Home » Business & Finance » Small Business » Promote on the Web

Promote on the Web

© Bert Markgraf

Yes, of course your small business has to have a web site and promote it. So you get one. It's not very difficult. Unfortunately, most small business web sites that I have seen don't get any traffic and are pretty useless in terms of promoting the business. The only redeeming factor is that, since the cost of the web site should be low, the return on the investment is probably acceptable. Still, so much more could be done.

First, most small business web sites lack focus. You can tell they haven't asked themselves who they're trying to reach with their web site. If you're offering a common product in a large city, registering with search engines is a waste of time since your listing will be swamped. Your web site should be focused on providing information to existing customers and promoting your business with them. Publicise your e-mail and web addresses locally through your usual publicity channels. Your best bet for increasing traffic and finding new customers is through links with other local sites.

At the other extreme, if you're providing a unique product for which there is world-wide demand, the search engines are ideal. When key words dealing with this product are typed in, only a few listings will come up, yours among them. The advertising and publicity which work locally are of little use to you.

Secondly, you can probably create the web site yourself but it won't have the polish that is now becoming an accepted feature of business web sites and it will take up a lot of time which you should be spending making money. Get the heavy-duty web site creating with the stucture and graphics done by someone who does this for a living but then do the regular maintenance and up-dating yourself.

Finally, a business web site is a tool. Unless you're in the business of entertaining, the purpose of your web site is business, not entertainment. Accordingly, you'll want a simple, attractive colour scheme with a simple, easy-to-use structure. No fancy coloured background textures, blinking and swirling dividing lines or fancy triple and floating frames. Just deliver the content. If you use someone who prepares business sites, you'll find this kind of site is less expensive as well.

To get some grounding on this whole subject, this site on web site promotion has a lot of useful links covering just about everything. Then get a site which your customers will actually use.