This article from Upwork details some good marketing strategies to promote your website and your business. https://www.upwork.com/resources/how-to-promote-business-online Whether you’re a SaaS business, florist, consulting group, or bookstore, promoting your business on the internet can help you take advantage of the growing number of consumers online. In fact, about a third of U.S. consumers reported searching for a local business every day in 2020, and 73% searched at least once per week. Therefore, businesses wanting to capture customers’ attention should promote themselves online and have a strong digital presence in 2021. To help you promote your business online, this article will cover the mediums you should pay attention to and steps to follow, including:

• Website
• PR
• Email
• Content
• SEO
• SEM
• Social networks
• Affiliates
• Partnerships
• Direct mail
• Sponsorships
• Customer reviews

Marketing is always a struggle for me and confusing, however, one of the things on the list "Customer reviews" to me is something of a grey area as I don't really trust them, not good reviews anyway! I only tend to take note of bad reviews as good reviews are so easy to post yourself about your own product/website and never trust reviews/testimonials on their own website!

Trouble is more people are willing to complain than give compliments so it can be misleading. Plus I've seen people criticise products when it is probable they are not using it correctly. I do agree though it is suspect some of the excellent reviews.

Mark Ransome said: Marketing is always a struggle for me and confusing, however, one of the things on the list "Customer reviews" to me is something of a grey area as I don't really trust them, not good reviews anyway! I only tend to take note of bad reviews as good reviews are so easy to post yourself about your own product/website and never trust reviews/testimonials on their own website! Marketing is pretty big and I thought this list had some fresh ideas. Totally agree with reviews and I do the same.....I'll look at bad reviews, like for cosmetics, and I can usually tell if the reviewer was spot on, by their review compared to the ingredients in the product. Agree also, anyone on the team can post a lot of good reviews and testimonials, which is not ethical, but they do it anyway. I have mixed feelings about reviews overall, because there's no way to really verify the authenticity of the reviewer. I think on Amazon, you have had to purchase the product to be able to review? Geffers G said: Trouble is more people are willing to complain than give compliments so it can be misleading. Plus I've seen people criticise products when it is probable they are not using it correctly. I do agree though it is suspect some of the excellent reviews. Isn't that true? So many complaints and not enough compliments. My husband and I have been watching some travel videos on YouTube, from this one travel person that offers some extensive services and I thought I'd check the reviews. This poor guy was completely trashed online with more bad reviews than good reviews, however the good reviews really seemed authentic. Bad reviews can really harm a business especially if the reviews are intentionally mean spirited from competitors looking to drive down the competition. Needless to say, we have continued to watch these videos as we have found the information very helpful. I can see also the misuse of a product. I've seen that too.