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Small Business Choices For An Online Presence

Are you running a small business that needs to create an online presence? Maybe you own a freelance photographer, an toy store, or work as a auto repair shop from home? Whatever type of business you have, if you have been wondering in what way you can use the Internet to heighten your business presence and attract more clients, then peruse through this article prior to going out and spending money on a web designer to put together a site for you.

Whilst it may not be your core business, it’s worthwhile to educate yourself a little bit first before you invest any $$. This article will give you a grip on the basics of web marketing before you hire someone to put together a website for your business so that you are not flying blind. It will also educate you about some things you can do yourself, which you may take the option to do on your own and save you the cost of hiring someone else.

Web 2.0 Websites

An alternative method to spread the word about your business without creating a website, is to put together a free page on one of the numerous Web 2.0 content sites such as Squidoo and Hubpages. The following is an example Squidoo lens with a story about Success University.

These are even more simple to setup compared to a blog as they don’t require any technical know-how at all, leaving you to focus on your content and writing whatever it is you wish to write to your chosen audience. Pages on Web 2.0 sites also often appear very high in the search engine results pages, further boosting the means by which greater numbers of people can find out about your business.

Social Networking Sites

MySpace, Facebook and Lincked In are amongst the three most popular social networking sites. As with Squidoo and Hubpages, social networking sites also work on pre-defined styles and templates, removing the need to have any html knowledge and enabling you to save the funds you might have otherwise spent on a web design company and invest that somewhere else.

A Word About Blogs

If you have the inclination to provide regular updates and news relating to your business, you might consider setting up a blog in lieu of a website. A blog works like a diary. Each entry has a date and time stamp. Here is a blog about finance as an example. See how each post is dated and note the optional Peel Away Ads in the top right hand corner of the page. You don’t need to have any knowledge of html or programming to use a blog.

Once installed, you just login to a control panel interface, write out what you want to say into a box, and click the publish button.

Blogs are also very easy to setup. Why not have a play and see if you can install one yourself. You can get very cheap cPanel webhosting these days beginning at $4.95 per month. cPanel hosting includes a system called Fantastico, which allows you to setup a blog with a few clicks of a mouse. A decent hosting provider should be able to assist you to setup your blog as well, even if you have very limited knowledge. After all, it’s in their interest to secure your business.

Search Engine Optimization

Having now installed either a blog, or setup a Social Networking or Web2.0 page, you will want to ensure that your page has good exposure in the search engine results, thereby delivering more traffic and awareness of your business. This is where Search Engine Optimization, comes in. Don’t be daunted. You can learn about search engine optimization by taking a loan of a book from your local library or spending a bit of time researching it online.

There are a whole host of free websites containing information on seo, as well as paid membership sites like PortalFeeder that can allocate a mentor to you to assist you with your search engine optimization knowledge and site creation endeavours. There are some really simple things you can do that will heighten the profile of your site and send visitors to it.