DVO_week8_2Web businesses are springing up faster than flowers in May. Part of the reason for this is just because they can. Another reason is that in a down economy, industrious people are more motivated to make a job rather than trying to find one.

It is incredibly simple these days to start a website. While starting the website is easy -- setting it up right is another thing. Just ask all those do- it-yourselfers who get no web traffic. For some reason, they thought all they had to do was get that baby up and running and voila! Business! But they were sadly mistaken. In fact, it is shocking to me just how many people still believe that to be true.

But even if you have a snazzy website that is optimized for traffic and everything, local marketing is the buzzword today. And that holds true even for primarily web-based businesses.

Believe it or not, some people still like to do things old school. Perhaps they are squeamish about making an online purchase and want to talk to a live person. Some want to - gasp! - send a check in. Some folks don't even want to have credit cards - which, given the high finance charges makes them smarter than the rest of us.

When you run any kind of online business, it just isn’t  smart to give out a home address. There are too many crackpots out there to begin with. P.O. boxes are also frowned upon by many customers.

So, what is an online entrepreneur to do? Have a virtual office! You can get a prestigious address that provides a local presence for the business. You can also get local phone and fax numbers, and a live person to answer, take orders, and forward calls.

Davinci offers them all over the world for so little money that anyone can afford them, no matter how tight the budget is. A prestigious office address is just going to attract more business. So when you think about it, online business owners really can't afford NOT to have a virtual office!