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YELLOW PAGES

- Submit your free listing in the Yellow Pages who are probably one of the most recognized names in the industry. They have several different levels of advertising available but the basic listing is FREE.

GOOGLE MAPS

- List you business and display your advertising on Google Maps. Highly recommended.

TRUE LOCAL

- List your business for FREE on True Local which is a useful Australian Business Directory whose results sometimes appear in searches. This professional marketing company also phones you directly to confirm your listing. You have an option to upgrade your account to a paid and larger listing but for most purposes the regular free listing is all you’ll need.

HOT FROG

- Another useful website where you can list your Australian business FREE is hotfrog. It only takes a few minutes to set up your advertisement and choose your keywords. You business details go public as soon as your email address has been confirmed. These listings placed on hot frog are often seen very high in searches. Highly recommended.

GOOGLE LOCAL

- Create an account on Google LocaL. Enter your company name, address, phone number and website. Verify the information with a post-a-card, SMS or telephone call. At the same time you can bring new customers into your business by using the free Google coupon tool that puts your advertisement on relevant local searches.

FACEBOOK

- Start a facebook page and find other people from your local area and others in your industry. Share your success stories or ask for advice. Join groups that interest you and contribute to the conversations. Some people use facebook to network, some just for friendship. I’ve personally found it to be extremely effective for promoting my photography, writing and life coaching businesses, and if it’s a place you enjoy to hang out, your time and effort could well be rewarded too.

MAKE USEFUL COMMENTS ON BLOGS AND FORUMS

- It’s amazing how much business can be generated by adding value to people in your local community. I regularly contribute useful material to other business forums like flying solo small business forum and webmaster blogs. There’s no need to self promote, in fact self promotion is often frowned upon and your comments may even be deleted. Just contribute to discussions by giving relevant and useful information and many people will become curious by your generosity and follow the link back to your website

SOUTH GIPPSLAND INFORMATION WEBSITE

- If you live in South Gippsland, Victoria,  Australia, you can freely advertise your business, products, services, events, functions and any location relevant news or articles as many times as you like at the South Gippsland Information Website.

YAHOO LOCAL BUSINESS DIRECTORY

- Display your products, create press releases and articles and build your own free mini website with Yahoo Local Business Directory. People searching for your business or industry can generally find your free listing quite easily.

YAHOO REVIEWS

- An important segment of the Yahoo Local listings are the reviews. Ask your good customers to write reviews for you on Yahoo local. Businesses with higher ratings apparently get preferential listings.

YAHOO ANSWERS

- Have you ever searched for something and found it on ‘yahoo answers‘? I have. Here’s an idea. If you check out what questions remain unanswered (or open) and they relate to your business, you can answer them and leave a link back to the source…which could be your own website. Answers that get rated as the best (it’s pretty easy) get high preference in searches and could create extra traffic for years to come.

LINKWIZZ

- Write your own business advertisement with Linkwizz - Australian Business Directory. They also have other tiers of advertising available, but as yet I’m unsure how effective it is.

BLOGS

- Start A Blog with WordPress, LiveJournal or Blogger and use the Freely available Blog Promotion Tools. Talk about topics on your new blog that relate to your business and help other people find out more about your industry. Websites like Technorati and mybloglog can help you gain exposure, visitors, readers, and subscribers, but it does need to be maintained with quality and interesting content.

SQUIDOO

- Create a lens at Squidoo that talks about the stuff you sell, then create another one for each product and link them all together.  Make a lens for your blog or website. For some other really creative ideas go to 49 Ideas For Awesome Lenses.

LINKEDIN

- Join LinkedIn and invite some people you know to join you. Make new connections with people you don’t know through introductions or writing answers to peoples question on the new Questions & Answers page and be genuinely helpful.

FLYERS ON LOCAL NOTICEBOARDS

- Putting up some flyers on noticeboards in your local area only costs some time and effort. Instead of doing a blatant business promotion like most people, offer to teach a free class on your chosen field of expertise, offer a free quote or run a competition. Find creative ways to get attention that are just slightly different to the ‘norm’.

TEACH A CLASS AT YOUR LOCAL COMMUNITY CENTER

- Most of our local community houses are looking for tutors willing to teach about any subject that other people might be interested in learning. Besides being a paid job, it is an excellent way for other people to realise your level of expertise, and they will often tell their friends.

The Internet is a world wide collection of networks, both big and small. These networks connect together in many different ways to form the what we know as the Internet. In fact, the name comes from the phrase “interconnected networks”. One of the most interesting things about the Internet is that nobody really owns it.

Every computer that is connected to the Internet is part of a network, even the one in your home. For example, you may use a modem and dial a local number to connect to your Internet Service Provider (ISP) or maybe you use satellite broadband or regular broadband connected directly through your phone line that links you to your ISP.

Who Are The Best Internet Service Providers In Australia?

Our ISP is Westnet and there are many others to choose from like TPG, Netspace and Internode etc. From personal experience and when listening to my customers complaints, there are two ISP’s I definitely DO NOT recommend, and they are DCSI and Bigpond. But you are welcome to read the results of this extensive broadband survey from whirlpool, ask other people about their own experiences and make your own decision.

What Is A Local Area Network?

At work, you may be part of a local area network (LAN), but you most likely still connect to the Internet using an ISP that your company has a contract with. When you connect to your ISP, you become part of their network. The ISP may then connect to a larger network and become part of their network. As you can already tell by this example, the Internet is really just a network of networks.

The term ‘domain name’ is often used when people talk about the internet … but sometimes there is confusion about what it really means. Every time you look up a website or send an email, you do it via a domain name.

A domain name is the ‘address’ of a particular website on the internet and identifies where specific data lives, just like a postal address you might use when sending letters. This domain name tells your browser where to look to access the page you want to see.

Anyone can choose and register a domain name, as long as it hasn’t been taken by someone else. You can use a domain registrar to do this or get your website designer to do it for you and an annual fee for each domain name you register will also be required. It’s best to choose a fairly short and easy to remember word that relates to what you are wanting to sell, discuss or offer to your potential visitors. If it’s for a business, using your business name will often help with search engine traffic as well.

A domain name should cost less than $20 per year to register and renew.

What Is A Sub Domain?

We use a sub domain to organize our content into separate websites. Our main domain name is lifegames.com.au. This particular website is actually a sub-domain called websites.lifegames.com.au. Also included are photos.lifegames.com.au and panoramas.lifegames.com.au.

Another great example of a site that uses subdomains to organize their content is about.com. If you visit their site, you will notice that they use different subdomains for each of the different topics they cover (e.g., “movies.about.com” and “toys.about.com”).

One point to note is, unlike domains, subdomains can be created at any time without having to register another new domain name. For any domain, you can generally create as many subdomains as you like; you do not have to go to a registrar and pay an annual fee for each of them.

What Is An IP Address?

Each COMPUTER that is connected to the Internet also has a clearly identifiable address made up of numbers, called the IP address. It is made up of four sequences of digits that are separated by three dots. They look like this: 124.150.81.122.

You can check what your own IP address is by going HERE.

A domain name also has an IP and is the word version of this address, making it simple for people to understand and remember. It is much easier to remember a domain name instead of recalling the numbers in the IP address.

What Is A Domain Name System?

To make the process more universal, the web uses a system known as the Domain Name System (DNS), which orders each section of a domain name from the broadest part (ie. the ‘au’ which represents Australia), right down to the most specific part (ie. the ‘lifegames’). This helps computers read the name in a logical order.

WHAT DEFINES A SUCCESSFUL WEBSITE – A website that is found regularly in searches. A website that is functional and user friendly. A website that makes your potential customers and visitors feel comfortable contacting or buying from you. These are the most common definitions of website success.

Yet there’s still a lot to learn about Internet Marketing and creating successful websites (I’m sure I’ve only scratched the surface)…but what I can offer is this advice.

A website will ‘work’ if four very important things occur -

1. You use appropriate keywords and phrases (the most likely ones people would search for to find you).
2. You get as many appropriate websites (related to your industry or location) to link to yours as possible.
3. The website is updated with fresh quality content and technological advances.
4. You promote your website and ‘drive traffic’ towards it.

Functionality, quick loading, ease of navigation, relevant and useful content and testimonials also add to the appeal of each site.

A website is almost useless and a waste of money if these things are not present.

THE MOST POPULAR WEBSITES AREN’T PRETTY – You’ll notice that my definition of succesful websites doesn’t include having a beautiful design. In fact, the most successful websites in the world are really quite ugly. Take a look at YouTube and Google for instance. Then read this fantastic article about what makes a highly successful website.

If you already have a business, a product a service or just some good quality information to share with the world, the Internet could well be the place to expand your horizons.

Start with a well-structured website and quality content…if you can’t write your own marketing script, get a professional to do it for you…make it compelling and your site visitors will be keen to come back for more!

I wish you all the very best with your Internet Adventure,