OK, so you’ve got a small business, and everyone keeps asking you if you’re online. Where do you start?

You could be a  plumber, an electrician, a mobile hairdresser, or a builder. These different businesses will have different requirements and different customers, but the main thing here is that using the internet is an easy way to potentially reach a growing audience.

One thing you need to bear in mind is that getting online need not cost you any money at all.

Here’s how you can do it yourself, and for free!

Get on Facebook

Ask around and you’ll find that a lot of people you know, and your customers are on Facebook. Chances are you’re on Facebook too. Well you can set up a business page for free. Logon to your personal page and then use the link http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php

Just follow the instructions and add in a couple of photos for you header and profile picture and you’re set. Share the page with customers and friends and ask them to share it too.

Tips

– Pop up some pictures of your work e.g. hairstyles, patios, garages
– Try and get your customers to comment on photos of work you’ve done for them
– Like the pages of similar business and learn from the ones that use Facebook well

Get on Twitter

This is a great way to not only connect your potential customers but also with governing bodies, trade leader and network with peers. It’s a very fast way to keep up to date with what’s going on in your area.

Tips

– Follow similar businesses and see what updates they put out
– Keep up to date with following the governing bodies in your business area
– Check TV programme hashtags (#xfactor). Are there any TV programmes relevant to your business/trade? Get online and join in as you’ll find more followers for your account

Website

If you need a website then again you can make one for free, but with a little more effort than setting up Facebook or Twitter.  Use Wordress (www.wordress.org). It’s known as a blog, but works really effectively as a website.

You’ll find many tiny, small, and medium businesses use something like WordPress to run their main website. This website is run on a free WordPress template!

Finally

Has this wetted your appetite for getting your business online?

The only things that should cost money are buying a domain name and selling online. We’ll talk about both of these in a further blog post.

These are just your starters and there are loads more cool things out there that will suit your business.

Make sure you spend some time checking out your competitor and any businesses that you aspire to be like. You’ll soon start to see a way forward for your business.

Don’t forget you can also contact us at Quirky Web. We can get you started or review where you already are and take you to the next stage.