--- title: "A short guide to using the internet for a small business" author: "Stan Voo" url: https://www.99rabbits.com/blog/a-short-guide-to-the-internet-for-small-business published: 2010-03-19 summary: "Three stages: make it easy for people looking for you to find you, then for people looking for what you sell, then build something useful for them. Written for small firms in 2010." --- # A short guide to using the internet for a small business ## Stage one: make it easy for the people looking for you to find you ### 1. Create a business-card website That is, a site of a few pages that does the job of a business card. Choose an address in the domain zone that matches where you operate. *For example, an address like `*.od.ua` suits Odesa companies, while a `*.com` address will make visitors doubt where you're actually based, and on top of that Google won't consider your site to be from Ukraine.* **Put** all the **contact details** you can on it, including your office address and how to get there. Describe in detail, but clearly, what you do and, if possible, how much you charge for your services or goods. **Know this: a business-card website costs next to nothing these days**, but even those three pages can keep bringing you extra customers. Don't put other sites' buttons on your company's site, even if their subject is close to yours. Counter buttons are a relic of the past. They bring your site no benefit; on the contrary, they weigh it down and distract visitors. If you're ordering a site from programmers and aren't quite sure it will work for you, don't give in when they insist your site needs an expensive, beautiful design with pictures and ornaments. If you're making a business-card site, make it like a business card: minimalism is just the thing here. Take a look, for example, at the website of the company of Igor Mann, a marketer very well known in Russia and Ukraine: [kongru.ru](http://kongru.ru/ "http://kongru.ru/") ### 2. Create a company mailbox that includes your site's address, for example [orders@yoursite.ua](mailto:orders@yoursite.ua) How embarrassing it is to see email addresses like **[companya2008@mail.ru](mailto:companya2008@mail.ru)** for fairly large wholesale companies in glossy trade magazines! Use your own mailbox. If you have your own site, ask the programmers to set it up: it's five minutes' work. And yes, better not to use your date of birth or abbreviations of your first and/or last name in the address. That looks ugly too, and it will be hard to dictate over the phone. ### 3. Put your company's details in topic directories, mark yourself on maps and add yourself to business listings The internet is full of **free** directories and listings, like the familiar Yellow Pages, and noticeboards like... well, noticeboards :) Just don't fall for the tricks of the various adventurers who offer you a place in their directory, which "*500,000 people visit every day*" and which "*will bring you thousands of happy customers*", for just $300 a month! As a rule, it's a con and nothing of the kind will happen. Study such offers carefully, and in any case treat them with suspicion. For Odesa, a very good idea is to add your company to [2GIS](http://odessa.2gis.ru/), the city map and business directory; for Kyiv (and not only Kyiv), to [mapia.ua](http://mapia.ua/ "mapia.ua"). Yandex recently started letting companies add their details: > [Yandex.Webmaster](http://webmaster.yandex.ru/) has a new subsection, "Addresses and organizations", for adding and editing details of the organization behind a site: addresses, phone numbers, alternative names, line of business. Addresses and phones appear in search results beside the site's description, and the other details make the organization easier to find in Yandex.Maps and Yandex.Addresses. Google's equivalent is [Local Business Center](http://www.google.com/local/add/businessCenter?hl=en-US\&gl=US). Once you've added up-to-date details about your company through these services, you can be sure people will find you on Google's and Yandex's maps. ## Stage two: make it easy for the people looking for your goods or services to find you ### 1. Use SEO to push your site up for key search queries Wikipedia says: > **Search engine optimization** (SEO, [in English](http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%90%D0%BD%D0%B3%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%B9%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D1%8F%D0%B7%D1%8B%D0%BA)) is a set of measures for raising a site's position in the [results](http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/SERP "SERP") of [search engines](http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D0%BE%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D1%81%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BC%D0%B0) for particular user queries. Usually, the higher a site's position in the search results, the more interested visitors come to it from [search engines](http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D0%BE%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D1%81%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BC%D0%B0). Put simply, it means making sure that when someone types the name of your product (or service) into Google or Yandex, they get your site first, not your competitors'. **It's like renting a shop in a mall closer to the entrance.** From here on, look things up and read for yourself, and hire specialists. I'd advise going to serious companies rather than lone programmers, because the chance of falling into the hands of charlatans is too high: in this business it's very easy for overly "advanced" optimizers to pull the wool over the eyes of "unadvanced" clients. When you hire specialists, don't take the popular bait: "for just 3,000 hryvnias a month we'll get your site to first place for 5 key queries". There can't be one price for everyone here. It's like saying all the sausage in our shop costs 25 hryvnias a kilo. Breaking through to the top is harder for some businesses than for others, so the sausage, I mean the price, is individual. ### 2. Use contextual advertising Let's turn to the [wiki](http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BA%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%B0) again: > **Contextual advertising** is a type of [online advertising](http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%98%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BD%D0%B5%D1%82-%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BA%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%B0) based on matching the content of the ad to the [context (content)](http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%81%D1%82) of the web page where it is placed. **This is another way of getting closer to the entrance of the virtual mall, only here the rent depends on how many people walk into your shop.** You buy ads on sites with a related subject or, more often, on the Google or Yandex page where a potential customer has typed "your" query (the name of your product or service). Feel the difference? **SEO pushes you higher in Google's or Yandex's results, while contextual advertising just shows an ad next to them.** Here too, better go to specialists. They usually take a percentage of the ad budget. Though that's a bit odd: for some reason I suspect they set up your ads once at the start and then just collect a percentage for, so to speak, support. ### 3. Write useful articles on your subject and put them on your site, hand out free "samples" Explain how to do something your potential customers run into. Home-repair tips come to mind, though it could be anything. The main thing is to create some value for people: say something new, or say it better or more simply than others. This will show what professionals you are in your field and will attract customers. Think about which sites on your subject could carry your article, so that as many people as possible see it. The popular "freebies" are another example: give away for free something you do for money. Something small, not complete, but able to work on its own. You must know trial versions of software: there so that people try them and get hooked. This will draw attention to you. Designers, for example, often draw sets of pictures (icons) for websites and give them away for free, earning respect and a reputation, and above all, fame. ### 4. Check from time to time whether anyone has written about you anywhere: type your company's name into a search engine and see what comes up Maybe there are **good reviews** you didn't know about. **Republish** them on your site with a link to the source. Be proud. And if there are **not very pleasant** reviews, be glad: the internet is helping your company get better. **Put it right, apologize, and make up** for the customer's loss or hurt where you can. Then you'll turn a disappointed customer into someone who tells friends and acquaintances about you. ## Stage three: create a service on your subject, or your own online store Make something... something useful for your potential customers, something that helps them in their work or makes them happy. A simple example of such a service: all kinds of **loan calculators**. A more complex one: a **business card builder**, if you print business cards. Or just sell your goods in an **online store**. That's not a bad option either ;)