When starting up a new business, you need to think about what kind of marketing is going to give you the best return. This can start to get expensive, especially if you are a startup business. Using some of these free marketing tools, it will help improve your business awareness.

Online listings:

These are great to get your business seen by companies all over the world but works just like the old yellow pages to get you seen by local companies. Here is just some of the good listing to use, Yell, Scoot, Free Index, Free ads, My local services and Applegate. These listing will also allow you to have links to your website which will help get your website seen on search engine results on Google, Yahoo and Bing.

You can also get free listing for your business on Google and Bing Places for Business

Social media:

There are some great social media tricks to help get your business seen by hundreds/thousands of people. Social media is also great for word of mouth, I have always been told word of mouth and referrals are still the best form of marketing and it is so true. People will always feel more comfortable to use a company if they know someone, who they trust, who trusts you! The key social media avenues are Facebook, Twitter, Google + and LinkedIn.

If your business does not have pages on theses social media sites, make it happen quick. You want to try and get as many people and companies following you as possible. This will help when you have any offer or interesting news. You can tell the correct people easily; this will make life a lot easier for yourself to generate sales opportunities.

Forums:

Having a forum is a great way to show to other that you know what you are talking about in business. With so much competition out there, you need to show why companies should choose you. It also helps you get seen by others through search engine searches.  Here is a quick link to show you the best way to make a blog. http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/writing-a-good-blog.html

Affiliates:

Do you have friends that owns websites? If so talk to them and see if they will allow you to add links to your website on their website, they can do the same on yours. As long as you’re not in competition with them this is a great way to get your company seen. Try your local business as well and see what companies get good traffic to their website. To check websites traffic to their website use this link. www.urlspy.com

If you have any other great free online marketing tips, it would be good to hear them?