Advertising is the key to success for many companies and their products or services.Advertising takes many forms from large budget advertisement placement on majorly trafficked billboards to word of mouth viral marketing campaigns.Effective advertising on a budget takes creativity and ingenuity.Read on to learn about the top three methods for getting free advertising on the Internet.

Utilize the news surrounding your company or product to get media coverage.Press coverage is by far the easiest and farthest reaching method for obtaining free advertising.Unfortunately, it often isn’t completely controlled, but it can be influenced with precision.Start by writing press releases with an editorial angle and sending those releases out to a couple dozen of the free press release sites on the Internet.

Free press release sites pepper the Internet and are frequently used by content editors and writers to come up with fresh content.Make a healthy list of free press release sites using Excel or a similar spreadsheet software.You will need to make an account and password for most of these sites.Send your press releases out to each of the sites checking them off as you go.Once your press release is approved by the press release site it will be sent out to thousands of writers and editors for consideration.

Make a list of your chosen press release sites and check off your submissions as you go.So how do you monitor the results of your new free public advertising campaigns?Easy, utilize a tool like Google’s Google Alerts that will send you notification when your company is mentioned.Choose the keywords that you want in your search parameter including your website name, company and product name.

This brings us to the second best way to get free advertising online.Find the online communities that represent your industry and get friendly.Find the top blogs and community websites and pitch your press release and stories to their content editors.

Make friends with editors by maintaining contact and building a professional relationship through courtesy and persistence.Often times editors will not have room to cover your company or product but you can set yourself up for future coverage by keeping your presence in front of their minds with monthly calls.

The third best way to receive free advertising is to spearhead a giveaway or contest in collaboration with another company, service provider or non profit organization.Make sure that through negotiations both parties benefit from the endeavor.You will want to receive the emails of participants for future marketing.Also ask about placing an advertisement on their website that links through to your website and promotes the contest.

Be sure to utilize the customer base that you built through your contest participants by reeling them into your company or product.Send out a newsletter to the contest participants shortly after the close of the contest and offer some sort of incentive for them to utilize your product or services.When you get a satisfied customer you get free advertising because the first thing they will do is tell their family and friends about their great experience.