Marketing your Small/Medium Business (SMB) Online
Are you a small or medium-sized business thinking about getting a web presence? If you're not selling products online (e-commerce) you may want to explore what local online listings you get get for free. It doesn't hurt to have your own website with a few simple pages listing your service offerings and contact information, but you really don't need to spend that much.
You can make the best website in the world, but if your prospects don't know where or how to find your website, its the same as having expensive full-color brochures sitting on your office counter waiting to be picked up by walk-ins (they've already found you, you need to let the rest of the world know you exist!)
Where to Start
Let's use our hometown, Chicago, as an example. Say you're a small plumbing shop and want to get your business and little website listed.
Google
Might as well start with the big guys. Add your business to their Google Local Business Center. Once that's set up, people searching for 'plumbers' in 'chicago', '60607' or '312' will see your business show up in their local searches.
Yahoo!
Yahoo! has been beefing up their local offerings too, add your business listing for free in their Yahoo! Search Marketing area. For $9.95/mo you can get an 'enhanced' listing.
Citysearch
If they don't have a basic listing for your business yet, you can submit a new listing. As with other sites, you can get extra goodies for a few extra bucks a month.
Yellow Pages
If you already have a listing in your local yellow pages, you'll get a 'basic' listing on the http://www.yp.com/ website
Yelp
A newcomer to the listing website game, but growing quickly. Here too, you can get your website listed for free. Like Citysearch, your listing will feature reviews by (hopefully) happy yelpers. Be sure to send your customers to these websites so they can post testimonials about their positive experiences with you.
There are many other places and strategies you can use to get your business noticed online and we'll touch on them in the weeks to come.
