From One Business Owner to Another

In a new venture for his fledgling marketing consultant company, John Tully, owner of dsm-llc, offered a free breakfast seminar full of Internet marketing tips for small businesses.

Tully taught his audience that a website is among the most important marketing components of a business, but it can’t be just any website. It has to be the right one.

“If you don’t have a professional looking site, you won’t get calls,” Tully said.

He discussed the importance of choosing the right domain name, and how to pick a web hosting service. Tully also discussed what is still free and reliable on the web, like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Places and Yelp.

When starting a website, Tully recommended looking to competitors’ sites for ideas on how to make a professional site.

“You don’t need a lot of bells and whistles, flashing lights, anything like that,” he said. “Simple is always best. But what you do need is clear contact information, and a succinct description of who you are and what you do.”

Tully warned the audience that when providing information, it’s important to include it as text, not a graphic, as Google is only able to read text, not graphics, through the search engine.

He also said to make sure that the keywords that people would search for when looking for your site are liberally sprinkled throughout the site, so that your company will appear in a search.