World Wide Web, Meet Main Street
Everyone knows that the internet has changed business dramatically. But how can a small business owner put together a smart internet marketing strategy to target local customers?

Local Banner Ads
The most typical form of local online advertising people think of is banner ads. Here you place your local ad on various locally focused websites. This has can be an effecive way to advertise, but there are several things to consider when delving into internet marketing.

Where to Advertise?
The first challenge is finding the right websites. It's not that these sites are necessarily difficult to find. A simple google or yahoo search on local restaurants, for example, will millions of results. But which of these sites makes sense for online advertising?

Target, then Market
You must first consider who you are trying reach. For example, if you are trying to do a restaurant ad online, you need to think about where your potential customers are likely to find you on the internet. As with any form of advertising, you want to reach as many people as possible. Yet, it's just as important to reach the right people so you aren't blowing your advertising budget. If you had a restaurant that draws customers from the entire metropolitan market, you would put your online ad on a very different website, than a local restaurant trying to reach neighborhood customers.

Ok, they saw your ad, now what?
Once you find an appropriate website for your local online ad, the next step is to figure out what you want the viewers of your online ad to do. For some businesses, placing a online ad is fairly straightforward. Again, using the example of the local restaurant ad, the goal may be to simply draw more customers through the door. But, what if you have more business than you can handle on Saturday night, yet the remainder of the week is slow? Then it makes sense to advertise coupons for a certain night. Or maybe you should do a coupon for a specific product or service.

Affordable Online Advertising?
One major problem with traditional advertising is that it is expensive. If you run a print ad, not only is the ad itself expensive, the design is also an expense. If you choose direct mail, in addition to design, paper and printing cost, you have the postage as well. None of this is cheap advertising for businesses.

Advertising online can be a cheaper and more effective way to go than traditional advertising. But if you choose to do a banner ad, you still have to invest the thought, the time and expense to design the ad to the advertiser's specifications. You also have to make sure the ad is placed where and when you want it to run.

Keeping Track
Another benefit to online advertising is that, with a good webmaster, you can track your online ads. You can usually find out how many times your ad showed up on computer screens, (called impressions) or how many times visitors clicked through to your website (called "Click-Through-Rate"). But the last, and most important step, is usually hard or impossible to track. The impossible step to measure accurately is what people did after they saw your ad. Understanding how many people actually came into your business as a result of your ad is the best way to know how successful your local advertising efforts are.