Being a presence on the Web is not necessarily a $2000 investment.  There are four steps to starting.

ONE – Buy your domain name.  Your Domain name is your address. Just as my mailing address tells people how to find my home, my domain name tells people where they can go on the internet to find me.  I am Christine Yeager so my domain is christineyeager.com.

• If your business name is ABC electronics you want to use ABCelectronics.
• If you are a business you want to use .com (Commerce).
• See if that domain name is available. I love my old standby site betterwhois. If you’ve done some good thinking your business name will be succinct, memorable and descriptive, so your chances are the domain is still available. If it isn’t available, ask yourself why.  If it’s because someone is already operating with the same name in the same business you may want to check out if you should change your business name or stop whoever is using it.

Extra Free Advice – Be careful about buying your domain from a site that offer free websites with templates.  They are really awesome, but if you grow and decide to have a super duper site developed for you by a pro, you may not be able to keep your domain.  Read your agreement carefully and see if you can transfer the ownership to another hosting company.

TWO – Make a home page

While people are curious about details, sometimes a simple one page website is all that is needed.  Giving a business credibility and basic information is better than having no presence on the web.

Crocus, a wonderful store in Cambridge, Wisconsin, was not in a position to go full blown website.  Featuring many one of a kind items, an online store would not be a profitable endeavor since the cost of quality photography, time to post each item, shipping costs, etc, would exceed the profit on the items sold.  This store benefits from foot traffic generated by vacationers going “up north”.  So the purpose of the website was to help visitors identify the shop should they forget it’s name.  The coupling with a google search would allow for the store to be found and referrals to be made.

THREE – Try a little SEO Action

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. What’s a search engine?  Google and Bing are search engines.  They are systems you use in an internet browser to find websites.  Want to learn more about options for search engines read this great article.

Lifewire post about the best search engines

An interesting challenge is the Google search.  If your business doesn’t come up when you search google, you can add your business. Expand the search choices and scroll down to the bottom.  You will see an option to Add a Missing Place. Follow the instructions and voila’ in a week your will be one of the businesses that appear in a google search.

FOUR – Set Up your Social Media Pages

What’s social media?  Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and many more websites are places where we see what our social contacts like and say. When you set up a Facebook Page or begin to post things on twitter, people who want to see what you have to offer will begin to “follow” you. After they choose to see what you post, whenever you post it, your posts will come to their attention.  It’s a great way to offer advice, tell customers about promotions or share your civic pride and volunteering.

Extra Free Advice – Keep your personal stuff, personal.  Create a separate page for your business so people don’t see you mentioned when your Grandmother thanks you for taking her to get her festering toes infection taken care of. As we build good relationships with our clients by sharing small personal stories, keep it small on your social media sites.  Always ask yourself, would you say this to your most formal business clients? If not, keep it off social media.

Those are the four steps.  They will help build credibility with new clients and keep your current clients proud and loyal when they are recommended to your competitors.