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How to Promote Your Business on the Internet: Part 3

This is the third part of a three-part series that explains what you can do to promote your business on the Internet.  The three parts of this series include website development, search engines, and online advertising.

Online Advertising

  • Use the Services of a Professional Web Designer/Developer.  You may have heard about the many website development tools endorsing the possibility that “anyone can create a website” with their software.  Relatives, friends, volunteers, and current employees might be able to do this for your business.  However, there are many other tasks that professional web designers and developers do to make your website truly effective.  These include ease in navigation, effective placement of content, color and font usage, graphic options, and handheld device considerations.
  • Hire an Internet Marketer.  Or, I can do this for you at my current hourly fee.  This could cost you hundreds or thousands of dollars with a major marketing consultant.  At this time, I do not have a referral for a reputable consultant and hesitate to make any recommendations to my clients.
  • Business-Related Directories.  Get listed in current website directories pertaining to your business.  For example, if you are a restaurant, you might want to get listed in www.restaurant.com.
  • Online Phone Directories.  Ensure that you are properly listed in the online phone directories.  That is, if someone does a search on your business type in your area, your business will appear in their listing.
  • Have Other Websites Link to Yours.  Find other websites that will link to your website.  Offer to link to their website.  This is one of the top methods that can be used to drive traffic to your website.
  • Use Google AdWords and/or the Yahoo Sponsored Search.  With Google AdWords your business would be listed next to the search results based on keywords that you define.  Yahoo Sponsored Search also lists your business above and next to search results based on predefined keywords.  Both of these can be costly, with the Yahoo service being more expensive.
  • Social Networking.  Create your business presence in the “social networking” arena.  This includes Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter (major networking blogs/websites/forums).  Yes, they are essentially gigantic weblogs (blogs).  Also, it is very important to link your business between these networks.

The above information can be helpful to your business.  If I can be of assistance, please contact me.

Add comment March 11th, 2011

How to Promote Your Business on the Internet: Part 1

blogpic1This is the first part of a three-part series that explains what you can do to promote your business on the Internet.  The three parts of this series include website development, search engines, and online advertising.

Website Development

  • Use the Services of a Professional Web Designer/Developer.  You may have heard about the many website development tools endorsing the possibility that “anyone can create a website” with their software.  Relatives, friends, volunteers, and current employees might be able to do this for your business.  However, there are many other tasks that professional web designers and developers do to make your website truly effective.  These include ease in navigation, effective placement of content, color and font usage, graphic options, and handheld device considerations.
  • Use Standards Compliant Code.  My clients’ websites are coded using “hard-coded” HTML.  What this means is that I do all the coding without using website building software (e.g., FrontPage, Dreamweaver, Microsoft Office).  This gives your website a greater chance of working in all the web browsers even when they change their code.  These browsers include Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Safari, and Chrome.
  • Keep Your Layout Simple.  In most cases, your website has only seconds to keep the attention of an Internet user.  It needs to represent your business identity, be attractive, contain simple content, and be easy to navigate.

The above information can be helpful to your business.  If I can be of assistance, please contact me.

Add comment March 3rd, 2011