hotfrog Offers Tips for Online Sales Success Leading up to the Holiday Season

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- hotfrog, the world's largest online business directory, provides tips for businesses competing to attract maximum online sales in the lead up to the holiday period. As businesses gear up for the busiest shopping season of the year they can take advantage of a few simple steps to make it easier for potential customers to find them online:

1. Add Christmas and seasonally relevant product and service information to your online properties, including your website, your business' social media pages and business directory services like hotfrog, which allows unlimited addition of products and services for free. This simple step is often overlooked but can be incredibly valuable in making your site appear in searches for seasonal gifts and services.
2. Make your online updates before the end of October to allow sufficient time for search engines to index and rank the new content. Updating your information well in advance of the holiday season will help ensure your products and services are more easily found throughout the busy shopping season.
3. Modify or add Christmas-specific and seasonal keywords to your content and listings, focusing on specific products and services you are marketing during the holidays – the more precisely you can define these, the better chance that online search users looking for something specific or unique will find you.
4. Take advantage of the current 60-day free trial of hotfrog AdVantage to create online ads to specifically target holiday shoppers with your seasonal products and services. hotfrog AdVantage delivers a targeted professional ad for your business and an enhanced, advertising-free company page to help you boost your sales.

"If small businesses want to compete during this holiday season, their online marketing activity needs to begin sooner to increase the chance of strong search engine positions during a very competitive and cluttered time of year," said Phil Robinson, hotfrog's strategy director. "In today's economy, small businesses are looking for every competitive advantage they can get and often overlook some simple, free, yet powerful things that they can do to stand out from the crowd."

hotfrog is empowering US small businesses to find new customers and business leads for listings on www.hotfrog.com through the launch of hotfrog AdVantage. A free 60-day trial launched today to showcase the new product, which builds on the free, intelligent marketing tools that hotfrog already delivers to nearly 17 million US SMBs to increase the profile and awareness of their business.

hotfrog, founded in 2005, is the world's largest global online business directory for small to medium sized businesses, operating in 36 countries with more than 61 million listings. With more than six million searches and 3.1 million users per month in the US alone, hotfrog levels the playing field by providing intelligent marketing tools that help small businesses distinguish themselves in an increasingly competitive market.

About hotfrog

Founded in 2005, hotfrog is the largest global online business directory for small businesses, operating in 36 countries with more than 61 million listings. Owned by Reed Business Information, hotfrog offers intelligent marketing tools helping small businesses easily turn listings into new business leads. Year to date there have been more than nearly 30 million visits to hotfrog in the US, helping people find the SMB they need. For more information about hotfrog please visit www.hotfrog.com

SOURCE hotfrog