I just started advertising my construction company and need help.?

[Marlee]

Hi,

It depends on what you are wanting to do... a good online presence is broad. Do you mean you want to have potential clients find you? Do you want a blog where you write new articles or posts from time to time, or a business page with your company information? There are few good people on Fiverr who can help you optimize your site for search engines, and based on your limited capital it might be the best route.

Wix is alright, but there are very few top-rated sites based on Wix. I would instead recommend that you buy a domain that you own. On NameCheap.com right how you can get a .us domain for I believe $1.00 for a year, then you pay like $10 each year after that. You could call your business whatever you want and want is available and start building a brand. Like IronWorksNY.us. Of course .com is better but you'll have to pay $10 to buy the domain upfront.

Then hire one of the fiverr gigs to install and set up your WordPress site (WordPress is free but you have to install it). WordPress is by far the most popular online platform and I have almost 12 sites using it right now. You would need a webhost, a place where your blog actually resides, and HostGator is fairly good and cheap (I used to use them when I started out, just search HostGator.com)... they're about $3.90 a month or so.

Here's a sample gig I found (I have never used them so am not "vouching" for them, just an example) where you can get the site set up for $5 using WordPress.

http://www.fiverr.com/wordpress_nerd/ins...-your-host

Then decide "what" you want to be found for. Is it "Iron Works In New York" or "Custom Iron Work IN NYC". There is a BIG difference when it comes to search engines. It'll take some time to learn but start browsing for and learning all you can about SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Get a Google account if you don't have one, and then go to Google Adwords and use their keyword planner. Keywords are those words you want to be found for when someone types something in to the search engine. You can see "how many" people are searching for certain words in an order. So if Iron Works In NYC has enough monthly searches then maybe you go for that. The bottom line is this... if you target a set of keywords that NO ONE is searching for, how many visitors do you think you'll get from search engines? Exactly.

You can also find a Fiverr gig for keyword research, too, if you really are just starting out and don't know anything about it. They'll help you find the best keywords for your niche/specialty. Here's an example (not a recommendation):

http://www.fiverr.com/design2k/do-the-be...ete-report

Then get a gig like this one (unless you know how to write SEO articles, which is not likely from what you wrote) and get 2 or 3 articles written to get your site started. (again, never used them, just pulled it up as a reference after a quick search):

http://www.fiverr.com/lewiswriter/write-...eo-article

Finally, now that you have your domain (less than $10), WordPress installed and optimized ($5), some optimized articles written ($15 or less) you can get one last gig for someone to help you "design" the site and post your pages to it. There are tons of WordPress experts on Fiverr, like this one:

http://www.fiverr.com/fatehs/design-a-cu...ss-website

So for under $50 you could have a fully optimized site up, using your own custom domain (MikesIronWorks.com, or IronWorksNYC.com or whatever), on your own webhost, with your own custom design and with new, optimized content. Not a bad way to get a quick start on things. Your ongoing monthly cost would be just the hosting fees at HostGator, so $3.90 a month.

That's what I would recommend for a complete newbie looking to get a quick start. The "ideal" path would be to take some time and learn everything you can about building an online business, but that really does take time. This way you can learn as you go and be online at the same time.

Sorry, but I'm not a fan of Wix as a business solution. I hope this helps you somewhat. Good luck