Small Business Internet Presence - Getting Started

At first glance the internet seems to be place of high technology, high investment media beyond the reach of the common folks. But it is not so. For all small enterprise and work at home professionals the internet is the most cost effective and user friendly medium. In terms of ease of adapting to the technology and reach no other medium can even come closer.

For a small business on a shoestring budget, internet offers an open and free entry too. It is well suited for work from home business entrepreneurs, small and tiny industries and even professionals like doctors, lawyers. Consultants who want to test the waters without monetary risk.

So how does one get started?

Deciding on the product

Now this may seem easy and very basic. However you need to decide your product or service targeted to a specific niche. If you are a lawyer offering legal services just won’t do. You have to target your niche. Legal consultancy on a specific area as matrimonial, criminal, civil, corporate law, international or even more specific to your sub niches. People are looking for very specific services and are likely to search using key words specific to the niche.

If you are highly focused and target your market you have won half the battle.

Creating your website

This is the easy part. Domain names are very cheap. Please remember to have a domain name which is a keyword related to your product/service. You can find sites with ready templates and for a small yearly hosting fees you could be online within a day. The readymade templates offer you designs with WYSIWIG (What You See Is What You Get) editors. Just chose the design, type out the appropriate content, upload photographs in the space provided and just press a button and you are online.

If you are still unsure and want to test the waters just start with a blog. You can go for a blog attached with your web hosting or go for free blog at blogger.com.

Establishing Your Expertise

People must first be impressed with your expertise. Start writing valuable pieces and advice related to your profession. You can write short articles and publish them on article directories like this one. Put a resource box at the end of the article with a link to your website or blog for people to visit you through the link. If you are good your article would be picked up and published in hundreds of sites with an active web link to your site. And soon you would all over the net.

I wanted to be a writer and author. I just started writing for a few hours every week on the subjects of my interest and now if you do my name search in google or yahoo I have thousands of pages listed on the internet. If a total novice like me could do it anyone could do it.

That is all there is to getting started. Of course there are many more complex ingredients to making it big on the internet. That is some more articles and may be a book.

Finally, the key to entrepreneurial success online or offline is fast paced action. Just get started now or you never will.

R.G. Srinivasan is managerial professional, certified Trainer, Writer and Author. He writes a regular blog on management thoughts which you may check out at http://management-thoughts.blogspot.com for interesting articles on management, managerial resources, strategies and experiences.