Intro To Web Marketing for Small Business

With the economic downturn, every business is going to be tightening their belts.

Usually, one of the first things to get cut back is marketing. Studies done in the past have actually shown that companies that are able to maintain advertising during an economic downturn see the benefits for years after.

So the question is: How do you get the same advertising presence without spending as much money?

I like to answer the question with a question: How many times have you found a website that you didn't even know that you needed until you'd found it?

You did this by surfing around reading blogs, news stories or through random results from a search engine. This means that the more times a website is mentioned in blogs or news stories or comes up in search engines the more likely it is that it will be found. Part of the visibility in the search engines comes from how many times it has been mentioned on the web.

One of the best way of getting your business mentioned on the web is by using as many of the free web directories as possible. Obviously, the more popular and the more content that you are able to put up the better.

For travel, there is our website www.oistr.com. You've seen a lot of businesses put a map to their location on their website. We're kind of like that map, only on steroids.

Oistr is the only listing service that is searched on a map instead of through traditional text. It's tourism focussed so if you have a business that sells anything to anyone who ever travels, it may help.

There are lots of other directories and I urge every small business to go get on as many as possible. At the same time, blog, link to your site and try to get more attention wherever possible on the web.

That's what I'm doing, good luck.