Are you a small business owner looking to setup a website? Maybe you own a cake shop, an art gallery, or work as a freelance writer from home? Whatever type of business you have, if you have been wondering in what way you can use the Internet to boost your business presence and gain more clients, then scan through this article before you go out and spend money on a web design company to put together a site for you.

Although it may not be your core business, it’s worthwhile to educate yourself a little bit first before spending any $$. This article will give you a grip on the basics of web marketing before you hire someone to create a website for you so that you aren’t uninformed. It will also coach you about some things you can do yourself, which you may choose to do on your own to save you the cost of outsourcing.

Some Facts About Blogs

If you have the inclination to provide regular updates and news relating to your business, you might consider establishing a blog in lieu of a website. A blog works like a diary. Each entry is time and date stamped. Here is a blog about finance as an example. Note the time and date stamped posts and the optional peel back ad 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 your blog is installed, you just login to a control panel, type what you want to say into an entry field, and click “Publish”.

Blogs can be quite simple to setup. You might even try your hand at creating one yourself. You can get very affordable cPanel webhosting nowadays beginning at $4.95 p/mth. cPanel webhosting includes a feature called Fantastico, which allows you to install a blog with just a handful of mouse clicks. A decent hosting provider should be able to help you install your blog as well, even if you have very limited knowledge. After all, they want your business.

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Web 2.0 Websites

An alternative method to spread the word about your business without creating a website, is to create a free webpage on one of the numerous Web 2.0 content sites such as Hubpages.com and Squidoo.com. Here is an example Squidoo lens review of Success University. These are even easier 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 content sites also frequently appear very high in the search engine results, further boosting the means by which greater numbers of people can discover your business.

Social Networking Sites

Facebook, MySpace and Linked In are probably the three most trafficked social networking sites. As with the Web 2.0 websites, social networking sites are also based 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 elsewhere.

SEO – Search Engine Optimization

Once you have setup either a blog, Web2.0 or Social Networking page, you will want to ensure that your page has good exposure in the search engine results, and therefore sending greater traffic and increasing the number of people who become aware of your business. This is where Search Engine Optimization, comes into play. Don’t be scared! You can get a handle on SEO by taking a loan of a book from your local library or spending a bit of time researching it on the web. There are a whole host of free websites containing SEO information. Check out this site here.

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