May 13, 2008

Beyond Traditional Web Sites. Opportunities for Marketing Your Business

I'm a huge proponent that every business owner should have their own web site. A well designed web site and domain name. After this, an email newsletter and blog would be additional communication tools to definitely invest in.

However, it's clear that building a web site or more is simply not what every business can do. Frankly, I don't know why when in fact many web hosts enable you to CALL them to build your web site.

Another option, for busy small business owners is to create a webcard. Smalltown.com has a platform to enable you to get an online presence that focuses on your local geographic location.

For under $100 a year and in under 10 minutes, a local advertiser, can create a Webcard listing that includes all the pertinent information found on a website, including video links and even coupons, and can use that Webcard listing URL as a mini-website to promote their business. Webcard listings are even indexed by search engines like Google and Yahoo!

You can check out a sample webcard of Sibby's Cupcakery in San Mateo, California here.

With Homestead, recently purchased by Intuit, Microsfot's OfficeLive, Register.com and so many others making it pretty easy to build a web site, I really don't see why every small business should not have one.

Constant Contact and iContact's email newsletter services are very easy to use, so an email newsletter should be a piece of cake. Blogs might be a bit complex but WordPress.com and Typepad.com make it quite simple to build a blog.

I guess that's the beauty of the web giving businesses a multitude of choices to create a web presence - Smalltown.com is one of those choices.

tags: blog , email newsletter , smalltown , web site | 1 comments