Self Promotion is vital for anyone who wants to make an online living. Those who promote themselves regularly bring in more customers and they get more buyers as well.
Why? Because today’s savvy shopper will probably check you out before they buy your product.
If your name is part of your brand, you want to promote it regularly so that people find plenty of good stuff when they research you. There are many different ways to promote yourself online. Here are a few ideas that you might not already be using:
Press Releases
A press release can go viral and make something happening in your business seem newsworthy. When writing a press release, you need something interesting to talk about. A product release, a new website, or a promotion / contest can be perfect reasons to do so.
You’ll find plenty of places to submit your press release for free or for a fee. Your press release will drive traffic to your website through your links both from a human traffic and from a SEO perspective and when people investigate you, they may come across your press release, which increases your perceived credibility.
Forum Posting
Finding a great niche forum and becoming an authority on a subject is a great idea. If you’re a helpful forum poster, people in the forum may want to learn more about you and search engines index every post you write. If you participate on a high page rank forum that allows links in the signature, you can create a large amount of links pointing to your website.
Directories
Listing your business in online business directories is a great way to increase your online exposure. You’ll be found by people and search engines that visit that directory and you’ll build credibility for yourself as well when someone investigates you as many directories are highly indexed.
Videos
Helpful online video tutorials or seminars can be a great form of Self Promotion. If you make helpful videos that teach people, you’ll become known as a mentor. You can advertise your main website url on your video and place videos both on your website or blog as well as on video sharing sites.
People who watch you on video can be more compelled to buy from you because you can connect with many people this way in a more direct way than through copywriting alone.
Giveaways
Contests with giveaways can be a great way to get subscribers to mailing lists and build your reputation online. You can get people promoting for you as well, especially if you make promotion of your website part of the contest guidelines.
Microblogging
Are you tweeting yet? There are actually a bunch of microblogging tools available. By updating your status line with links to things such as: press releases, articles, a forum you participate on, and other sites that you use for self promotion, you’re increasing the exposure of those efforts.
Self Promotion should be on your to do list each and every week when you are working online. Spending just a few minutes a day at it could net you some fabulous results.
See you at the top of Google!
Sean Rasmussen
SEO Australia Pacific
AussieSEO.com © 2007 - 2010
Hi Sean,
I know that self promotion is a vital part of being successful. I think you need to be conscious of how your present yourself online and build a presence that matches your intentions.
Everything you do online is there for everyone to see. I just think the best self promotion is to be yourself consistently as people will get to know you over time. I think that even if they’re not interacting with you, people are watching to see what you say and do and building an impression of you in their mind.
.-= Jazz Salinger´s last blog ..Learn and Earn Competition – This is It =-.
Hi Sean
Thankyou for this information on self promotion. It is something I need to be including in my marketing plan (just wrote it on my whiteboard).
I really like the idea of participating in a niche forum and getting my details into an online business directory.
Of course there has to be a fun element so giveaways and competitions get a big tick. Online videos also appeal to me as I like to learn this way. It is a monkey see monkey do approach because I can watch those videos over and over if I need to. I am a more practical hands on learner and videos are excellent visual learning aids.
.-= Elly Wilson´s last blog .. =-.
To date I have used forum postings, directories, videos and microblogging to promote myself as well as Grateful We’re Not Dead. It is amazing the amount of traffic you can generate to your blogs and web sites utilizing these techniques.
Remember, however, with regard to online self promotion, inappropriate things that you may have said online in the past before attempting to become an Internet Marketer may come back to haunt you. How many politicians have found this to be true.
.-= Don White´s last blog ..Psycho- =-.
Hello Sean,
I guess with self promotion its a fine line not to go over board, and look too in your face situation!!
With Self Promotion Tips for online business/websites/blogs it is all about giving and receiving. I prefer to give….give my time and give any advice that I feel could help another person (maybe the Mum is coming out in me!!!) – actually I can Promote another persons business online better than I promote my own!!!
The Forum Posting is a really good idea, with a signature at each post that links back to our own sites. That way I am self promoting without being loud
Once again I gathered more useful information.
Cheers
Lisa
.-= lisa wood´s last blog ..Follow Your Heart =-.
Hi Sean,
I had not thought about or given any importance to promoting myself online. I related to Lisa’s comment, I enjoy helping other people achieve goals rather than thinking about promoting myself.
I now realize thanks to this article, that it’s beneficial for me to start think about self promotion online. After all I want to be recognized as a trusted Affiliate Internet Marketer so I need to put the work in to achieve this outcome.
.-= Jill Brown´s last blog ..Couples Marry at Common Law =-.
Hi Sean,
We all have to do some self promotion if we want to succeed online. However I think people are watching everything we do and forming opinions of us by the way we conduct ourselves on the various social networking sites.
I think it’s a very passive form of self promotion. Maybe it’s not like this, but I know that I read stuff that other people put out and I form opinions of them based on what they share. Does anyone else do this?
.-= Jazz Salinger´s last blog ..Finding Your Passion =-.
Theres a few things in this post I am able to implement to self promote online such as listing my business in online business directories and creating contests and free giveaways. To become a regular on a relevant forum is something I will be working on to create an online presence.
.-= Jackie Stenhouse´s last blog ..Anxiety Separation in Children =-.