Building The Perfect Virtual Reputation: Internet Marketing Can
Work For You!
For the last six years I have been living in the beautiful
mountain town of Asheville, North Carolina. Three years ago I
experienced what many Americans have since 9/11; I was laid off
from my job and there were few prospects in sight. After nine
months of unemployment and only one call back in my field I had
the inspiration to go into business for myself. I was lucky
enough to find a talented, intelligent woman interested in
investing in a business partnership with me and we began
networking with and marketing to the local community. As time
passed we realized what many other small business professionals
have in the past, our best bet for success was on the Internet.
Online we could reach a much broader client base, which would
allow us to make more money and eventually support ourselves
through the business.
Publishing Articles Online
One of the first steps my business partner and I took to begin
marketing our company online was to write and publish articles
through a variety of web sites. These web sites ranged from
industry specific sites and e-zines to general web portals. Web
portals accept articles on a wide range of topics and make them
available to a variety of online and offline editors. As each
article was posted to a new site a link to our company web site
was included, this began to increase our web site traffic and
our number of leads. As our marketing plan moved forward we
realized this was a tool we could teach other small business
owners to use and a service we could offer to clients who wanted
to increase their web site traffic. My business partner and I
created a seminar and offered it at a local microenterprise
organization. We also began to use this tool when consulting on
web site development and Internet marketing projects. Overall,
my clients have seen their web site traffic increase, along with
their number of qualified leads each month. Since the services
my company provides are affordable the client simply reinvests a
small portion of the current marketing budget into my company.
The client