NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Howard Levine sold timeshares, only he couldn't afford to advertise his properties in any meaningful way. As a result, he sat and watched people walk by his Orlando sales office every day, hoping some would stop in. Most didn't.
Levine admits he "didn't know the first thing about the Internet." But he struck upon the idea of creating a Web site in which he would provide sellers, for a fee, with Web pages advertising their properties. Timeshares Direct was born.
That was the easy part.
Picture the most remote town in the world. In that town, picture the most remote neighborhood. In that neighborhood is a dead-end street. At the end of that street is your Web site.
With millions of Web pages being added to the Internet each month, it's easy for a small business' Web site to be ignored. However, the Internet does offer you cost-effective and even free ways to get your site noticed.
Style equals substance
Before you begin marketing your Web site to the larger world, make sure it's ready. Busy, flashy, complex Web pages can frustrate your potential customer and give them a bad impression that's hard to shake.
What's worse is you'll never even know they were interested. Before you have a chance to convince them they should do business with you, they'll click elsewhere.
"A Web site needs substance," said William Stanek, author of "Increase Your Web Traffic in a Weekend."
"Fish can't swim without water and websites can't survive without substance."
Stanek urged small businesspeople to build their site on a framework of content that is interesting and useful.
Levine, owner of Timeshares Direct parent company, CHL Marketing, turned to Hillary Bressler, president of .Com Marketing to help him market a site that would work best for his customers.
"One of the most important things is making sure they can find what they're looking for quickly," said Bressler. "Most people are in a rush and don't want to have to go three to four levels deep for information."
One of the easiest ways to do this is to have a navigation bar which will allow customers with one click to find precisely the area they are seeking. The bar usually links to product information, company credentials and, most importantly, phone, e-mail and street addresses, which are often all many people are seeking.
Searching for answers
Now that your Web site is ready for the world, you'll want to tell people about it. This begins with the search engines.
All the major search engines, such as Yahoo!, HotBot and AltaVista offer ways to register your site with them individually but you can use the Submit-it site to enter your Web site with many of them all at one time.
Registering your site isn't the last step in your search engine presence. Search sites make changes and incorporate new technology which affect how high up your site will appear in a search.
So, unfortunately, you'll have to go back every six months or so to add your site again to ensure it gets its best chance at getting noticed.
You can strengthen your odds by the use of META tags in the Web site's HTML. These tags are hidden code that exists behind the pages which allow you to put in keywords that increase the chances your site will be picked up by someone searching for a related topic.
Once you've set up shop on the search engines, you'll want to get the word out to people who are most likely to use your product or services.
Many areas of business have trade associations with their own websites. It's always a good idea to contact these associations, especially since many will link to your site for free.
Levine took this approach, hooking up with Timeshares.com, an informational site and clearinghouse for Web users interested in this type of vacation properties.
Levine felt it was important to take advantage of this type of free exposure. "I'm a small business and I have limited resources," said Levine.
If such links aren't bringing about the results you wanted, it may be time to think about using the "banner advertising" you may have seen on some commercial sites.
Unlike your previous efforts, banner advertising, usually a rectangular image linking to the advertiser's site, comes at a cost.
For this reason, the small businessperson must approach this carefully -- with an eye on buying advertising on the sites which are most closely relevant to their own businesses.
This is one of the rare times when the enormity and fast growth of the Internet works in your favor, according to Bressler.
"What I've found with very targeted sites is that [ads] are relatively inexpensive. The supply is high with online advertising inventory and the demand is low because small businesses don't know how to buy it," she said.
Levine, for example, pays $150 a month for a banner ad and said the business he gets from it makes it well worth it.
Having a personalized URL for your business site will cost you $70 at the outset, after you register your domain name with Network Solutions, the company that handles these requests.
This can be an effective way of making your company's name catch hold among Web users. However, said Stanek, deciding on a name may not be so simple.
"Few people understand how to create a name identity on the Web and fewer still have been successful at it," he said.
"One of the starting points for branding is to figure out how you want your business to be perceived in cyberspace and ask yourself if your personal or business name is the brand identity you want to establish on the 'Net."
The final aspect of your site marketing has nothing to do with browsers or keyboards or the Internet.
Put your Web and e-mail addresses on everything having to do with your business. Put it on your company letterhead, your faxes, your business cards, the side of your delivery van and the side of your building, if you can.
The hugeness of the Web is enough to make any small businessperson feel even smaller. However, these marketing methods do work. Anyone who doubts their effectiveness can just ask Howard Levine. Since January, traffic to his Web site has increased 546 percent.
-- by staff writer Randall J. Schultz
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