The first thing you need to do in order to get a business presence online is to have a website — a good, professional website.  Without that you are not going to get anywhere with your online marketing, no matter how aggressively you go after it.  Potential customers want to be able  to go to a website and poke around a little before make any decisions, and if they can’t do that or if your website turns them off, they’ll go somewhere else without a second thought.

Think of it this way: Your website is like your virtual sign on your store.  If you had (or have) a brick-and-mortar store in a strip mall, you wouldn’t dream of doing business with no sign — or with a sign that’s not professional, right?  So why would you try to do business online without a website?

Now, having a sign isn’t a guarantee that you’ll get customers — you’ll just attract the customers that drive by and see the sign.  Same thing with a website — having it is a good start, but without doing anything else, you’ll only get the people that happen by.  If you are well known — e.g., the best dentist in Washington DC — potential customers may come looking for your website on their own, but otherwise you’ll need to advertise.

That’s where online marketing comes into play — the virtual equivalent of newspaper ads, radio spots, TV commercials, direct mailings, and other traditional types of advertising.  Internet marketing, however, refers to methods such as pay-per-click ads, banners, press releases, marketing articles, even blogs and link building.  These things let people know your business is there, offering sedation dentistry in DC or whatever – but without your website (sign) they won’t be able to find you, so make sure that’s in place before you start marketing!

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