The great thing about marketing your business online is that rather than needing a huge financial budget, all you need to invest in some of the most effective online marketing techniques is time. However, sometimes in business you find yourself with a lack of both money and those essential spare minutes to get this stuff moving – so if that’s you, then the following tips are quick enough to squeeze in during a coffee break, and effective enough to be worth doing.

Add your business to Google Places

If your business has a physical premises, such as a shop or an office, then you really need to get it onto Google Places. You’ll have seen the results of this when you search for something on Google, often at the top of the results you’ll see a map of your local area, with a list of businesses alongside it with markers on the map. These businesses have been added to Google Places, and so making sure you’re on there is a smart move if you’re catering to a local market.

It doesn’t take long to get the ball rolling, just head over to www.google.com/places, and start entering details of your business. You can keep it basic, or go further by adding opening times and more. Once you’ve done this, Google will want to verify the listing by sending you a code via postcard to the address you provide, so it’s just a case of waiting for that to arrive, verifying your info, and then adoring your local listing in the search results.

Set up a Facebook business page

If you haven’t already set one up, you should really look into creating a Facebook page for your business. There are a million and one things you can do with a business page, but for starters even a basic one will be a great tool in your online marketing arsenal. When logged into Facebook, take a look at the list of links at the bottom of the page and find the one labelled “Create a page”. This will take you through the simple steps of setting up your business page, where you can add your logo, details of your business, products and services, contact information etc.

Once you’re set up, you can share your page with your existing Facebook friends, and start using your page as a way to get news out there or to spark discussions about topics related to your industry. There are various apps out there which enable you to expand your page, enabling you to have custom content, offer incentives for being a “fan”, or even sell products – or of course you can hire a pro to do this sort of stuff for you. Adding extra functionality can turn Facebook into a very powerful tool but in the first instance you need to get going with the basics and start building up your Facebook presence.

Create a blog

One of the best things you can do to aid your Internet marketing efforts is to publish a regular blog. Content is currency online, and is at the heart of an effective internet marketing campaign – so if you don’t have a blog you’re missing out. While its preferable for your blog to be part of your own website, this is something most people won’t have the knowledge to do themselves, and don’t want to spend money on a professional without proving to themselves that it’s worthwhile. Because of this it may be worth taking the free route to begin with, and signing up for your own free blog at WordPress.com

Going this route means that WordPress host your blog for you, and so you can get going really quickly without any technical know-how. Worry about design and all the bells and whistles later – the most important part of any blog is, of course, the content! Blog posts don’t have to be epic novels, and so you just need to think about topics you can easily write a few paragraphs on which will appeal to readers. Take a look at what others in the industry are writing and the style they use in order to help you come to grips with an approach that will work for you. Jot down the titles of 5 possible blogs – don’t think or worry about what the content will be – just pick the titles; and then tackle them one by one and you’ll find the content flows.

Once you’ve got your first post out there, then be sure to tell people about it – post about it on online forums, tweet the link to your followers, and of course post it on your brand spanking new Facebook page!

These are some fairly basic tips which shouldn’t take you too much time, and if done right could form the initial foundations of a solid approach to online marketing