Have you been searching for free ways to market your business online and generate your own business leads? Here are some proven methods to get your business growing.

1) Yahoo Groups – Yahoo offers a huge database of groups with a wide variety of topics and discussions. Search for groups which allow advertising and that fit the demographics

for your opportunity or products. If you are a stay at home mom and your goal is to market your products or opportunities to other like minded moms, search Yahoo Groups for groups using keywords, such as; stay at home moms, work at home moms, direct sales, home party plan, mom business, etc.

Note: When you join these groups be sure to follow their advertising guidelines. Some you can advertise freely in, others limit it to a certain day or days per week.

Keeping that in mind, also join groups that don't allow advertising but provide a valuable networking opportunity. Join the discussions and use your signature line as your promotion. Most will allow this form of advertising when they don’t allow outright posting of ads.

There are also many MSN groups and now Google has started Google Groups, however, my research has found Yahoo Groups to still rank as the best.

2) Message Boards - Many websites offer a forum to post your business information or provide networking opportunities. There are many wahm and stay home mom type boards that you can post to, as well as, home business, and network marketing type forums. Do not spam a board if there is no ad forum. Again, join the discussions and let your signature line be your promotion. You will receive business leads from the people you meet here!

Now if your product is, for example a cooking related product, you should definitely search for forums and message boards that fit this product, such as a recipe swap forum.

Search keywords on Google and Yahoo to find forums that are appropriate for your business and products you are marketing. AOL also has boards too as does MSN.

Ryze is another great networking site with boards. There are newer sites like MySpace and Direct Matches that offer a different spin on a site like Ryze, however, I have had most success with Ryze so far.

3) Traffic Exchanges - I am not big on these, but I know others who swear by them. Most are free to join. One of the biggest and oldest is Traffic Swarm. You can do a search for traffic exchanges to find others. Business leads are naturally generated through this type of service.

4) Safelist – Safelists that are managed properly, can be a good and free marketing venue. The key is finding a good one. Do a search on keywords; work at home safelist, home business safelist, mom safelist, etc. Again, search for keywords that fit your targeted market. This is yet another source of business leads.

5) Pay Per Click Advertising – While not free, this can be an affordable and inexpensive advertising option depending on the keywords you select. You don't have to go with the most obvious keyword as it will likely be the most expensive. Do a search for keywords that are less costly with the Overture keyword tool (mainly used for Yahoo, but I use it to get an idea for Google too).

You control the amount you spend and can set a daily budget when doing pay per click.

Here is the keyword selector tool:
http://inventory.overture.com/d/
searchinventory/suggestion/

6) Keyword Search - Another trick is to type in the keyword you are interested in on a search engine and see which websites rank high in the search. If those are sites that offer ad space, search to see what their ad options are. Some will be affordable and some can be quite expensive depending on their traffic. Again, not free, but many sites offer very inexpensive advertising options.

I suggest you ask for an average idea of their traffic before advertising, especially if it is expensive. Ask for an average month of page views or unique visitors...not hits. Hits are of little value and do not indicate the true traffic of a website. Most reputable webmasters will respond with their stats. Of course keep in mind we can't see them so we have to rely on their quote. I have found most webmasters to be honest.

FYI - There are lots of mom type sites who offer advertising under $10 bucks a month depending on the type of ad you place.

Well, I hope this gets you started and gives you some ideas of ways to market and grow your business online.

To your success in generating your own business leads!