Promoting Your Consulting Business Online
Even though your offline consulting business is focused on local clients, don’t forget to promote online as well. There are a number of ways to reach your targeted audience online, even if your clients are local.
Search for local discussion forums in your area. Enter “discussion forum” and “City, State” (with the quotes) in Google, Yahoo or Bing. You should find at least a few local groups, and maybe several depending on how large a city you live in. Visit each one, and sign up for membership with the active ones and begin posting. Be sure to add a signature (sig) file to every post that includes a link to your consulting website and a short, one-line blurb about what you offer.
Begin by introducing yourself and your business (without trying to sell anything!) and let people know who you are. Start answering questions and posting helpful tidbits of advice. Develop an online reputation for caring about others and show a sincere desire to help and it will go far in sending new clients your way.
Search for local blogs in your niche and begin responding to posts. You can even offer to guest post if you’re comfortable writing. This is another good way to get your name in front of your local clientele without being pushy. NetworkedBlogs.com is a good place to find local blogs. You can search by keyword and location, and find several prospects to visit.
Write articles that will be useful to your target market and submit them to online publishers and article directories. If you’re not a competent writer, hire a ghostwriter. They’ve become very inexpensive and because you’re buying full rights to the work, you can edit and adapt it, if desired, add your byline and resource information and use it to promote your website.
Start your own blog. You can write and post articles your target audience would like to read. Offer tips and information to educate prospective clients about how you can help them. Provide fun facts on your industry, highlight success stories, run Q&A columns, and more. The sky is literally the limit when blogging. Post at least three times a week for the best results and encourage visitors to subscribe to your posts and leave comments.
One of the most effective promotional aspects of blogging is that blog posts are indexed almost immediately by Google, and that can dramatically impact your business if you include backlinks to your business website in your posts.
Become active on the more popular social networking sites. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg and others can do a lot to bring added traffic to your website and blog, as well as to help you connect with prospective clients. Caution: Don’t spend all your time “socializing” online or offline! You can easily get caught up in the fun of doing business online and not get any real work done.
There are many tools and strategies for successfully promoting your consulting business online. These are just a few of the easiest, with the quickest results. There are dozens more, and don’t be afraid to keep pushing the envelope. The virtual world is constantly changing, and those who take the boldest action will be rewarded.
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