On The Web For Free - By Nathan Lyle

By Nathan Lyle (Web Maestro) - January 4th, 2010

There are many things you might want your website to do for you, but one common task is making sure that people can find you when they go looking. And most people are looking online these days. If you're not ready to make the leap and put together a complete website, there is a way you can get started for free.

An often overlooked method of getting your business information online is using social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, etc. You can take advantage of these free services that allow you to create a profile, which gets information about your business online. Your name, location, contact information and even information about your services can then be found, even before you've launched your own website.

You can think of each of these profiles as a "mini website" and can create as many of them as you'd like. I recommend choosing one site or service you're most familiar or comfortable with, and making that your "default" profile, while linking to that profile from all the other ones you create. That way you're connecting your information together, and building a connected presence in the search engines. (In the future this will also help when you do have your own website, as you can link your default profile to that site and take advantage of the history and credibility you've built with the search engines.)

Another advantage of choosing a default profile, is that you can spend most of your time keeping that one up to date, instead of having to update all of them every time. Different websites and services will fit better with different types of businesses, so it makes sense to look around and see what seems to work best. Unless there are reasons to choose otherwise, I would recommend using Facebook as your default. In this case, you would want to actually create two things: your own personal Facebook account, and then a "page" for your business. Once those are in place, you can market your business page by building up the number of "fans" it has. Those are people who will then see the updates you add to that page.

If you don't see yourself wanting to create updates and interact with a profile very often, you might instead choose to focus on Google Maps. Though your location may already exist within Google's database, you'll want to "claim" your location and fill out some profile details to make sure it's correct and up to date. You can even include hours of operation and information on products and services. A huge advantage of claiming your profile is that Google will place these location results right at the top of a search page when people search with location specific keywords. So, without even having your own website, you can still appear on the first page of Google's search results. (Even if you don't intend to do much with it, you may still want to claim your location on Google to prevent others, competitors or spammers, from doing so.)

Eventually, you will want to have your own website, and the advantages are too numerous to list here. Unless you're the rare business owner with an abundance of spare time and a knack for programming and graphic design, you'll also likely want to have your website professionally designed and developed. In the mean time, however, "free" is a great place to start!