It all sounds very professional, right? And of course it is - but the reality is that I work from my home, usually in my slippers. I rarely meet clients face to face and I choose my own work hours. I love what I do and thoroughly enjoy seeing how my skills benefit my clients.

Online Yellow Pages. YellowBook, Dex, and others are a good way to get listed on the internet in yellow pages. Yellow pages are not used much anymore, but an online listing can get you some high quality backlinks.

One way to do this is through SEO. This is the use of keywords to advance the ranking on the search engine results page. Having all of the right keywords -- and having a good amount of them -- will cause the site, www.intensedebate.com, to be listed highly. People do not usually look farther than the first page.

Your goal very simple with local business listings is just like any type of advertising that you do. You are trying to place your website in places where people can find it. It only stands to reason that the more listings you have the more potential traffic your website will get.

For those of you who may not know me yet, my name is Matt Parks. I'm an online marketing consultant who helps small, medium and even global companies build appropriate online marketing strategies and enhance their brand awareness through competitive traditional and non-traditional advertising techniques.

You have to follow the forum rules, but almost all of them will let you have a link back to your own website. You may be able to have a signature line with your own link. Or if it is in the context of the particular post, you may be allowed to drop that link in your post.

Finally there are local directories, that use input from real people to verify and rate a business. Believe it or not there are over 100 of these directories that carry weight at the big three search engines. Since we don't know the exact weighting, we offer a service to input information and get it verified at all 100.

Think about it a moment. With GPS technology, a user can query an application on his or her mobile device asking for specific directions to "whatever". "Where's the nearest drugstore?" or "Where's the nearest Wells Fargo ATM?" The application will deliver specific directions based on the GPS location of the user and the GPS location of the search results. Do you think this kind of instant information technology is going to go away?

If you decide to send gift cards, consider them from local stores or something local workers can benefit. My favorites are local restaurant gift cards. Even if you buy gift cards from a national franchise, they hire chefs and waiters and workers from your local area.

And that's where email marketing comes in - for minimal investment (and really, little time) you can keep in touch with your prospects and customers and let them know what it is that you can offer to them on any given week or month; which will depend on your buying cycle. Any less than monthly contact however is a waste of time.