Advertising Ideas for Your Web Hosting Business - Offer Something for Free
(Page 3 of 4 )
Here’s another way to promote your web hosting business online that you might not have considered. Remember what I said earlier about reaching people who might be interested in your service? A lot of people who need web hosting are going to be regular visitors at certain kinds of websites: informational sites which offer valuable tips about running a business, being a webmaster, and web hosting (such as this one). You might be able to work an exchange with a number of those kinds of sites: offer to host them for free or a significantly reduced price, in exchange for the right to run a “hosted by yourhostingbusiness” banner on every page of their site.
Make sure you’re clear with them about the kind of banner you want to put up, and where you want to put it. No one in their right mind will give you space to put a large banner at the top of every page of their website, so forget about that right now. But you should be able to get something small and discreet that doesn’t detract from the entire effect of the page, yet lets people know you’re there. You might consider asking for a small space in the navigational area of their website; that usually gets plenty of eyeballs.
Offering something for free can be a great way to get noticed. You can offer a free trial of your web hosting service at your website. Or you can go to a business with lots of regular customers, such as a restaurant or a private mailbox service, and talk to the manager about offering free web hosting accounts to their clientele. Again, these would be free trial accounts lasting for only a few months, after which they’ll have to pay to continue the service. That should be plenty of time to hook them into wanting to keep the account.
If you don’t want to offer your actual web hosting service for free, how about something related to your business? Over on SEO Chat, there are a variety of software tools that visitors to the site can use for free. All of these tools help SEOs see how well they are achieving their goals. If you can create a tool that gives a user some information they need, especially if it’s related to your own service (bank websites offering mortgage calculators is the classic example), visitors will come to your site to use the tool. They’ll think of it as a free service, rather than obnoxious in-your-face advertising, and that’s a great way to leave a positive impression.
Next: Give Your Customers More >>
More Web Hosting Articles Articles
More By Terri Wells
