Owning a business is not just simply owning one. You can’t just own it and run it without any confirmed strategies and techniques. There are several factors you need to consider and it is extremely important to ensure your business is continuously promoted to the public. Business owners always look for cost effective ways and ideas to do this. Business owners prefer to move beyond conventional practices. That said, if you own an online business you should always look for new and fresh ideas to let the public know what you have to offer. Here are 5 innovative ways to bring you more traffic:
Introduce it through Blogs and/or in Ezinearticles
Introducing yourself and your business to the other business owners is an effective method of promoting you and your business. Do not search and look for sites that compete with yours, instead look for Websites that complement your site. Email them and let them know about you, your site and your purpose. Ask them if they are interested in cross promoting your businesses.
If for instance they agree, you can introduce each other on your blogs, sites and article directories like ezines with helpful content. This method is far better than simply advertising because it adds a personal touch. That’s more important than you might first think.
Use Only Some Article Directories
When you write and submit your articles, you will enhance your position to increase search engine traffic. Don’t use software spun or duplicate articles, they don’t work with the search engines and they usually read really badly too. Make your articles original, stimulating and helpful in every case. If you have terrible writing skills, get someone to help from elance.com, guru.com or rentacoder.com – make sure they’re good and don’t just go for the cheapest.
A good place to start posting would be in article directories such as:
- Ezinearticles.com
- Goarticles.com
- Articlebase.com
- Buzzle.com
- Webpronews.com
- Articledashboard.com
These are established article directories where you can start searching for a complementary category to post to. You can also find articles are of high quality to give you ideas.
Compiling Article Portfolios
While article marketing is an effective method, compiling your articles in a convenient portfolio/report is a great way for publishers and webmasters to use them at a later date. You can group your articles in one large file and convert it into a PDF file. You can then provide links to your compiled portfolios in your resource boxes or email signatures for others to download. The portfolios or reports would have (of course) links back to your site.
Post them in forums or include them in your signatures in forums. You can also tweet it or post it in your Facebook page, etc. The 
possibilities are on-going and endless!
Ad Pool
Ads are also effective. Gather together a group of fellow bloggers and article publishers and discuss with them a plan of forming an ad pool. In an ad pool, each of the bloggers and publishers can place an ad and rotate the ads in your article directories, blog, websites, etc. Always be careful in selecting what types of ads you accept as they can affect your audience. Advertisement relevance is taken seriously by readers.
Swap Video Ads
Although swapping video ads is quite similar with ad swapping and link exchange, this method in effect is taking it one step ahead. By swapping video ads for your sites and blogs you can actually help bring each other opportunities and more business. Remember to always choose complementary businesses.
If you think about these points above you’ll find you’ll generate other related business ideas – good luck!
Ray Baker