n summary, what are you going to do? If you were attracted by the title of this article, you are not alone. The word “free” is powerful and intoxicating, if not misleading, most of the time. I wrote a book about effective Yellow Page advertising which I could have given away for free. But the shipping would have been twenty bucks. Get my point? In other words, there is no such thing as free anything; there’s always a catch.

If you have a great website, treat it with some respect and get a pay-per-click Google Adwords or SEO program together, to drive traffic to it. Spend the money

I would be shocked if you didn’t. Let me start by giving you the bad news. I am not going to offer you free anything, other than advice. I spend a few hours here and there on Yahoo Answers, where anyone can pose a question for anyone else to answer. If you wander over to the “business” category and dig deeper into the “website marketing” arena, one of the most common questions has to do with getting free advertising for someone’s website. It appears that, in most cases, the business or individual has built a website and has no money remaining for marketing. So they beg or plead for someone on YA to tell them how to get zillions of people to their site for nothing; nada, zilch, zero.

I’ve been in advertising for 35 years. The only free advertising are referrals via word of mouth. But technically, this is not organized advertising. It cannot be tracked, tested or controlled to any degree. Yet it is free, as long as it gets you business. But bad word of mouth where someone had a negative experience with the company, can be very costly. So it’s a double-edged sword.

With millions of websites to compete with, it’s amazing that very few of you want to invest anything back into your product. I guess you figured you have already spent enough on the site itself and now, by posting it on the web, the masses will come in droves. I equate it to opening a restaurant on a busy roadway. Everyone should pull off the highway and come straight in, right? Wrong! What if there are millions of other restaurants all offering similar menus? And the highway is loaded with billboards telling them all about the other restaurants. Why would they stop at yours? See my point?

I don’t care if you have the lowest prices and the best items on the planet. If the public has no information about your site, why would they search for it? I sold Yellow Page advertising for 25 years and during my client meetings, I spent a vast amount of time explaining the purpose of promotion and exposure. I would patiently describe how everyone from Coke to Ford to Microsoft paid enormous amounts to advertising agencies to get their message out into the general populous. It did not happen overnight and they did not whine and say they had no money left after buying the aluminum cans for the Coke or tires for the Fords. It was simply part of their budget.

Therefore, in summary, what are you going to do? If you were attracted by the title of this article, you are not alone. The word “free” is powerful and intoxicating, if not misleading, most of the time. I wrote a book about effective Yellow Page advertising which I could have given away for free. But the shipping would have been twenty bucks. Get my point? In other words, there is no such thing as free anything; there’s always a catch.

If you have a great website, treat it with some respect and get a pay-per-click Google Adwords or SEO program together, to drive traffic to it. Spend the money

e on YA to tell them how to get zillions of people to their site for nothing; nada, zilch, zero.

I’ve been in advertising for 35 years. The only free advertising are referrals via word of mouth. But technically, this is not organized advertising. It cannot be tracked, tested or controlled to any degree. Yet it is free, as long as it gets you business. But bad word of mouth where someone had a negative experience with the company, can be very costly. So it’s a double-edged sword.

With millions of websites to compete with, it’s amazing that very few of you want to invest anything back into your product. I guess you figured you have already spent enough on the site itself and now, by posting it on the web, the masses will come in droves. I equate it to opening a restaurant on a busy roadway. Everyone should pull off the highway and come straight in, right? Wrong! What if there are millions of other restaurants all offering similar menus? And the highway is loaded with billboards telling them all about the other restaurants. Why would they stop at yours? See my point?

I don’t care if you have the lowest prices and the best items on the planet. If the public has no information about your site, why would they search for it? I sold Yellow Page advertising for 25 years and during my client meetings, I spent a vast amount of time explaining the purpose of promotion and exposure. I would patiently describe how everyone from Coke to Ford to Microsoft paid enormous amounts to advertising agencies to get their message out into the general populous. It did not happen overnight and they did not whine and say they had no money left after buying the aluminum cans for the Coke or tires for the Fords. It was simply part of their budget.

Therefore, in summary, what are you going to do? If you were attracted by the title of this article, you are not alone. The word “free” is powerful and intoxicating, if not misleading, most of the time. I wrote a book about effective Yellow Page advertising which I could have given away for free. But the shipping would have been twenty bucks. Get my point? In other words, there is no such thing as free anything; there’s always a catch.

If you have a great website, treat it with some respect and get a pay-per-click Google Adwords or SEO program together, to drive traffic to it. Spend the money

g back into your product. I guess you figured you have already spent enough on the site itself and now, by posting it on the web, the masses will come in droves. I equate it to opening a restaurant on a busy roadway. Everyone should pull off the highway and come straight in, right? Wrong! What if there are millions of other restaurants all offering similar menus? And the highway is loaded with billboards telling them all about the other restaurants. Why would they stop at yours? See my point?

I don’t care if you have the lowest prices and the best items on the planet. If the public has no information about your site, why would they search for it? I sold Yellow Page advertising for 25 years and during my client meetings, I spent a vast amount of time explaining the purpose of promotion and exposure. I would patiently describe how everyone from Coke to Ford to Microsoft paid enormous amounts to advertising agencies to get their message out into the general populous. It did not happen overnight and they did not whine and say they had no money left after buying the aluminum cans for the Coke or tires for the Fords. It was simply part of their budget.

Therefore, in summary, what are you going to do? If you were attracted by the title of this article, you are not alone. The word “free” is powerful and intoxicating, if not misleading, most of the time. I wrote a book about effective Yellow Page advertising which I could have given away for free. But the shipping would have been twenty bucks. Get my point? In other words, there is no such thing as free anything; there’s always a catch.

If you have a great website, treat it with some respect and get a pay-per-click Google Adwords or SEO program together, to drive traffic to it. Spend the money

has no information about your site, why would they search for it? I sold Yellow Page advertising for 25 years and during my client meetings, I spent a vast amount of time explaining the purpose of promotion and exposure. I would patiently describe how everyone from Coke to Ford to Microsoft paid enormous amounts to advertising agencies to get their message out into the general populous. It did not happen overnight and they did not whine and say they had no money left after buying the aluminum cans for the Coke or tires for the Fords. It was simply part of their budget.

Therefore, in summary, what are you going to do? If you were attracted by the title of this article, you are not alone. The word “free” is powerful and intoxicating, if not misleading, most of the time. I wrote a book about effective Yellow Page advertising which I could have given away for free. But the shipping would have been twenty bucks. Get my point? In other words, there is no such thing as free anything; there’s always a catch.

If you have a great website, treat it with some respect and get a pay-per-click Google Adwords or SEO program together, to drive traffic to it. Spend the money

n summary, what are you going to do? If you were attracted by the title of this article, you are not alone. The word “free” is powerful and intoxicating, if not misleading, most of the time. I wrote a book about effective Yellow Page advertising which I could have given away for free. But the shipping would have been twenty bucks. Get my point? In other words, there is no such thing as free anything; there’s always a catch.

If you have a great website, treat it with some respect and get a pay-per-click Google Adwords or SEO program together, to drive traffic to it. Spend the money for promotion and become a true business person. Hopefully, down the road, you’ll be able to enjoy some free time because of it. And that’s the only “free” I can offer.