Why you need a web presence
Everybody knows our economy is in the toilet, and it may get worse before it gets better. This has been going on since 2008, so a plan B is essential to padding your landing, no matter how far you end up falling. Depending on a single income stream is no longer a wise choice.
You need every avenue you can find to put your business further out there so people can find you over your competition.
Whether you have a brick-and-mortar business or an online business, you must be on the web. Why? I have 6 words for you:
- iPhone
- Blackberry
- iPad
- Android
- Tablet PC
- Smartphone
You need the ability to reach the people you market and sell to who want to buy what you offer. You have the ability to do that online while they’re out looking for what you’re selling. If you’re not mobile-accessible, you’re invisible.
Get listed free in Google Local. If you are listed, anyone with a portable web-connected device can search for you and get your name, phone number, address and a map to your location. They can also link to your website or facebook fan page. You do not necessarily even need a website or blog. In many cases you can use your facebook page as your website.
The phone book is beginning to go the way of the buggy whip. In 5-10 years, I doubt there will be telephone books anymore. The size of the phone book we got this year was about half the size of last year’s phone book.
You may want to keep your Yellow Pages ad if you know you get customers from it, but you may be able to reduce it’s size, or simply list your business name and number, and save some money. If you always ask your customers how they found you (and you should and write it down), you’ll know whether you should continue using old-school forms of advertising, and whether you can downsize it.
There are 10 things you can do pretty fast to get a web presence, and 7-8 of them are free. You can reduce your marketing costs substantially, depending on how many online techniques you want to implement. The cost of the 2-3 paid services is dirt cheap compared to the monthly fees the phone company, magazines, and local newspaper charge you.
I’ll post a 20 minute video in the next post walking your through each free or cheap technique step-by-step to get your business noticed. You may even want to have your own mobile app developed.
In another future post, I’ll write about blogging. There will be free videos and a pdf report. You can blog for free or get private hosting. I graduated from Blog Mastermind and it helped me immensely to improve my blogs.
If you want a blog (website) set up for you, please let me know (email me or leave a comment on this post). I charge very reasonable prices to help you set up and get started fast.
I hope these resources will help your business reduce costs and be more successful. Please leave any thoughts or questions you have in the comments.
To your business success,
Sherri
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