Are you running a small business that needs to create an online presence? Maybe you own a child carer, an cake shop, or work as a eatery from home? Irrespective of the type of business that you have, if you have been wondering how you can use the Internet to heighten your business profile and gain more clients, then read this article prior to going out and spending money on a web designer to put together a site for you.

Whilst it may not be your core business, it pays to educate yourself a little first before investing any money. This article will give you a grip on the basics of web marketing before you go out and hire someone to create a website for you so that you aren’t uninformed. It will also educate you about some things you can do yourself, which you may take the option to do on your own to save you the cost of outsourcing.

Web 2.0 Content Sites

An alternative method to get the word out about your business without creating a website, is to create a free page on one of the numerous Web 2.0 content sites such as Hubpages and Squidoo. Here is an example Squidoo lens about Matt Morris’ Success University.

These are even more simple to setup than a blog because they don’t require any technical knowledge at all, leaving you to concentrate on your content and saying what you want to say to your target audience. Pages on Web 2.0 sites also often appear towards the top of the search engine results, further boosting the means by which more people can discover your business.

Social Networking Sites

Facebook, MySpace and Lincked In are probably the three most trafficked social networking websites. As with the Web 2.0 websites, social networking websites are also based on pre-coded templates and styles, removing the need to have any html knowledge and allowing you to save the money you might have otherwise invested with a web design company and invest that elsewhere.

Consider A Blog

If you have the inclination to provide regular news and updates pertaining to your business, you could consider setting up a blog instead of a website. A blog functions like a diary. Each entry has a date and time stamp. Here is a blog about finance as an example. Note the time and date stamped posts and the optional Peel Away Ad in the top right hand corner. You don’t need to know any html or programming to use a blog.

Once installed, you just login to a control panel, type what you want to say into a box, and click the publish button.

Blogs can be quite simple to setup. You might even try your hand at creating one yourself. You can get very cheap cPanel webhosting nowadays beginning at $4.95 per month. cPanel webhosting comes with a feature called Fantastico, which allows you to setup a blog with a few clicks of a mouse. A decent hosting provider will be able to assist you to setup your blog as well, even if you are a novice. After all, it’s in their interest to secure your business.

SEO - Search Engine Optimization

Having now installed either a blog, or setup a Social Networking or Web2.0 page, you will want to ensure that your page has good exposure in the search engine results, and therefore sending greater traffic and increasing the number of people who become aware of your business. This is where SEO, short for Search Engine Optimization, comes into play. Don’t be daunted. You can learn about search engine optimization by taking a loan of a book from your local public library or investing a little time researching it online.

There are a plethora of free websites containing information on seo, in addition to paid membership websites such as Portal Feeder that can assign you a mentor to assist you in your search engine optimization knowledge and site creation endeavours. There are some really simple things you can do that will heighten the profile of your website and drive traffic to it.