Marketing for your business can be an expensive operating expense. But what happens if you’ve spent all your marketing budget? Or have a tight budget to begin with? Here are three ways to advertise online for your business that don’t cost a dime.

1. Free Classifieds Ads Sites:
Classifieds ad sites are great because it brings two kinds of people together: People that want something, and people that offer something. Among the top choice are Craiglist.org, Gumtree.com, Kijiji.com, USFreeads.com, which you may be familiar with.

The one you should pay special attention to in particular is Craigslist.org, which is the 59th most popular website in the entire world according to Alexa.com’s ranking. Unlike eBay, these sites allow you to post ads to advertise your product or service free of charge. So take advantage of it.

2. Press Release Sites:
If you have something newsworthy for your business, for example, if your work-at-home custom soap making business had just come out with a new line of soaps, then you should consider writing up a press release and submit it to press release announcement websites. Here is a list of over 100 top press release announcement sites:

http://www.netpassiveincome.com/list-of-press-release-sites/

Although most of the press releases on here are free, note that some do require payment.

If you have some budget (around $100), pay special attention to PRWeb.com and WebWire.com. They are not free, but very effective in spreading news about your business.

3. Participate In Online Communities:
This particular technique works quite well if you have a website for your business. Take our soap making business as an example. Go in Google and search for “soap making forums” or something similar to that. Then browse through the top listings and look out for online communities or discussion boards that are related to your business.

You would then register for an account, and start participating in those online forums. Usually you are allowed to enter a website URL in your profile as your signature. That signature with your website URL will be appended to every forum post that you make, which provides another way to get traffic to your website.

Be sure to contribute to the forum and don’t spam! Remember, you are establishing relationships with other people in the community, so be sure to provide value and people will follow your forum posts and find a way back to your website.

Steven C, Online Business Mentor, http://www.netpassiveincome.com