Sure, your business website may be on the World Wide Web, but that doesn’t mean your site needs to attract a global audience to be effective. The fact is, a well-designed website can help you expand your local market and build customers in your own home town.

Local search marketing can help you advertise to potential customers that are in your community as they search for products and services online – which you are ready and willing to sell them.

Once these visitors get to your website, however, how can you turn potential customers into paying customers? The key to getting the sale is a measure of how usable your website is. Given how important the Internet is for businesses, having just anyone build your website can be a recipe for disaster.

More than 60 percent of small businesses have a website today, but 51 percent of those had their first website created by a friend, family member or themselves. When it comes to website development, find a full-service company that can help guide and support you. The right company will help you choose the package that fits your needs, provide copywriting that will help sell your service or product, and design a website that will help reinforce your brand, enhance credibility and attract new customers.

There are also ways beyond the website to market your business. Leaving sharp, custom brochures around town can be another avenue to help get your business’s message across to a consumer. Tri-fold brochures can be a great and colorful way to get your business or special event some needed notoriety and publicity, while offering a professional way to tell your story.

An expertly designed color brochure is a versatile handout and self-mailer that can be easily customized with your name, logo, products, location, guarantee and promotional offer.

Thinking – and marketing – locally can be an effective way of making your small business really take off.