Do you have a local brick and mortar business?  Do you have a website?  If so, you may have been disappointed in its lack of performance.  You may even feel that it's not worth your while getting involved with online marketing.  Read on for three secrets you must know about online marketing for offline businesses.

1. You must have an online presence

It used to be that people who wanted something would just pick up the yellow pages and let their fingers do the walking.  Well, their walking fingers now head for the keyboard of their computer -- and they'll do their research online.  If you're not there, chances are they won't find you.

2. Your online presence must be set up correctly

So you do have a website, you say, but it's doing squat for you.  There's a likely reason for that.  It's not optimized to be found by your customers.  How so?  There was a time when people thought if you built a website, people would find it.  That may have been the case for a lucky few, especially in the old days where there was little competition, but it's no longer true.  You must be on the first page  (or at the very least the second page) of Google for the kinds of keywords that your customers are going to use to find businesses like you.

3. You need to support your online presence with information marketing

Not only do you need a website that can be found, but you need a blog, and you should do other kinds of marketing, including social marketing, and publishing articles in article directories, all of which will send visitors to your website and help your page rank in Google.

4. You must capture your leads

If you have no way to capture the leads that come your way, you're wasting your time.  Sorry if this sounds harsh.  The good news is that it's not that hard to capture leads.  Give your visitors a simple sign-up form and a reason to give you their name and email address, and quite a few of them will sign up -- thereby giving you a way to get in touch with them later.  Then, you can start building a relationship with them.  You can also send them more information about how you can help them and special offers as well.  And presto -- the casual surfer who stumbled across your website might soon turn into a real live customer.