Savvy Web marketers realize that consumers turn to the Web to shop and to learn about companies, which is forcing them to market beyond just the company website.

"You have to go into every nook and cranny of the Web and do trial-and-error until you find what works," says Boulden, who co-runs the company from Bozeman, Mont., while partner Heather Stephenson is in New York City.

"It's the same thing any small business would do to get started," says Matt Cutts, a Google engineer who writes about the ins and outs of getting noticed by Google on his mattcutts.com/blog. "You would drop fliers all over town. Online it's the same thing. Trying to get links is letting people know about you and what you're doing."

Blogs are the best way to attract links, because, "Google loves blogs," says Boser. "I've seen it happen time and time again. Sites with a blog, which get comments from users, always rise to the top."

Jennifer Laycock, managing editor of the online Search Engine Guide newsletter, published a free e-book about how to start an online business with little cash investment. She spent $10 a month to have her Lactivist breast-feeding site put online, as an experiment, to see how well it would do — and how long it would take to get to the top of Google.

She began by posting non-commercial notes on parent discussion forums, asking for ideas about products to sell. People responded and started asking about the site she was creating. That resulted in links from all sorts of parenting blogs, she says.