I often get asked "what is the best way to promote a small offline business on the internet?" There are so many answers to this question I would almost need to write a novel, but if I had to narrow it down, there would be three "musts" that will be the backbone of your internet marketing strategies.
The Top 3 Small Business Marketing Strategies Are:

1. Create A Business WordPress Blog.
   With the technology today and the existence of some pretty fantastic plug-ins, it is possible to do the majority of your business marketing through your blog.
   You can do social bookmarking and micro-blogging on sites like Twitter and Facebook automatically from your blog.
   Article publishing is possible through the blog as well with the right plug-ins installed.
   On-page SEO is very easy with WordPress so you can invite the search engines to visit the site often to index your content.
   Today, WordPress is almost like business management in a box.
   
2. Link building.
   Creating a network of high profile inbound links to your small business website can mean the difference between appearing on page 10 in the search engines and appearing on page one.
   Since the goal is to get traffic to your website to generate more new business, the higher up the search engine placement you can get, the more traffic you will receive.
   These links can also grab traffic from the sites they are placed on.
   If the site is relevant to your niche and gets a good amount of traffic itself, you may receive referral traffic from your link.
   
3. Forums and Community Sites.
   Joining forums and community user-groups is a great way to generate awareness of your business.
   These sites are filled with your potential customers.
   Almost all of the members of these groups have a common interest or situation.
   The old saying is that "birds of a feather flock together" and this is true of forums and user-groups.
   Becoming an active member within these communities will create a word of mouth referral system for your business.
   Be actively involved, not a sales person.
   Form friendships and be helpful to all.
   This is one of the fastest ways to gain authority status and become the go-to person within your niche market.
   

This will form the foundation of your online business.
If you do nothing else, although I do not recommend that, these three methods will go a long way to creating an online presence for your business and begin sending traffic to your website.
Of course, the more traffic you get the more sales you should make if you have made a highly converting website...
but that is a topic for another article.