Make your business site rock in 20 minutes or less

Have a site, not sure what to do next? Here's a quick and easy starting point for any site (read to the end for more advanced stuff):

1. Get into Yahoo!'s and Google's local directories. This means people searching for businesses like yours in your area WILL find you.
2. Create an email signature with a link to the site. This is so all your emails will have a link to your site for people to click (kind of like a P.S.).
3. Whenever you send one of those fun or useful emails to multiple people, also bcc: it to your blog. Whatever stuff you're already sending out, whether it's tips, news, jokes, pics .. whatever. (Get a free blog in just minutes, and if you use blogger, here's how to email your posts.)

Now every time you send an email that gets added to your blog, it will also add a link to your website. And those emails adding onto your blog will start showing up in search engines results. And people who get your emails will click to your site, and forward your emails to other people who click over to your site, and so forth. Get your free blog from Blogger and Google will index it, and find your business site from there.

Interested in the advanced stuff? Here's the beginner's guide, plus a great resource for more articles, and then there's my favorite: a great guide to ranking factors for your site. Worth doing if you are able to edit your HTML is to find the

</head>

on the html of your home page. Then paste this just in front of it:

<meta name="description" content="This sentence describes my business.">

Change "This sentence describes my business." to something reader friendly.

Of course, every business should collect whatever customer information it can and market to their existing customer base