Extend your business's reach online with viral marketing

Links build your business on the Web. The easiest way to generate a mass of links which point back to your Web site is to do some creative viral marketing.

"Viral marketing" is marketing that spreads and multiplies, just like a virus -- but in a good way. You can create several viral products and allow others to distribute them, with links pointing back to your Web site, or sites.

Generally this kind of marketing involves freebies: giving away a free product or service with a link that points back to your Web site. You hope that others will pass along your freebie, retainin your contact information, and providing you with links back to your site.

The benefit of viral marketing is that enhances your Internet visibility: you rank higher on the search engines.

You can offer viral freebies like:

1. Free ebooks – include an ad for one of your products with links to your website and email. Ask visitors to share the ebook.

2. Free software - again, include your own advertising. You can hire developers at www.elance.com to write a product for you.

3. Free Web hosting – host small business sites on your server. Place your own banner advert at the top of the sites.

4. Free templates – for sites, MS Word documents, business letters -- you're limited only by your imagination.

5. Free content – offer free articles about your industry. Include your website and contact information in the byline and grant permission for others to publish as long as they keep the byline and link.

If you need help creating ebooks and articles to offer as viral products, contact me – I ghostwrite ebooks and articles. You can then brand the content with yourself as the author and copyright holder, and with your own links.

About the writer
Angela Booth is the author of Making the Internet Work for your Business (Allen & Unwin, 1998) and is a full-service copywriter. Contact Angela for all your marketing and copywriting needs for Web and print. Angela is also available to ghostwrite your articles and books. Visit her site at http://angelabooth.com/ and contact her TODAY.

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