I hear it all the time. "I just started a small business. I need a company website but I don't have a lot of money. What do I do?" The first thing I ask someone is "Do you really even need a website?"  It sounds like a stupid question.  Doesn't every small business need a website?

Surprisingly, the answer is no. I know plenty of small businesses that are doing just fine without a formal web presence.  They are master networkers who have a word-of-mouth network that supplies them with all the leads they can handle. For these businesses, a website brings little to the table.

But the chances that your small business falls into this category is slim.  Most of you out there want more business and need to do more marketing.  At the very least you should be doing some online activities targeted at bringing you more leads. But whether or not you need a "company website" is yet to be seen.  

A great place to start is with making sure that your business shows up in Google maps. You also need to make sure your listings in Bing and Yahoo are up-to-date and properly configured, but where local small business is concerned, making sure your business is on Google Maps is probably the most important first step.

My Econ professor back in college would say that to understand economic decision making, think about cleaning the house.  You look for the things that take the least time and have the biggest impact and do them first before you move to the detail stuff. You make the bed before scrubbing the windows.  Getting your business on Google Maps is like making the bed.  Small effort, great impact.

Optimizing your local search listing is something that you do once and it's done.  You will want to go in and look at it once or twice a year to update any out of date information, but that's it.  It's like an online Yellow Pages ad.

Imagine this situation.  

Mary calls Bob and tells him "Hey, don't forget to pick up that thing at lunch today". It's a good thing she called, because Bob was out to lunch with the guys and would have completely forgotten.

He pulls out his iPhone (seems like everyone has one these days) and does a quick search for "those things" on Google, which brings up a Google map of businesses in the area where he's having lunch, and all of the businesses that sell "things" in his area are marked with flags on that map.

Here's the kicker.  Bob is having lunch right next to your store and your business specializes in just the "things" that Bob is looking for.  When he pulls up that Google map on his iPhone you want to make sure the flag for your business is there.  

People don't use the Yellow Pages anymore.  They do local Google Map searches for what they want on the iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, Android or whatever smart device they are carrying this week. The goal of local search is to be there when someone is searching in your area for what you do.

Ok, so it's important.  How do I do it?

Right off the bat, you need to familiarize yourself with Google's quality guidelines.  <-- Click on that link!  It's a short page, and it has all the information you need to make sure that you're not doing something with your local listing that is going to get your business banned from Google. Here is a more detailed conversation about what can get you banned.

Wisenet has a really good step-by-step guide on how to set up your business on Google Places.  This is easily the most important listing you can have since so much more traffic comes from Google than Yahoo or Bing.

If you already have a company website, it's good to list it when you're filling out the listing, but if not, don't worry about it.  Getting your business on Google Maps is only the first step.  You can worry about the website later.

Yahoo's terms of service are not so straight forward. It's not quite as clear as Google what will get you banned (if you have information on this please post it in the comments) but in general, people don't really worry nearly as much about getting banned from Yahoo. The stakes just aren't as high.  

Listing your business with Yahoo Local is fairly straight forward.  All you have to do is fill out a couple of forms and you're good to go.

Bing's listing process is much like the other two.  It's pretty straight forward after you have gone through the Google and Yahoo processes.  Although if you're using the Google Chrome browser you'll have to switch to Firefox or (shudder) Internet Explorer to do this part.  

So that's it.  Once you have those listings up you're done.  Once the listings are approved by each search engine, you should begin showing up in searches.  This could take a few days or a few weeks depending on the search engine, so be patient, but keep checking back.

Give these listings a few months to work and see if you notice any change in your sales.  It could be the bump you need to get more business in the door and you can stop there.  Of course, if you're like many other small businesses, this is only the beginning of your online marketing activities.