You can advertise your website in two broad ways: pay to put it in front of people (search ads, social ads, sponsored listings), or earn a place where buyers already look (Google's organic results, the map listings, AI assistants, LinkedIn, industry directories, and your own email list). Paid channels are fast and stop when the money stops. Earned channels are slow to start and keep working. Most B2B and trades companies do best with a little of both, starting with the places their buyers already search when they have a problem to solve.
Below is each option in plain terms, followed by a simple way to choose.
The options at a glance
| Channel | How it works | Speed | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google and Microsoft search ads | You bid to appear above results for chosen searches and pay per click. | Days | Urgent, high-intent searches like emergency service. |
| Organic search (SEO) | Your pages earn a place in regular results by answering searches well. | Months | Steady visibility for every service and area you cover. |
| Google Business Profile | A free listing that shows in Maps and the local results. | Weeks | Local and service-area companies. |
| LinkedIn, organic and paid | Posts from your page and people, plus ads targeted by job title and industry. | Weeks | Reaching specific titles like operations directors or CFOs. |
| Email to your own contacts | Sending useful content to past clients and contacts. | Days | Repeat work and referrals. |
| Directories and associations | Listings on industry and local directories, chambers and trade groups. | Weeks | Credibility and a few steady referral visits. |
Paying for attention
Search ads
Search ads put your site at the top of the results for searches you choose. With Google Ads, you're charged only when someone clicks your ad, and you decide the average amount to spend each day. Microsoft Advertising works the same way on Bing. The appeal is speed: you can be visible tomorrow for "commercial roof leak repair" in your city.
It's rented, though. Budget off, visits off. Search ads also reward careful management, since loose keyword settings can spend money on searches that were never going to become customers. If you run them, check the search terms report weekly and send clicks to the specific service page, never the homepage.
Social ads
Social ads reach people who aren't searching yet. For B2B, LinkedIn is the usual pick because you can target by job title, company size and industry. Its reach is narrower than you might think: in Pew Research Center's 2026 survey, 33% of U.S. adults said they use LinkedIn, against 70% for Facebook and 84% for YouTube. The people you want may well be on LinkedIn, but the owner of a mid-sized manufacturing plant or the property manager responsible for a dozen buildings is also on Facebook and YouTube in the evenings, so it's worth testing more than one platform before you settle on one.
Earning a place
Search and AI answers
Organic search doesn't cost per click. It costs time. You need a page for each service and each area you serve, written to answer what buyers actually ask, and you need to keep adding to the site so search engines have a reason to come back. The same pages are what AI assistants like ChatGPT read when someone asks who to hire, so a clear, specific site helps on both fronts.
Your Google Business Profile
If you serve a local or regional area, your free Business Profile is often the first thing a buyer sees, because the map results usually appear above the regular website listings. Google says local results are based on three factors: relevance, distance and prominence. You can't change distance. You can make sure the profile's categories and services match what you sell, that your name, address and phone number read exactly the same on the profile, your website and every directory that lists you, and that the website link points to the page most relevant to the people who find you on the map.
To see how your site and profile show up today, the Free AI Visibility Check looks at your website and mobile speed, whether you come up in a local search, and what an AI assistant says when a buyer asks who to call. No email needed.
The cheap, overlooked ones
- Email signatures. Everyone on your team sends dozens of emails a week. Link to a useful service page or a recent project.
- Proposals and invoices. Link to project examples relevant to the client.
- Trucks, yard signs and job-site banners. A short, memorable web address does more than a QR code nobody scans.
- Industry associations and local chambers. Member directories often link to your site, and those links help people and search engines find you.
Picking where to start
Start with whatever's free and missing. Usually that's a lot. If your Business Profile is incomplete, or you have no page for a service you sell, fix that first; paid traffic sent to a thin site wastes money. If you need calls this month, run tightly managed search ads to your best service pages while the slower work builds up. That's normal. If your buyers are a short list of titles at known companies, LinkedIn is worth testing.
Track everything. Mark form submissions and phone clicks as key events in Google Analytics so you can see which channel produced them, and drop what doesn't pull its weight after a fair trial.
Where we come in
Inbound SDR covers the earned side. We build your website, up to 100 pages, in the first month, planned around every service and area, and host and maintain it. A new blog goes up every business day and is posted to up to 3 social platforms, LinkedIn and Facebook among them. We optimize your Google Business Profile and Bing Places listing and keep your details consistent across 65+ directories, with a dedicated strategist and a monthly report. Packages start at $1,000 per month on a 12-month term.
It doesn't include paid ads, email marketing or video production. If paid search is your main channel, you'll want a PPC specialist alongside it, or instead of it.
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