If you’re a small business owner and want to do something to make your business stand out you can get started by checking the following list of sites. Not everything will suit your style, your message, or your market…but there is something for almost any business.

When you set up a profile on any of these sites and directories, when someone searches for your name or your business name there will be more listings that appear- this is called “Search Results”. The more they see, the more chances they might track you down. In an effort to be practical, this list does not include every single site and directory for setting up a business listing.

Start by Googling your own name or business and see where you show up. Or you can Google a competitor’s name, or someone you know who uses these web tools to promote themselves. See what they do, and mirror what suits your business.

Tips before you start:

1- Prepare a short and long description of your business to have on hand, that way you just copy/paste whatever the site allows (from a few sentences to a paragraph).

2- Have a small jpg picture of yourself to upload, or your business logo, and web URLs to include in your profile.

Getting Started:

You already have a business web site name
Some people may want to consider purchasing their own name as a URL. The URL registration is less than $10.00 per year. Putting up a simple Wordpress (blog) site is an affordable marketing tool. Big Dog IT can set up a site for you complete with content or just get you going so you can create the site and content on your own. It all depends on someone’s technical ability, your time line, and your budget. You can have more than one web name (URL) pointing at the same website. You can also have a URL pointing at your LinkedIn profile.

GoDaddy

Purchase YourName.com or if your name is taken try adding a short word to the URL you want to buy:  BobInSeattle.com, AskBob.com, etc. Do a search for the name you want and see what else comes up that is similar.

LinkedIn This is professional business networking online. You can edit your profile URL to include your name (Linkedin.com/in/BobJones). After you set up your profile you can start searching for people you know …see articles on BizNikfor more details. Search for Groups and join a few in your profession, or other interests. Check the LinkedIn blog to get the most out of LinkedIn.

Facebook

1- Set up a new profile or expand the profile you already have. Try adding an article or details about your work on the “Notes” Tab.

2- Create a Business page – Log in with your personal profile and then you can create a business page. (also called a fan page)

To create a business page on FB check this link (after you create your personal profile).

Twitter – For now this is an easy thing to attach your name to:You will add your name or biz name after  twitter.com/….Even if you only add one comment per day, or a few per week this will show up when people search your name or business. Link it to your site, your blog, Facebook, etc. To check if your twitter URL is available just enter  Twitter.com followed by your identifier (www.twitter.com/Askbob)

Meetup -Join a group- they have in-person and online groups. Answer or post questions also.

Contribution Networking Party – (CNP) directory with events in different areas.

Free directories – business and personal profiles

Plaxo

Manta

Zoom

Spoke

Xing

Google Profile -sign in with gmail or create a new account to set up your profile.

You’ll also want to go to the Google Local Business Center, and make sure you add a business listing.

Google Maps – get or post a customer review. In the search field you start by entering the business/person’s name with city, state. Then you should see the business show up on the left. See reviews or Write a review.

Yelp – Ask some of your customers to submit customer or product reviews. You can also post reviews for others. Set up profile and geographic info.

Yahoo Local – request and post a review

Bing - This is MSN’s search site – Sign In is at the top right.

You Tube – create your own account and upload videos. Link back to your site, create a library of videos.

Ping.FM is a free service that makes updating your “social network” easier. This is where you can enter several sites – then post a comment or link at Ping and they send that message to anything you select such as your blog, twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, etc.

Animoto -At this site you can create FREE 30 second videos with images. Nice for those of us without video equipment or time. Look at their sample videos (link is on their site at the bottom left).

Check the Pricing details- if you want to open a paid account you can enter our Referral Code: yhbpzkqj

Tip: look at the FAQ about image size – before you start to upload take the time to crop & size your images. A FREE 30 second video uses about 15-20 images. My saved notes suggest img size: 1024×768 @ 100kb.

Longer videos are very reasonable – $3.00 with an addition fee and you can save it to your computer. If you take it even further you can upload your video to YouTube.

I hope you found a bit of useful information here. What other sites would you include?