By George Stephanis

It’s a tragedy, really, and I’ve seen it hundreds of times. Upstart brick and mortar (hereafter called b&m) businesses get together capital, redo their storefront, redecorate inside, spending thousands of dollars to put together an appealing face to the public — and then neglect the one way to spread their business, that will reach the largest audience, for the smallest investment.

The internet.

Now, I’m not talking about paying out thousands of dollars to some major design firm to engineer you a massive web presence, but here are some key points that are simple to hit on, and are (mostly) free to set up.

Get a home on the web

Have a home that is your own. Not your content, encapsulated in branding for someone else, like a Facebook or MySpace page. There are two main options that I recommend for this, one free and the other low-cost.

As with all things, you get what you pay for, so the low–cost will give a bit more flexibility than free, but you can sort it out yourself.

FREE!

Start a blog at wordpress.com!

You can use the ‘post’ feature as a news feed for your business — advertising specials, news, or other time–sensitive things, while using the ‘page’ option for more static entries, such as an About, Location, Contact, or Menu page. You can manage pages, include posts as a newsfeed, select a free theme off a large list that they offer … all without costing you a dime.

LOW–COST!

Go to GoDaddy, and register a domain name. You can get a .info for a buck your first year, or a .com for about $10.

This will give you, firstly, the ability to set up email accounts from your domain. Very professional — I can’t tell you how many times I go to a business (even some that have a website) and look at their cards, only to find their email address is @zoominternet.net, @comcast.net, or (saints preserve us) @aol.com! I do recommend heading over to Google Apps, and setting up their free domain email hosting. Don’t bother with the Business or Premier options, their free Standard edition is more than enough. They walk you through the process of setting it up, step by step, and even offer specific directions for GoDaddy.

Next is hosting. Currently, GoDaddy’s basic hosting accounts, if you buy them a year at a time, sell for about $55 annually. They have auto–installers for software, and it’s integrated to the point where you could get an entire website setup and running without having to even know what a FTP client is! For now, don’t worry about E–Commerce, plugins, or custom designs, just pick a design that matches the feeling you try to put across to your customers.

Create a Twitter Account

Go ahead, do it. I dare you. See how simple it is. Once you’re set up, try using some automated tools like HootSuite to find people to connect with. Twitter is a great tool, firstly because it’s free — but also because it lets you build up a following for your business. It’s great to have dedicated customers, right? Well, a great way to do that is to pick a ‘daily deal’ or something of the sort, and Tweet about it each morning! If people come in and mention that they saw the offering on your Twitter Feed, they get the daily deal. Perhaps a free small coffee when you buy a muffin, or half off a ream of paper. Nothing big, but everyone loves saving money, and it’s a great way to reward loyal patrons and draw in fresh customers.

Make a Facebook page

As lots of people have already noted, Facebook is a giant beast of social networking. Setting all privacy concerns aside, it provides a great and easy way to get the word out about your business. I’ve seen some businesses where their Facebook page is the sum total of their online presence. Now, I’d not recommend that when there are so many other avenues to getting yourself out there, but as part of an integrated front, it’s terrific. Post photos, news, whatever you like. It’s even possible to integrate WordPress, Twitter, and Facebook so that whenever you update your WordPress site, all the others get bumped as well. Talk about killing three birds with one stone!

Google Local Businesses

Finally, every client that I’ve ever had wants to know one thing — how to get to the top of Google. Now, doing that globally for a popular search term may be difficult, but for local searches, it becomes much easier.

If I were looking for a coffee shop to visit in Grove City, Pennsylvania, I’d probably search Google for something like … ‘coffee grove city pa’ and see what came up.

Here, try it yourself.

Now, you don’t need to jump to the top of the search listings to get to the head of the class! If you’re listed in Google’s Local Business directory, they’ll do it for you. All you have to do is submit yourself via their simple form at google.com/local/add

Once you get rolled in to their system, you should start getting noticed alot more by people searching for local businesses. Not bad for a free tool, eh?

Conclusion

There really are an abundance of ways for people with a of technical know how to establish a low–cost base of operations on the world wide web. If you’re not sure how to do something, give it a shot. Things are normally self–explanatory, but if you do get stuck, go find your nearest techie, or contact me, and you’ll get patched up and on your way in a jiffy.

George Stephanis is a code monkey, tech geek, and typographic elitist — all of which work out quite well for his clients. His company, Archer Web Designs, provides affordable website design, construction, and maintenance to a terrific bunch of companies and non-profits. Hire him to get in on the action!

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