Free Online Marketing Strategies – What To Do If You Don’t Have A Website Yet

Website seem to be a loaded topic and the funny thing is that it is the first thing that pops up on people’s minds when they are starting their business or when they decide they want to bring their work online so that they can reach more people and have a greater impact.

Many years ago when I started my first coaching/training/consulting business, the “thing” we used to obsess about was business cards and stationary. Time seem to have changed but in reality we are dealing with the same issues. I bet this “website shame” issue goes a little bit deeper than just a couple of web pages online.

I think there is a big connection for people like us, experts who help people with our expertise, between the online world and wanting to get the right positioning.

Let’s find out how you can do that if you are an amazing expert at what you do and you logically want that the right people you can help perceive you as such, when there are millions of other people who seem to do what you do.

I think this is the point where we start stressing out about the website.

Don’t get me wrong, I strongly recommend that you have your own website and that it looks clean and professional and helps you attract the right visitors, engage them and create a relationship with them so that they become your clients and they recommend you awesome new clients, too.

You can find plenty of articles here to get you started so that you know exactly what to do if you are planning your website or trying to improve the one you have.



What can you do in between until your website is ready?

Let’s say that you have a networking meeting tomorrow or a meeting with a potential client and you are worried they are going to ask about your website.

The short answer is of course not to stress out about a website and to put all your focus and attention in having a brilliant meeting. But for those of you who will still stress out, here we go…

This is what you’re going to discover:

- I like to start with all the things that you should NOT do because that helps to reduce overwhelm.

- Then you will move onto doing damage repair, which means getting rid of all the stuff that could be hurting you.

- Finally, how to position yourself right so that the right people invest in you and where you can get a free web presence by tomorrow, if you choose to.


1. Be Strategic With Your Social Media Accounts

The first impulse of a lot of experts is to go and open all sort of social media accounts thinking that just because of that people will rush to hire them.

If you have some kind of event coming up soon and you either have no website or your website is not ready yet, social media accounts are not always a good substitute.

This is what can be the real deal maker: if your potential clients google you, what will they find?

If they will find a bunch of social media accounts which haven’t been updated in a long time and that look abandoned, it is not good. So what could you do?


2. Delete & Change Privacy Settings

If you have social media accounts that don’t represent you well now, delete them or make these simple changes...

Facebook - On Facebook you have a personal profile that was designed originally for you to interact with friends and family. If you have one of those and you are using it only as it is intended, change the privacy settings so that only your friends and family can see what you post there.

If you do that, people who check you out will know you are a “real person” because most people think that if you are on Facebook you must be real and at the same time they won’t see the stuff you want to keep private.

If you have a Facebook Page (for your business) and it already has followers, make sure that you post a couple of updates so that the last thing there is not from last year.

If you don’t have a Facebook page, this is not the moment to start one because you can certainly start posting stuff but you won’t be able to promote your page so that it gets enough likes.

Twitter - If you have a Twitter account that you have been using for personal purposes and you don’t feel comfortable with people seeing that, change the settings so that only your Twitter followers can see what is posted there.

If it is an active account with a healthy dose of personal and business tweets, just make sure you have a couple of new tweets. Again the idea is that your account should not look abandoned.

The Rest Of Social Media Accounts - Follow the same guidelines. If it is an account you opened on a rainy day and you have 2 followers, it will look “funny”. It is not that bad to delete those.

Social media is a little bit like having a pet, you will have to put the time and care. If you are not willing to do that, it is better not to have it.

So up to now you have been deleting the stuff that doesn’t represent you well and doing a quick makeover of the accounts that you are proud of. What’s next?


3. Position Yourself Right As The Expert You Truly Are

This is not about bragging or tooting your own horn. It is not about listing all your certifications and degrees.

The right positioning for experts like us who help people with our services is what I call “solution positioning”.

Make a list of the big problem you solve for your clients and position yourself as the right solution for people who have that problem. That is the expert solution positioning in a nutshell.

It has been proven that when you can describe the problem that people have better than what they can articulate it themselves, people also trust that you have the solution to that problem.

Plus, when someone has an urgent, expensive, painful problem, the only thing they will pay attention to is to people talking about that. They just cannot pay attention to your certifications or your modality so you should respect them enough not to lead with that.

All this is part of what I call “human marketing” and you know you can do this well because you are a human being as well. All you need to know is to think of a time when you had a big, urgent problem that occupied your mind…In other words, put yourself in the shoes of your potential clients and talk to them about what matters to them. Show them that you understand
them and that you care.

Add ONE way they can contact you and NOT 20 million social media accounts that are half done (but hopefully you got rid of those already in Step 1).Not because you list a lot of social media accounts, you look better. Your best clients are probably like my best clients: successful people who invest in expert help to get results.

Well… guess what? Successful people who recognize the immense value of investing in expert help to get the results they want don’t have so much time to hangout in social media and might also find it funny that you are what I call “über available”.


4. About.me

About.me allows you to have a page online where you describe yourself and what you do. You can even have a picture of you there as well. It is not a substitute for a website but it is a good beginning if you have no other alternative ready for tomorrow.


5. LinkedIn

This is my love online because it is a place where professional people and business owners network. It is not only for people who are looking for a job, it is also made up of a big network of business owners and decision makers.

There is another big benefit of having a LinkedIn account: if people google you, this is probably one of the first accounts that they will see.

This is how you can get started: post a professional picture of you and your full name. No logos or made up names, please.

This is my profile. Feel free to model it: de.linkedin.com/anarosenberg

NOTE – Modeling is not copying verbatim. It won’t hurt me if you copy my stuff. It will hurt you.

This is a guideline to help you think about your LinkedIn profile: professional picture, full name and short description of what you do. You can even include your website there, too.

Have a look at mine and model it. I will just walk you briefly through how to think and make decisions about your profile.

LinkedIn has recently introduced the option of uploading a background picture. I use one of my favorite buildings in London as my background image and I do that consistently all across my social media accounts. You can use something awesome that you have, or your logo if it is a high definition image and it works well. Remember that for what we are doing here, less is definitely more.

As a business owner, you are not looking for a job so you don’t need to fill out all the sections or upload your resume. The summary section is the most important one: again use my “solution positioning” approach. Talk about the problems that you solve for your clients.


Next Step

If you would like to connect with me and my community of awesome entrepreneurs who change the world with their businesses, send me a request and let me know how you help people.

What you will need to do next on LinkedIn is to start connecting with people. Look for groups that you think your potential clients are active in and join some groups.

Make a point of making new relevant connections every day and you won’t recognize your business in a year.

LINKEDIN SUCCESS MINDSET – Like with any sort of networking, be a giver. If you are just trying to spam people, it won’t work.



Till next time… remember your awesomeness is portable. You can take it with you anywhere.
With love
Ana