Small business link digest – February 1, 2008

Marketing your small business doesn’t need to be hard. In fact, so much good information exists on the web for free that it’s tough to know what not to read. Starting today and continuing each week, I’ll pull together some of the best of the Web for small businesses to review.

For starters:

• Seth Godin is a great resource and does a better job of explaining how to engage with your customers than I ever could. Companies interested in becoming social markers could do worse than start with him. And with his latest book.
• If Seth is a great place to start, the folks at Church of the Customer provide an excellent finish. Viral marketing doesn’t start with a marketing campaign. It starts with having something of value to offer your customers, as Ben McConnell points out.
• Lots of folks now offer search engine marketing services for small businesses. Ian Lurie at Conversation Marketing gives a (slightly geeky) explanation of why you shouldn’t hire Sam’s Club to do SEM for you.
• Good search engine optimization takes work. But not too much work. Companies that fail the basics of SEO represent a whole new way to be invisible. So don’t do that with your site.

Happy Friday folks!