The Internet and Your Business

Are you thinking about starting a business? Maybe you already have a business but it’s not growing as quickly as you initially hoped for… Have you done a thorough analysis lately of how you are leveraging the internet to build and market your business?

Ask yourself the following question;

“Am I utilizing the internet to effectively build, promote, and grow my business?”

What’s your answer?

It’s been our experience that a lot of business owners are not familiar with, nor are they using, the proper internet tools to assist them in starting, building and operating an “Internet Enabled” business. So what are these tools?

Essential Internet Tools for Your Business

The tools we’re talking about are all readily and inexpensively available today. But yet, many business owners don’t utilize them properly in their business. In today’s business world, it’s important to not only understand these tools, but also to fully utilize them for your business.

Here’s our list of the Top essential Internet Tools for your business;

• Domain Name – Do you have your own domain name? Did you know that for as little as $10.00 per year, you can register and own a domain name that can be used to promote and market your business? A domain name is your company’s address on the internet. Acquiring a domain name is the 1st step in building your Internet presence. Consider your domain name as the foundation for your internet presence.
• Email Addresses – How many times have you seen a company email address like larryslawncare@gmail.com or thecornerdiner@yahoo.com? Using a FREE email address is not helping your marketing efforts.You need to establish email addresses that market your company and your domain to adequately leverage the internet for marketing.
• Website – When was the last time you used the phone book to locate information on a company? Do you think this is what your customers are doing? Having a website which provides general information about you business is a necessity in today’s internet connected world.
• eCommerce – Does your company sell goods/services? Could you sell them via the internet? eCommerce is the term used for managing your sales/shipping via the internet.
• Social Media – Facebook, Twitter, Google, Instagram, and the list goes on and on… All of these social media companies have tools that are available to you for marketing your business either locally or internationally. You need to have active social media account on at least two of these platforms. (Read our overview of The Next Big Idea driven by Social Media)
• Internet Marketing – Once you have a presence on the internet, now it’s time to properly leverage it to market your business. Internet Marketing combines a multitude of tools (newsletters, coupon codes, fan pages, email lists, etc…) that you can take advantage of to market your business and promote your company to build your client base.
• Managed Services – If all of these tools seem like they are just too daunting for you to tackle. Especially with everything else the business owner must deal with. Then let a managed services company handle it for you. We recommend our parent company OurLink.Net which supplies many of the tools and services we have covered in this article.

The Face of Your Company

The internet is a public window to your company.

How you leverage your use of the internet, and the tools we have outlined above, impacts how your company will appear to your prospective customers.

Don’t provide them with the wrong image!

Not having your own domain name, not having a website, not using your own branded email addresses, not having a social media presence, or not properly using any one of these could spell disaster for your company’s image and how your customers will see you.

Conclusion

There are a lot of great tools that are available to assist you in utilizing the internet for building your business. Many of these tools are vital to the success of your business. However, not all types of businesses will receive the same benefit from the use of these tools and the internet. Regardless of your business, as the owner, it is your duty to ensure that you have reviewed the available tools and made a determination of which ones are right for your company.

Over the coming weeks we are going to dig deeper into these tools and provide you with our recommended approach to leveraging these tools to grow your business.

We’ll cover what it takes to get up and running, with step by step lessons and videos, that will walk you through each of these tools. As always, we will be available to assist you if you get stuck and need some assistance.

Watch for our overview of Domain Name Registrations coming soon!

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