I am starting my own business. Could you guys please advise me where should i put my ads to (preferable free place).
Thank you in advance.

Hi There, There is no simple answer to your question. It really depends on what you are selling and who your target market is!

Local advertising usually works out well for most people, adverts in the local press on the radio etc. If your looking at Internet marketing then schemes like Google Adwords is probably a good place to start.

Regards.

There are hundreds of free business directories on the net. Has anyone had success with any of them?

There are hundreds of free business directories on the net. Has anyone had success with any of them?

There usually saturated with people advertising the same kind of services unless you find a little niche which you can work with.

google has the best ROI but its not cheap, craigslist.org is another good one and its free. that also gets spidered by google as well.

There usually saturated with people advertising the same kind of services unless you find a little niche which you can work with.

I get 2-3 emails a month asking me to place my business in their directory. They offer free listing and they make their money from AdSense. I doubt if anyone actually goes to their site to search a business unless they are reputed like Super Pages.

If you have some money for advertising then I would go with google, but be careful with the setup, since it can be a bit pitty to setup the correct search terms in a way that you only get the relevant visitors.

I would recommend adwords as a good place to start if it meets your budget or investment factor. I would recommend directories as from my personal experience, it doesn't contribute or account much to the visitors' rates to your site.

Web directories can help for SEO, not for bringing human visitors to your site.
There is no free lunch in this world, especially when it comes to web hosting. The industry is very competitive and even with proper SEO it is difficult to rank high unless you focus on a specific niche. The problem is, even niches are becoming saturated. So you will have to consider paying for advertising if you want to start growing. You can go with Adwords or starting an affiliate program.

Keep in mind for Adwords that those small daily budgets add up to a monthly bill that will seem much larger.

It pays to spend some time researching how Adwords works and to spend some money using a decent keyword analysis tool like Word Tracker.

If you sell hosting services you can always post in the advertising forums of this site and others..

Just starting out, I would find some like-minded sites and ask them if they would mention you or if they had any link exchange program.

Also, get yourself into the DMOZ directory as quickly as you can!

Well, I´m doing it a bit different. I got a norwegian Apple oriented webstore selling some Apple fan stuff and Mac/iPod accessories. As I already got a Mac-site that´s growing and I´ve made this site ad-free, (by letting my store finance the hosting) I´m also working on a new Creative Commons Mac-manual. This site will also be ad-free, and it will be userdriven (and my self).

I am also working on a game oriented site and a newssite under the same setting as the previous manual.

What I hope will be happening is that these sites will grow and become among the best norwegian sites in these areas.

All of these sites will be financed by my store, and I will have a good location for the link to the store on all of them.

The reason of why I have done this is "Think Different" (the old campaign by Apple that started in 1997.)

PS: And another reason is simply just that it´s fun to do. ;)

it depends on what your business is
you can advertise it on free directories and also on forums

I think free directories do not work good because google does not put the same weight on them

Advertising is the cornerstone to success for a online business,
Due to the fact that there are so many sites that offer advertising space, you have to narrow down your options.
Ask yourself a few questions and maybe it will help you come to a conclusion:

- Who are your targeted customers?
- What is your product?
- How much does your product cost?

The obvious solution is to find a site that your prospective customers would visit, unless we know what you are offering and some basic information, it would be impossible to give a site that would comply with your needs...