Whats are the best ways to Advertise for FREE?

[jonathanfigaro]

Any free advertising i should be using and abusing to promote my business?

[mxr808]

Youtube, Social Networking Sites, Forums, Word of Mouth. People underestimate these.

[Ergo1]

Depending on what you are trying to do you can get some really good targeted traffic from online classifieds like craigslist.

[MH-Andy]

Try to look for forums dedicated to what you are trying to sell

[inexorable]

"using and abusing", haha...
Use online directories in general.

[dfveteran]

Here are a bunch or free ways you can advertise that we pro's are using right now. We wrote a blog post about it here; Marketing your Home Business Website is Key | HPG Inc's Home Business Blog
Combine them all to get a better result.

Let us know if you have any questions.

[andrewlm]

Forums, social networking sites, bookmarking can boost traffic to your business. Yu can also list your business in online business directory, which helps customers to find your business easily.

[hasochev]

Deffinatly You-Tube

[BBlackwood]

As a long-time advertising guy I can say that the best way to advertise for free is... to speak. Crafting a 20 minute speech that presents you as an expert on matters of your business category is a very smart investment. You can use it and reuse it, volunteering to be a guest speaker at clubs, organization and industry groups.

[Chris Brooks]

I agree with all of the posts especially BBlackwood's. If you go with youtube I would suggest using tube mogul to upload your videos. Tubemogul uploads all of your videos to the most popular video sites, including youtube and viddler, and gives you all the stats you'll need to make sure it is worth your while.

[JerryGertes]

There are endless ways to market for free. There's some good advice here already. Utilize all the social networking sites you can access (twitter, youtube, forums, myspace, facebook, etc.) and provide people with value. My 2 favorite free marketing strategies are video marketing and article marketing, both get very high exposure and good placements in the search engines with the right keywords.

[Capital Typing]

I think that the power of social networking sites are grossly underestimated, people forget how "tech savvy" the younger generations are becoming, with so much communication done online. Facebook, youtube, myspace, even photobucket, all great ways of advertising and getting your name out there.

[Warranties-For-Less]

Any free advertising i should be using and abusing to promote my business?

Good question,

One that everyone is seeking, but with so many different types of businesses, as well as all the free classified sites, forums, blogging, etc, it is not as easy as it sounds to answer your question.

It takes a lot of research to learn what free medium is best for your business category. What you need to do is search for similar businesses using same keywords and see where they are advertising and copy them. You will save a ton of time and effort by focusing and targeting what others have found that works.

You must start with your own url, and each business you promote must be targeted to that url, so use a keyword in your url to enable you to get on search engines using standard SEO strategies. Once you have these strategies completed, then you can effectively promote on all the free mediums which will enable your site to get hits and move up the search engines. It takes time, so don't expect miracles overnight. I have hundreds of urls I promote, and in most cases can get to top of Google in a month or less, so this is the strategy I have used, and I still post on free classifieds and forums to keep my sites current.

Success to all,

[J.Counce]

Wow, such wonderful advise!
Here are a few more ideas that come to mind...

meetup dot com. You can find free meetings to network at in your area.

Events are great resource. Find events in your area that target your ideal market and attend them all with lots of cards.

Friends and family. Contact everyone you know and let them know what you are doing (give them your elevator pitch) and what type of clients you are looking for. Ask each of them to refer 3 people to you. You'll be amazed.

[himalayan]

Social networking & social bookmarking are good source of advertising your business and generating more traffic on the website.