Here is a dead-simple guide to getting your business website noticed on a shoestring budget.

1. Don’t pay for SEO on Bing (or Yahoo).
2. Don’t pay for SEO on Google.
3. Start a FaceBook page (they are free).
4. Start a FaceBook CPC (cost per click) campaign. They are very easy and inexpensive to set up. For an example of one that has been done pretty well, check out http://www.facebook.com/SunriverResort ($50-$100 per month).
5. Start a CPC campaign on Google Adwords. This is a little more complicated, but very effective. ($100-$200 per month).

Product and services should be priced and managed using yield management on the ads. For example:  advertise an early week special price for early bookings/purchases and then, if there is still inventory, have a close out price ready to rotate in on Thursday and Friday. The trick is a perceived value in the price – so think about raising their price to more easily discount.

SEO with Google and Bing are based on:
1. Indexing webpages – you can submit yours to both engines here: http://www.google.com/addurl/ and http://www.bing.com/webmaster/SubmitSitePage.aspx

2. How many pages are pointed back to them?  .org and .edu carry more weight than .com and .net.

3. How old is the website?

4. How often does it change?

There are several tools that can grade a website’s “juice.” This is my favorite: http://grader.com/

You might also think about getting involved with sites such as: http://www.packlate.com/ (Here is an explanation: http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/12/packlate-funding/).

There are so many tools available to people these days that marketing can be very effective on a budget.

If anyone else has some simple and cheap ideas on this topic, we would love to hear from you in the comments!

Good Luck