5 Inexpensive Ways to Increase Your Sales Online With or Without a Web Site by Marnie Pehrson

Whether you own a Web site or not, there are proven techniques for selling your products and services online. Of course, it helps to have a Web site to direct people to, but you don't really have to have one. You can still get your name out as an expert in your field and let people know how to purchase your products and services.

1. Write informative articles and get them published online.

Writing doesn't have to be difficult. You're in your own business, so there are things you know that other people don't. Many believe that an expert is somebody who knows more than anyone else in the world about a given topic, but ''an expert is really just someone who knows more about a subject than anyone else in the room.'' (1) You're an expert when you have knowledge to share on a topic. For example, on a plane flight last month I met a lady who sells mix/match clothing – you know those lines of clothing where you buy 5-6 pieces and it turns into about 15-20 outfits. After talking with her for a few minutes and sharing with each other what we each do, she mentioned she also enjoyed writing. So I suggested, "why not write an article on how to mix and match clothes to maximize your wardrobe in a stylish, comfortable way?"

You might ask, who would publish such an article? Webmasters of career and women's sites will. Some of the most popular sites today are targeting specifically to women, and they are hungry for good, informative articles (content) that will make their visitors stay on their sites and keep coming back. As an expert writing on a topic of interest to their readers, your chances of having your well-written article picked up is great.

Along with your article, you're going to include a brief bio of yourself and what you do along with a link to your email and/or Web address. You could even offer a toll free number for people to call for a free catalog. As long as you keep it brief, most webmasters will agree to use your bio and contact information in exchange for your informative article. But bear in mind – it's got to be informative. It can't be a glorified sales pitch.

So how do you find these webmasters who want your articles?

IdeaMarketers.com is a free writer-publisher matching services that unites authors with webmasters and newsletter publishers who are hungry for good content. You can sign up for a free writer account with IdeaMarketers and start posting your articles. Then, when webmasters and publishers come to IdeaMarketers and search for an article, they can find yours. If they like it, they can click to request permission to reprint your article. They'll fill out a form and the results will be sent straight to you. The form will send you important information that you need to know – like their name, their web address, the demographics of their visitors, their traffic, etc. Then you can decide whether you'd like to accept or reject their request.

When replying to them and granting them permission, be sure to include a 2-3 sentence biography of yourself that you'd like them to use with your article. Make sure it has your preferred methods of being contacted within it.

By writing articles and getting them published on other Web sites you can leverage your marketing for free! There's nothing in this process that will cost you a dime and depending upon the number of web sites your articles are on and the number of visitors they reach, you could reach hundreds, thousands or even millions of readers!

2. Publish an email newsletter

Whether you like to write or not, a newsletter is a great way of promoting your business. Let's use the lady I met on the plane again. She sells fashion items to women. So she could build a list of email addresses for people who have requested more information from her on fashion and other topics of interest to women. Her newsletter might be as simple as an article from her that she writes each week or maybe every other week along with specials she's running or new fashion lines, along with how to order a catalog and how to contact her.

If she wanted a more substantial newsletter or if she didn't like to write, she could obtain articles from other authors. She could go to IdeaMarketers, sign up for a publisher account and use the handy newsletter builder available at IdeaMarketers to build her newsletter. It will even give her a web-based newsletter that she can direct people to. She can choose from the free version that gives access to the last 30-days worth of articles submitted to IdeaMarketers or she can choose to upgrade to an economical Gold or PRO version that gives her access to all 3,800+ articles available in the database.

There's a publisher tool for every need – whether she just needs articles or whether she wants help building her web or email newsletter. For details, click here.

3. Write a book and get other Webmasters to promote it for you

After you've written enough articles, it's easy to group and arrange them into a book form. You can put your articles together, arrange them into a logical sequence of chapters, and write a few more pages to help connect the chapters so they flow. Once you have your book written, you can obtain an ISBN and list your book on Amazon.com. Amazon has been a great boon to small publishers. Once you're listed with Amazon, come back to IdeaMarketers. If you have at least one article listed at IdeaMarketers, you can submit your book to us and we'll load it into our system. It will be featured in our Book Buzz as well as be featured on related articles on our site.

Whenever publishers or webmasters use IdeaMarketers publishing tools, they are shown recommended books that match the article they plan to use. So if they select your article, the system will recommend your book on Amazon. Or if you've written a book on working at home, and the publisher selects an article about working at home, the system will suggest they link to your book as recommended reading. The system even builds their Amazon link for them so all they have to do is drag and drop the code to include your book on their site! What a way to leverage your marketing all over the net – webmasters linking to your book on Amazon! And again, it's FREE to writers at IdeaMarketers.

4. Swap ads with other newsletter publishers

Once you've built up your newsletter and have some subscribers, you can start looking for other email newsletters (ezines) that reach your same target audience. You can search the IdeaMarketers directory to find other sites and newsletters that reach your audience and swap newsletter ads with them. As long as your number of subscribers is comparable to theirs and you're reaching a mutual audience without competing with one another, most publishers will take you up on the suggestion.

In the Publisher's Toolbox PRO, IdeaMarketers even suggests other publications that might like to swap ads with you based on information they have provided when listing their publication with IdeaMarketers.

5. Get a Mini-Web presence within another site

Many sites offer member profiles that can act as a mini-web presence. If you already have a site, you can use it to bring more people to your site. If you don't have a web site, you can use these as your Web presence. As a writer or a publisher with IdeaMarketers, you get a free profile that acts as a mini-web presence. For writers, it acts as a mini-library where you can feature your articles. For publisher's it features information on your publication.

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