Source: Small Business Management

Starting a Small Online Business is different in many ways from managing an off-net business. My advice to you is that before you do anything, invest in acquiring knowledge. I recommend you go to Site buildit! and other Ken Evoy products and review their material, Ke Evoy, the founder of this company is a known expert on the subject, and is considered to be the best Internet marketing resource.

Next, apply for your own domain name and than contract with a reliable company to host your site.

The success of your Internet business depends greatly on your ability to attract as many visitors to your site, this depends on the content and design of your site and on your promotional activities.

Designing Your Site To Attract Visitors
Your Web site promotion campaign begins with the design of your site. Why? Because the design of your HTML pages affects how your site will score on the search results pages of the search engines.

Appearing at the top of search results pages translates into more hits and more traffic. Plus, certain parts of your HTML pages control the way your title and description appear on the search results pages, and you want these items to be appealing so that searchers will click on your link. Designing your web site is beyond the scope of this introduction guide, for more information on the subject look in Site buildit! and other Ken Evoy products.

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Promoting Your Web Site
Now, after you've built and published your site, you are ready for some promotional work. In promoting your web site you should go in these three
main routes:
1.Submit your URLs to search engines, directories and other listings.
2.Send press releases to magazines and online publications.
3.Trade reciprocal links with other sites

Submit Your Web Site To Search Engines And Directories
How can your potential visitors hear about you? They might search for you in a search engine or a directory or they can stumble upon your link in a "what's new" "what's hot" type site. In order to be listed you need to submit your site's URLs.

I recommend you submit manually at list to the major search engines and
directories, This means visiting each one individually. If you have properly prepared your website for promotion.

As for the rest of the hundreds of search engines, directories, "what's new",
"what's hot", etc., You may use a submission service , or you can use a submission program.

Send Press Releases To Magazines And Online Publications
Magazines and online publications are always on the lookout for new and interesting stories. Mention of your site in such publications can bring you scores of visitors. The way to be included here is to send announcements and press releases upon launching your new web site and whenever you have something new that people might want to hear about.

Trade Reciprocal Links With Other Sites
Trading reciprocal links means that you approach other sites asking them to place a link to you in their site in exchange for a link in your site. Naturally you would want to approach busy sites that attract visitors with similar interests to your own. One good way to find such sites would be to go to a search engine and type in one of your keywords. The sites that appear at the top of the search results page would be good prospects.

Bear in mind that your site must contain interesting and useful information in order for others to agree to trade links with you.

To sum up...
This article barely touches the basics. The single most important investment
you can make to ensure your online success is in acquiring knowledge such as in Site buildit! and other Ken Evoy products. I wish I knew when I started, what I know now. it would have saved me a lot of time, money and tears.

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