will be removing unessential cost and dedicate that budget for long term investment.
How to get free advertising on Google?
Writing a guest post for other blogs.
There are some significant advantages of writing guest posts for other blogs. First of all, it will get you free advertising on google search rankings with the additional benefit of connecting with the blog’s audience. Along with that, you will be establishing yourself as a leader in your industry.
Since guest posting has become so popular, it allows you to access an already established audience and high domain authority. This practice is more beneficial than posting on your blog.
You can always link blogs back to your Website with an inbound link that will increase your domain authority and increase the search rankings of your Website.
Answering Quora questions
With a worldwide audience of 300 million monthly visitors, writing answers for quora will expose your business to a broad audience.
Besides connecting with a broad audience, your business can answer direct answers for prospective customers. That way, you will connect with potential customers and high-potential leads that will help you establish you as a market eminence in your industry.
Publishing content on LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the platform to connect with potential customers and industry experts to share business-related content. Using this opportunity, you can demonstrate your expertise in the industry.
Your engagement with other professionals and LinkedIn members is free promotion for your business. LinkedIn brings half of the social media traffic from B2B industries; therefore, it will be a missed opportunity if you do not publish and promote LinkedIn content.
Offer Interviews on other Business Podcast
It is essential to know which platform to prioritize and diversify your promotion to understand your audience. Some of the audience may prefer listening to podcasts compared to reading articles or watching videos. To reach such a diverse audience, you need to experiment and contact the business with podcast access to pitch interview ideas to get your potential customers.
Create Videos for YouTube
YouTube has more than two billion users, creating engaging and informative youtube content is one of the most effective ways to sell your brand. If you do this right, not only will you be entertaining viewers, you will be creating a potential customer based audience for your business.
Recent research revealed that 85 percent of the viewers are convinced to buy a business after watching a youtube video. Moreover, satisfied customers have reported sharing videos with their friends than any other media type.
If you consider making a name for your brand and growing your potential customer base, start making informative and shareable YouTube videos.
Experiment with Videos and Photo platforms
While Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, and LinkedIn are great platforms to start with, expanding to platforms such as Instagram or Pinterest will provide more opportunities to show product shots of your business and services.
You can share awareness with your products’ images on most social media platforms, such as Facebook, that allow live video features to create promotional content for your audiences. It is a fantastic outlet to upload tutorials on how to use your products.
You can share your videos and photos, increase their shareability by hashtagging them, and create exciting captions to encourage your audiences to react to actions such as likes or comments.
Encourage the audience to leave online reviews.
Word-of-mouth is still today one of the best ways to market your business. Consumers trust others’ opinions, especially if there are many testimonials about the product.
If you have happy and satisfied consumers, try encouraging them to leave a review on your Website, Google, Facebook, or Yelp. If you want great reviews for your business on Facebook, create a Facebook business page if you do not have one.
How to get free advertising on Google for your Local business
If you are looking to get advertising on Google for your business and rank higher on search rankings, here is how you should do it,
Create Google my business account
Like we have mentioned before, you need to create a Gmail account for your business. After that, you need to register for Google my business with that account.
Google will ask for your business name and your delivery area. In this section, you can determine the mileage and space for your target audience.
Optimizing your Business page
After you have successfully set up your Google my business account, you will fill your profile. As you proceed to do it, you need to supply certain information required by Google for the best search optimization.
Some of the few things that include,
- Your business address.
- Phone number, your email address, and other relevant contact information.
- Your Website.
- Photos of your business and services.
- Specific information on what your business offers.
- Pricing and Menu information.
- The year your company was open or established.
- Other business characteristics.
The above things are some the local audience might look for specifically, and based on this information. Google will examine the details from your business profile and prioritize your business listing on the search ranking.
Verify and monitor Business page
Once you have made your google my business page account, verify your listing so that google knows your business is real and legitimate. There are few ways to do so, including email, postcard, and phone verification.
You can also download google my business application for your mobile to monitor how your business is doing.
Publish useful content
One of the compelling ways to get free advertising on Google is by writing helpful content. By publishing blog posts and website pages consistently to answer common questions for your customers, you can help your business page rank higher in the search results.
These will help you get in front of the people who do not know you yet, and the more information you supply to the potential consumers, they will trust you more and likely to choose you over other similar companies when they need a product or a service.
When they benefit from your business, they will develop trust and respect for your business and eventually become full-time customers.
Mention unique attributes in reviews
If your business has unique attributes that are worth sharing, make sure to mention it. For instance, if a customer is searching for patio seating, and your company has it, google will show reviews of places saying patio seating. That way, your business will display on top of the search results.
You can use this attribute to publicize your business and have free advertising on Google in the process.
Perform Local SEO
Local SEO is your best and exact route to get free advertising on google. Using location-based keywords in the right places on your Website, your business will show on top of the organic search results. It includes products, services, and business locations.
These tactics are simple and easy to work with using processes such as blogging, web design, and others.
Do not let the advertising budget run your business. Start using these strategies to expand your business the way you want.
Therefore, if you are looking to grow your business and increase its presence, you need to use such advertising strategies to accomplish your objective. It is particularly useful if you do not have a large advertising budget and want to get the most done indefinitely.
Do not wait any longer; just dive right in and start making your business presence known to the people around you.