Merely having a web presence used to be enough. A business would put up a static brochure-style website just to have “a presences online” in case someone looked them up. The sites were rarely touched, much less updated and were really just a digital brochure.

If your website is still just an online brochure that just sits there doing nothing, you are risking a complete shut out in the new online business competition for customers.

This doesn’t mean you have to go out and add a bunch of flash or moving elements to your website. Believe me, you want to limit your use of flash and be very strategic with it when you do because search engines can’t search and index content in Flash sites very effectively yet and it irritates visitors. It also doesn’t mean your website has to be complicated. In fact, just the opposite is recommended. You want to keep your visitors in mind at all times when working on your website and you want to keep it simple. Your ultimate goal is to get them the information they need as quickly and as easily as possible.

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It’s obvious the media thinks we’re stuck in the middle of a bad economy, and maybe we are. It’s on the front of almost every newspaper and at the top of every news station on television. It seems as if it is all doom and gloom.

But I am here to tell you that many entrepreneurs may not agree. In fact several small business owners I know are taking advantage of this economic downturn to grow their businesses, expand into new markets, refine their skills, and systematize their processes. They are taking action now to ensure that when things do pick and up people starting spending money again, they are at the front of the pack leading the way for their industry.

Here are five simple things that you can do right now to build your brand and market your business in any economy:

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