Free Small Business Advertising Online Guide

Every business advertises in some way or another. The best advertising is free advertising and can be as simple as word of mouth. My goal in this article is to share free (or cheap) advertising method. I will focus on methods that can at least be initiated online or by email.

As you read this, I ask 3 things.

First, if this helps you, please let me know. You can give me a thumbs up at the bottom, leave a comment, or become a fan (I like fans). You can even request an article for me to research and write.

Second, share your ideas. Virtually every city has free classified newspaper. I want to know what yours is in your town. Please leave me a comment telling me the name of the paper and city and the website address if you know it. If there is any information you think is important leave that too. I will take this information and put it into the article so this can become a growing source of free advertising ideas.

Lastly, tell your friends about this article and ask them to help build our listing. Click on the share link right before the comments section to email to a friend. You can also recommend this page to sites like Digg and Stumbleupon which will help get more contributors. Let's think of this as an experiment to see how many sources of free (or cheap) advertising we can put together. You send the names and I will update the article!

Thanks in advance for helping the effort. Now, let's get started!

There are tons of sites on the internet that allow you to place classified ads for free. The question that needs to be answered is whether anybody actually sees the ads and what kind of competition your ad will have.

A site that has 25,000+ classified ads probably gets some results, but you will have some stiff competition.

A site that has 100 increases the chances your ad will be seen once a visitor looks there, but there probalby aren't a lot of people looking there otherwise there would be more advertisments.

This is where I need your help. If you have used one of these websites, let me know what your results were. If you have a good site I haven't listed yet, let me know so I can ad it. Just leave me the information in the comments.

• I have to start with the big one, Craigslist.org. I don't know if they are the original, but they are currently the best. They are ranked #45 worldwide for traffic. That equates to about 4 billion page views per day. Many, many people look here when they want to buy. Your ad is set up for 1 specific area so you can really focus in on your intended targeted market.
• www.usfreeads.com is a free classified ads site that has been on the internet since 1999. There is quite a bit of traffic, around 12 million page views per day, and it is all looking at classified ads. You can select to show to local markets or everybody. You can advertise for free, but are limited on what you can do. You can upgrade to Gold for $10 a year or Platinum for $9.99 per month. The more you pay, the more services you have access to.
• www.Topix.net is an online newspaper that has local ads for almost any area in the US. It gets a lot of traffic, around 12 million page views per day, but most of that focuses on the news stories. The ads are free so you really have nothing to lose.

Almost every city in the United States has a free classified ads newspaper in circulation. I have seen these papers be treated like the release of a Harry Potter book as people scramble to find the great bargains that will be offered up this week. Many times personal ads are free, but business ads have a cost. Even when you have to pay, the cost is usually much cheaper than the normal circulation newspaper.

This is where I really need your help. Please let me know what your local free classified ad newspaper is. Just leave it in the comments and include the city and state, a web address if you know it, and any comments from your experiences. I will then pull the comments into the article and create THE definitive advetising guide!

• The East Texas Peddler covers most of east Texas. There are many local varieties, but the Lufkin/Nacogdoches version is put online and ads can be submitted from the internet. It will cost about $10 per week or $20 for 3 weeks for a normal classified ad. I have used this to advertise as an Ambit Energy Consultant and get about 1 sign up per week. Not too bad since I will get a commission every month when they pay their electric bill.
• American Classifieds is a Houston, Texas classified ads paper. This one isn't free, but for $10 a week, this could be a very good option for advertising not only in the Houston area, but across the country because you can access many different cities at their website, www.tnol.com.