I find it hard to believe that there are still businesses without a Web site. HavingsomeWeb presence seems as important to a business as having a telephone number.
I know that a lot of businesses don’t do a Web site because the quotes they’ve gotten are unreasonably high.
There is an alternative that is inexpensive (or even free), start a blog. Blogs started off as a sort of on-line diary that anyone could read. They have transformed into a search engine-friendly way to market your business. Some well established blogs are getting over a million unique visitors a month. And blogs have scooped major news services, and are often cited as one of the reasons for declining newspaper circulation.
If you want to start blogging, go to one of the major free sites, Blogger (owned by Google) athttp://blogger.com, Typepad athttp://typepad.com, or Wordpress athttp://wordpress.com. In about 2 minutes you can register a new account and be blogging.
With their WYSIWYG (“what you see is what you get”) interfaces, formatting a blog post is really very easy. Let your friends, customers, etc., know where to look for your blog and you will soon have a following.
Over 100,000 new blogs are started every day. Many get a few posts and then become neglected. If you are serious about using your blog to market your business you need to be reliable about making posts to it. Set up a posting schedule, at least once a week is recommended. Use your Outlook calendar to set a weekly reminder to do your post. Write a few spare blog posts to keep “in the bank” for weeks when you don’t have time or inclination to write something. Just don’t stop once you start.
Blogging can be agreat way to have a Web presence, just don’t neglect it. For an example, my blog is athttp://vendor-tech.blogspot.com.
