Local businesses will find that effective Web site promotion will add new customers and strengthen relationships with existing ones.

But many local businesses with limited online promotion experience are disappointed when the money spent on a good design and e-commerce application doesn’t product the desired result. Quite often the problem is that too much money is spent on the Web site and not enough on promoting it.

Here is a simple approach to fixing that problem.

Let’s say that you spend $20,000 a year to advertise your business in traditional media, such as newspapers, cable and broadcast. The production or creative part of an ad campaign is often included in the price of a newspaper ad, while you might pay a modest amount for the production of a broadcast spot.

A Web site and the promotion that goes with it should be treated the same way. The production of the site should be far less than half of the annual online advertising budget.

Take that $20,000 a year budget above and allocate 10 percent to online or a total of $2,000. Now allocate 25 percent of that $2,000 or $500 total to “production.” That is the amount you should spend on Web hosting (typically about $10 a month) plus any creative or update fees.

Many Web hosts have design templates that come with the hosting. Some Web site software packages also come with design templates. Finally, you can find templates on the Internet, many of them free, through search engines.

With $500 allocated for production, that leaves $1,500 for advertising. That amount can be split between contextual ads targeted to your local area using products such as Google AdWords and the rest spent on local newspaper or broadcast Web sites. Ask your local account executive for discounted rates for buying print or cable together with online.

Beyond the advertising budget lies the “free” promotional tactics. Although they don’t cost money, they do cost time. The “offline” tactics include putting your Web site address in your signage, invoices, receipts, business cards and traditional advertising.

For more information about building effective Web sites, click:

- Web site promotion for tips about Internet marketing, advertising, site development and search engine optimization.

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