Get Your Business Found NOW!

If you're like most small business owners you probably spend a fair amount of time trying to figure out how to find more customers.

Let's face it? advertising is expensive!

And how do you really know that what you're spending is effectively improving your bottom-line?

I've got good news and bad news when it comes to building your business and you have to pay attention to both in order to really grow!

Bad news, unless you bought an existing business with a huge customer base, you're going to have to do something to let people know you exist. That means in most cases, spending money.

People won't just automatically come flocking to your door just because you unlock it and flip over the "Open" sign in the front window. You need to establish some kind of presence for your business. Something that at least will get them to check you out. Once they're in the door it's up to you what you do with them. This is generally where most small business owners excel! Building a one on one relationship with people is not usually the problem; if it is you're going to have issues no matter how much you spend on marketing and advertising.

For our purposes here, I'm going to assume that you have something unique that people will want once they find you.

Good news, you don't necessarily have to spend huge amounts of money to get found by your customers. You just have to be in the right place.

And what is the right place today?

At the risk of offending those representing the other mediums I would suggest the internet and here's why?

According to Nielsen/Net Ratings there were some 7,773,174,000 internet searches done through all internet search engines in July 2007.

That, my friend is a staggering number in my humble opinion!

But there's more! In North America alone with an estimated population of 334,538,018, there are an estimated 232,655,287 internet users, a full 69.5 percent of the population. Want to know where your customers are? I think I just told you! More good news! The internet is a relatively affordable medium for marketing your business and in fact once you have done the basics of setting up a website, there are a lot of things you can do which will not cost you a dime! If you don't have a website already getting set-up is fairly easy. You need to plan on a commitment of 3 to 4 hours of your time depending on whether you decide to build it your self or have someone do it for you! Just go to any internet search engine and type in "websites". You'll come up with a host of companies through whom you can get a web address (also know as a URL), set up your website using their easy web building software, or have them build it for you. Within a day or so depending on the company you will have a fully functioning website ready to go out and find you customers. All of this will set you back anywhere from as little as around $30 to as much as a few thousand dollars depending on how elaborate you want to get and who you work with. NOTE: Unless you are building a giant E-Commerce machine where you will conduct most of your business online with customers you never see, $30 to $100 should get you a great website where you can communicate with your customers online. Once you have a website, it's time to put it to work for you. Here are a few tips: 1. Put your website on every piece of marketing material you have. Business cards, license plate frames, signs, posters, letterhead, anything you have that is seen by the public should have your website on it. This is one of the biggest mistakes people make with their website. They create this beautiful site and then they never tell anyone about it! 2. Keep your site up to date! If it's 2007 and your calendar of events is from 2005, people will assume everything else is out of date as well and stop visiting your site. This should take very little time each month and will give visitors a reason to come back which ultimately means do more business with you! 3. As soon as you have your website live, go to the search engines and submit your URL. This can usually be done simply by typing your full URL: www.yourwebsite.com into the search box. If they don't find it they will tell you how to submit it! 4. Make your content as specific as possible to the nature of your business. If you have a scrap booking business, the word scrap booking should be in the description of your business. Usually somewhere in the first few words of the first paragraph of your home page. Write articles about scrap booking and post them on your site. NOTE: Search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN you what are commonly referred to as Web Crawlers to go out on the internet and search contents of known websites. First you must tell them you exist (See #3) and then your site must be relevant (#4). There is no guarantee that they will include you in their indexes if you submit, but failing to take steps 3 & 4 can mean you definitely won't be found! 5. Use Search Engine Marketing. This is not free, but for the investment may be worth your while. Each of the major search engines mentioned above offer some type of advertising package for small business. They are general driven by what are known as "Keywords". For example; you go to Google and type in "scrap booking Los Angeles". Depending on the popularity of those words and the relevant content on your site, you can have your advertisement appear on the results page. You pay based on not just appearing on the page but in most cases based on the number of people that click on your ad and where your ad ranked on the search results page. You control your monthly budget and how much you want to pay per click. They will generally tell you based on your budget and the keywords and your sites content, how your ad will perform. Pretty cool actually, and still less than a newspaper ad! Plus, a side benefit of running an ad campaign is that in order to properly place your ad, the search engines will have their crawlers going through your site on a regular basis which will in turn, if you have a relevant site, place you higher in the free searches as well. 6. Use the right Key words! Most website building tools have a function for you to type in your keywords. Using the wrong keywords or keywords that don't match your content can send you plummeting to the bottom of the search engine index or worse have you not in the index at all. Don't try to be cute. Use words that match directly to the content on your site. If your content is about scrap booking one of your keywords should be scrap booking. It's kind of the direction of all marketing in this day and age, you can use words like "Sale" or "Discount" or "Savings" to get peoples' attention, but what keeps them around is relevant content that solves their needs. Use Keywords that are relevant not attention grabbing. Your customers don't see the keywords anyway so make them relevant to what they are looking for.

If you want to get found by more customers and sooner than later, this is the fastest way I can suggest to get the job done without breaking the advertising bank! Follow these suggestions and you will find your self with more of what you really want? business!

Tim lives in Los Angeles California where he operates a personal coaching and personal training company. He is known for his ability to put complicated topics into terms "even he can understand." His company offers a total approach to wellness both mental and physical. If you're ever in the Los Angeles area look him up to go for a great run to the ocean! www.everythingwestla.comwww.inspiredtolive.com