Internet Marketing - You Scratch My Back And I'll Scratch Yours!

By Author: Lorna Findlay
Total Articles: 4
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This is another free technique you can use to help you enhance your marketing efforts. A lot of people simply overlook this one, because it is not perhaps one of the most obvious ways to go about things, and it does take a little more work. It also relies on making connections with other marketers online, and some people don't appear to like doing this.

But don't knock it! A lot of associations with other marketers can really help advance both your and their business in the long run. So look at this as a long term venture that will help you to promote your business for free AND find a whole new audience in the process.

How does this work? Well, there are a number of ways you can do it, but basically the idea is that you exchange services with another person who is in a similar business to you.

Now I know you are thinking that means talking to your competition, but if you do it right they could become a valuable ally instead. Let's check out the various ways you can make this happen.

Guest blogging

If you have a blog that you use to help you promote your business and find new customers, see ...
... how many other marketers you can find in the same business who also have one. Make sure you pick those whose blogs are of a standard that is at least equal to yours - one that you would be happy to see one of your own blog posts on.

The thing is, as you know yourself, writing a blog constantly can be tricky at times. You may run out of ideas here and there. You may struggle from time to time to keep it looking and feeling fresh.

So wouldn't it be nice to get an injection of knowledge and advice that is somewhat different to your usual mix? And who better to ask for such an insight than a fellow marketer in the same arena to the one you are making your money in?

What you need to do is approach them and ask them whether they would be willing to write a guest blog post for your blog. Make sure you confirm that in return you would write one for their blog, and you could both link back to your own websites at the foot of the post.

This gets both of you free publicity for your businesses; and of course it also means you can tap into an established audience that won't be exactly the same as the one you already promote to. Let's suppose for example that you both have a visitor rate of, say, five thousand people a day to your blogs. That's 35,000 a week. Now there is no way that you are both going to be reaching the exact same five thousand people every day. So there is a chance that you could as much as double your reach just by writing a blog post for someone else.

And of course, you don't only expand your connections to other marketers online and open up the possibility of more free marketing chances later on down the line. You can also write for each other's blogs once a week or once a month if you wish. This turns a one off freebie into an ongoing event that really builds up your marketing efforts and doesn't cost a cent in the process.

Exchanging Articles

This is basically the same as the blogging opportunity. Some websites have room for articles on topics that are related to the main subject matter. This may not be a regular item like a blog post would be, but you can still approach the site owner with a similar proposal.

And of course the articles would remain on the site for the foreseeable future too. This means that half an hour spent writing a 500 word piece to go on a website would get you a steady stream of traffic for the foreseeable future as well.

Exchanging Links

If you're not that keen or confident about your writing skills, don't worry. You can still approach other people with similar websites or blogs and ask them if they would be prepared to enter into a link exchange agreement with you.

You provide a link back to their website (together with a one or two sentence review or description about it) and in return they do the same for you. If you do this with several other websites and/or companies, you can create a recommended links page on your own site which contains all these recommendations.

This has a couple of advantages. Firstly you will increase the number of places that could lead to your site being found by new visitors. But secondly and most importantly, quality links which lead back to your own website will help your search engine rankings.

If you are struggling to rank highly in the search engines, this will definitely be of use to you. And a better search engine ranking will of course lead to more visitors and hopefully more sales. And all this happens because you asked for a few reciprocal links - all completely free of charge.

Who said that anything worth getting was worth paying for? As you can see, it doesn't always ring true when it comes to internet marketing.
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