So you’re looking for a little advertising juice in this crazy, mixed up economy. But you don’t want to spend a lot of money on it. That is to say, you’re NOT planning on spending more than a million dollars on 30 seconds of time during the Super Bowl telecast.

You don’t have to.

There are tons of ways to get the word out about your business or product in the internet age that people are just now starting to tap into.

First and foremost, if you don’t have a website then, for pete’s sake get one. This is a form of advertisement. And make it useful. Getting a website the just lists the phone number they can call for more information is pointless. Everyone still has phone books – they could have looked up the number on their own. Make your website stand out. Include details about what you’re selling and resources that can be helpful to your customer.

Second, get the word out about your website. Make sure it is listed by the various search engines out there. Go to different forums that discuss products like yours and talk yourself up. Tell people about your website. This is FREE advertising for you.

Third, find new and innovative ways to spread the word about your business. The world is just getting introduced to the concept of a BLOG (short for ‘weB LOG’) but blog writers already wield power. One person writes about something and others read about it. The readers may then in turn write about it and then their readers find out about it. It can (and has) gone on like this for quite some time. The information spreads by word of blog, so to speak.

But how can YOU get in on this? Do you start your own blog? No. You find someone who already has a well read blog and you convince them to write about it for you. SocialSpark.com is a company that will allow you to get in touch with these bloggers so that you can start your viral advertising campaign. You can sponsor just a single post or you can sponsor an entire blog for a time which will allow your banner ad to be on their site for as many days as you sponsor them.

Get started with these ideas and see where they can take you and your business.