It seems everyone now is watching their money and looking for ways to stretch their marketing dollar. Here are 7 Budget Friendly Internet Marketing Tips. Every tip listed can be implemented for under $200 (for the entire year) plus a little elbow grease! How’s that for stretching your dollars!

1. Get a website-$80 a year or less

If you’ve got one-great-make sure its updated. If you don’t have one you need two things to get one up by the end of day. You need a domain name and then domain hosting. You can do both at GoDaddy.com or HostMonster.com. You can walk away with a basic plan for less than $100 a year. Next, Install WordPress and the Atahualpa* theme (google ‘Atahualpa wordpress theme’ to find) and build a quick website. Do not get roped into using the website builder software that comes with web hosting. WordPress is FREE and comes a lot of support from others who use it at wordpress.org. Bare minimum your website needs is information on how to contact you (phone/email/physical location), list of your products services. Add some pictures and you’re good to go.

2. Start Blogging-FREE

Why? How? Oh my! Here’s how to make it really simple. Again, you’ll need WordPress and the Atahualpa theme installed at www.yourdomain.com/blog (ask your hosting provider how to do this if you don’t know how). Then 3 times a week- type a brief message/article/how-to tip/customer interview/monthly special as a blog post. You can google things like ‘blog post ideas for small businesses’ and get a lot of tips on things to blog about.

3. Create a Facebook Page for Your Business-FREE

Get your business a Fan Page set up on Facebook. Go to: http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php and walk through the step for setting up a Fan Page. After you set up a Fan Page-send an email to all your current clients and customers asking them to join. Whenever you make a blog post-send an update to your fans. Also keep fans updated on specials or discounts that your business might have. Think about offering a "Facebook Fans Only" special.

4. Create a Facebook Group-FREE

A business Facebook Group will let you communicate and get to know your current customers. A group allows you to privately message members much like someone being on an email list. You can also have discussions in the group about products or services that you offer.

5. Create a Twitter Account-FREE

Local News stations, police departments and local newspaper have started using Twitter to keep followers up-to date. After you set up a Twitter account, invite all your current clients and Facebook Page friends to follow you on Twitter. Then begin watching the conversation. Start by re-tweeting what others have said. That means copying something that some else has said in your tweet update box and putting a "RT" in front of the message then sending it out to your followers. This allows the message to be seen by others in your group that the original message might not have been seen by. It builds trust and loyalty. People like when you acknowledge what they say or do. Then tweet about things that are going on with other local businesses that are tweeting.

6. Start or continue your email newsletter-$120 or less

If you are blogging this can seamlessly be tied together so that every blog you create automatically gets emailed out to your newsletter subscribers. I recommend iContact for this as their service allows for autoresponders, email newsletters, surveys and RSS feeds. If you are blogging 3 times a week-there are 3 emails that go out to your subscribers every week! Plus if they like the article it’ll drive traffic back to your website.

7. Set Up Google Alerts-FREE

Go to alerts.google.com (you need to have a gmail account-create one if you don’t already have) and type in the name of your business in the ‘search terms’. Select Type: "Comprehensive". Select ‘How Often": As-it-Happens and have it delivered to your gmail address. This service will send you an email anytime your company name is mentioned.

Also set up google alerts for general industry terms or products that are related to your business. This will provide you with ideas for writing blog posts as well as quickly keep you updated on what’s being said about your business and your competition.

There you go! If you’ve already got all these in place-Super Job! Watch out for a future article on "Advanced Budget Friendly Internet Marketing Tips!"