Four Ways to Get Local Website Traffic on a Shoestring Budget By Tom Swanson If you've recently launched an online presence, it's important to make your customers aware of it so you can get site visitors (traffic), reinforce your brand, and sell your products or services. Building and hosting your website on the Internet is just the first step. After you do this, you'll need to build strong awareness – if you want customers, that is. "Traditional" advertising and marketing media like magazines, newspapers, television, radio, direct mail, and yellow pages aren't very effective ways to promote your website.  It's possible to use them for website promotion, but you won't see a significant return on investment (ROI).  Conversely, Internet advertising avenues like animated banners, interstitials (pop-ups, pop-unders, etc.), sponsor logos, advertorials, email marketing, and pay-per-click advertising tactics are very effective and are growing rapidly in popularity. Though most Internet advertising media are substantially more cost-effective than traditional media, businesses that are just starting out or that are on a tight budget have to look into other alternatives. This situation begs the question, "How can I launch a successful marketing campaign on a shoestring budget?"  You can still get the word out about your website and reinforce your company name in an effective manner without breaking the bank.  With a little creativity and ingenuity, you can increase your website traffic quite cost-effectively.  Resourcefulness goes a long way in the customer's eye and is often more memorable than traditional, more costly avenues. Here are four inexpensive promotion ideas that you can use to drive traffic to your website: 1. Update Marketing Collateral The simplest way to increase awareness about your website is by adding the site's address to every bit of your existing marketing collateral, including brochures, flyers, menus, business cards, forms, and other client hand-outs. Also, be sure to add the website address to each employee's email signature. 2. Start a Geo-Targeted Search-Engine or Banner Advertising Campaign Some search-engines offer "pay-per-click" advertising for as low as ten cents per click. Pay-per-click advertising is when you, as an advertiser, pay an agreed-upon price each time an Internet user clicks on your website address from a search engine's results pages.  The largest search engine advertising programs are Yahoo! Search Marketing and Google AdWords. However, second-tier search engines like Kanoodle and Lycos typically charge less than more popular engines but still provide viable ways to drive traffic to your site.  You can set up and manage this type of advertising yourself or you can contact an Internet-marketing company to find out what they can do for you.  Usually you'll have to go through a broker to be able to put together a banner advertising campaign, however.  FastClick is a popular advertising broker, as they have an extensive network of sites that they can advertise on.  No matter which of these media you decide to utilize, you can geo-target your campaigns so that your traffic is only coming from your region.  You can even specify where you want your traffic to come from by dictating a search's geographic parameters, like specifying a radius in miles from a certain point, a particular city, or even certain zip codes.  3. Gather Reciprocal Links Another simple way to garner traffic to your site without coughing up a ton of cash is contacting businesses that are non-competing, but that also offer services to your customer demographic.  These types of "alliance" relationships match website designers with hosting providers, insurance carriers with realtors, car dealers with banks, book stores with coffee shops, and so on. If you find a business that is similar to yours and you like their website, send them an email or give them a call and let them know you'd like to take advantage of your common audience by posting their business' website link on your website if they'll do the same for you in return.  You can do this by yourself, or you can submit your web site to services like Monster Link Swap or Link Exchanged if you would rather bypass contacting every individual website one by one.   4. Utilize Online Local Directories & Search Engines One of the easiest ways to get traffic to your local business website is to list your business in local online directories like SuperPages, as well as the local component of search engines, like Yahoo! Local and Google Local.  More and more, consumers are using the Internet to search for local goods and services.  If your business is not listed where consumers that are actively looking to buy are searching, you'll pay a price.  You cannot afford to miss out on this phenomenon!  It's imperative that you make sure your business is listed in these local directories and search engines.  With new features of local search, not only can you get your business listed, but you can start a grassroots viral-marketing (word-of-mouth) campaign by asking people to post feedback about your business via rating features. And, while it's important to be listed with the big boys, don't forget about other geographic business directories that may be available on your state or local Chamber of Commerce website. These directories develop targeted, online visibility and direct inbound traffic to your website and offline store. Use your imagination to stretch your promotional budget when you're strategizing about ways to drive traffic to your website. Don't be afraid to learn something new or do it yourself. Small and mid-sized business owners are making remarkable strides with online advertising, and you can too. So start getting the word out and watch local traffic start clicking in. Author: Tom Swanson Web Site: www.lowhangingfruit.com Email: tom@itimeinc.com Phone: 563-323-4609 Tom Swanson's experience in sales, marketing, copywriting, and multi-media advertising have given him incredible insight into the world of marketing both online and off.  His articles feature simple explanations and ideas that business owners can use to realize their marketing and business-growth goals.  © 2005 Low-Hanging Fruit