Basic lead generation part four - more online
Forums are a great way to drive traffic to your lead capture page and generate leads for your Network Marketing business, but there are lots of other methods too. Here are a few simple ones to get you on the right path.
Classifieds and Free-ads
As the names suggest, these are the web equivalents of their offline counterparts. A quick search on Google will show up hundreds of possible sites to choose from. Some will require you to pay for commercial advertising, but there are many which are entirely free, although for legal reasons you may have to register as a business user. As with offline adverts the key is to be short and sweet. Keep your advert to the point, just a teaser, and direct them to your site. Giving a contact telephone number in your advert can help attract more prospects. While most will choose not to use it, simply having it there makes your advert look more trustworthy and less likely to be an ‘Internet scam’.
Blog comments
Most blogs (weB-LOGS), allow users to post comments. If done correctly this can give you some good links back to your own site. When you find a blog which you like, and is likely to be read by your target audience, click on the comment button at the bottom of the post and leave a ‘valuable’ comment. The key word there is valuable. Don’t spam, if you don’t have anything useful to write then don’t post a comment, but if you can spare a few moments and give some positive and useful feedback on the blog, which adds value to the page, then your comment will be welcomed. Most blogs are set up so that you can enter the URL of your own site which is linked to from your name. If a visitor reads your comment and finds it useful or interesting, there is a good chance they will click to find out more about you and your business.
eBay
Historically, trying to advertise a Network Marketing business on eBay was very difficult. eBay rules state that auction listings are not for advertising, and outbound links are banned. However, a fairly recent addition to eBay are local classified listings. Instead of a regular auction, or ‘buy it now’ listing, eBay now allow businesses to advertise as classifieds which show up at the bottom of regular search results. Pricing is fixed and paid for a month in advance at a very reasonable price. This feature is very new and currently not being used by many people although I’m sure it will become more popular as more people find out about it. There is a second way to advertise on eBay while abiding to their rules. If you are a regular buyer or seller you can have your own page called a ME page. This is supposed to be used to tell your buyers about your business, what you’re selling on eBay, what your shipping costs are etc. but it does allow outbound links. Make sure you have an advert for your Network marketing business, and a link to your lead capture site on there otherwise you could be missing some valuable clicks.
Social Networking
Unless you’ve had your head in a paper bag for the last couple of years you’ll have come across the social networking sites. MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and the rest may get a grilling in the media and promoted as a great way of wasting time for spotty teenagers, but the fact is they are a great tool for promoting your business. By their very nature they make it very easy to make new contacts, communicate with them, and spread the word about your business. An in depth look at how best to use them for our purposes goes beyond the scope of this post and will have to wait for another day, but if you’ve overlooked them until now be sure to check them out. Facebook alone appears to have grown out of nowhere and is currently ranked as the 7th most popular site in the world according to Alexa so make sure some of those users are clicking through to your site!