In the online world, it works by making your business available to a vast audience your offline location alone could never reach. Your website should create an environment that encourages your visitors to stay a while and think about what you have to offer.

Your visitors may represent other businesses doing business on the Internet as well as individual clients and customers. You can't afford not have an Internet presence, because there is too much "work" to be done by your website.

But don't limit yourself to strictly online marketing.

A website works in the offline world, too.

Consider the many places you can promote your website in your own community:

• local newspapers
• on your business cards
• letterheads and envelopes
• on your vehicle
• grocery store, church, or library bulletin boards
• on freebie items, like pens, mugs, matchbooks and calendars
• coupon mailings or ads
• on tee shirts

The bottom line is that by advertising your site's address (URL) in an offline, real-world environment, you are providing even further access to your business or message. So don't be shy— get that URL out there as soon as you can.

What about those search engines?

Beyond the attention you attract by offline advertising, most other visitors will find your site using a search engine.

Perhaps you don't realize it, but the actual design "underneath" your website affects how it will show up in many types of search engines. It is essential that you use every tool you can to make the site design work for you, and the most powerful tool of all is your professional web designer. Think: Grand Design