The sheer vastness of the cyber economy is staggering. There are well over six billion web pages vying for the attention Internet users around the globe. Needless to say, millions of these sites are owned and maintained by people just like you--small business entrepreneurs and managers hoping to improve the public profile of their organization and, ultimately, increase sales.

Given that only a fraction of websites are search engine optimized or even adequately marketed at all, chances are that many of you are not making much return on your investment.

While there are a multitude of reasons for this problem, one stands out as remarkably simple: Most small-office-home-office (SOHO) websites are virtually invisible to the surfing public. The old adage "build it and they will come" is charming but remains, quite sadly, used and abused by entrepreneurs hoping to push their wares on the World Wide Web. A website, like anything else in a society overloaded with information and plagued by consumerism at every level--B2B included--must be marketed. And smarter marketing is the only way your website will generate a respectable ROI.

Simply creating and publishing a website and then waiting for the phone to ring (or your inbox to flood) is akin to printing off maybe 25 brochures and then purposely leaving the whole pile on your seat before you get off the subway. What do you think are the chances any of those brochures are going to sell anything to anyone? They could be the flashiest and cleverest brochures ever published, but if no one ever sees them, it doesn't really matter how much time or money you spent on the things.

The same principle applies to business websites. And this does not even account for the issue of content or usability. At least with a brochure, most people force themselves to put some content (read "useful information") in it somewhere. Most of the time the margins are also aligned nicely, and the colors tend to not annoy most color blind people. But I'll save those topics for future articles.

When you build a website--or hire someone to build it for you--think of it not only as an online brochure for your wares (which it is and many designers forget this), but as your business' own walking, talking, near flesh-and-blood salesperson. Do you want your salesperson to be a wallflower, sitting in the corner of the ball room at a Rotary meeting, chain smoking and nervously looking away whenever someone tries to make eye contact? Or do you want your salesperson to work the room, shake hands with many interesting people, and give each one a taste of what your company has to offer? Hey, smoking is passé. But networking is so now!

The point is, no one but you and your webmaster is going to be stopping by your site very often if no one but you and your webmaster knows about it. Websites must be marketed just like anything else. There are countless ways to bring traffic to your site, many you may not have even heard of. Whether you hire a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) expert or simply rely on word of mouth generated by you and your staff, one thing is certain: you must purposefully seek ways to bring traffic to your site and then follow through religiously. If you don't, I'm afraid your website will most likely end up just another diamond in the rough.

About the author:

Karri Flatla is a business graduate of the University of Lethbridge and principal of snap! virtual assistance inc., a small business consulting firm providing online marketing services to the progressive entrepreneur. Karri also produces Outsmart, the newsletter for small business with big purpose. Visit http://www.snap-va.com for more information.