But message boards can be great for another reason: They’re a free, effective place to market your business. You spend nothing but your time, but you make valuable connections with potential customers, and get your name out to members and guests alike.

With a link to your website included in your signature, you also can generate traffic. And, if those links are visible to guests, and forum is indexed by search engines, those links may be counted by spiders and improve your ranking.

Naturally, there are rules to follow if you want to effectively add forums to your marketing arsenal.

First of all, choose wisely. Keeping up to date with forum happenings takes time, and you want to make most of it. So be sure you are posting on message boards that are visited by your prospects. You’ll also get most benefit from boards that allow you to put a link to your website in your signature, and that make those signatures visible to guests as well as members.

But not all radio ads are created equal. Too often, they're wasted on "name recognition" spots that have to be run over and over, only hoping to produce a positive impression in audience's mind. Eventually they promise you more business, but nothing you can trace.

There is a better way. When done right, radio can be one of most potent weapons in your marketing arsenal. Here's how:

1. Never let radio station write your ads. They're usually very nice people, and good at job of selling radio advertising. But they're generally not trained writers. At best, you'll get a decent ad that sounds like everything else on their station. At worst, you'll get a lousy ad. If you're going to do radio, do it right and hire a professional copywriter.