Recently I had a craving for pot roast. I racked my brain to think of a restaurant that offered a great pot roast (as you can see, I'm not a whiz in the kitchen). Anyway, I did what I usually do when I need to find information - I searched Google for "pot roast boca raton" to see what restaurants came up.

Well, only one restaurant's menu that featured pot roast came up. I had never eaten there before, so I phoned them to make sure they still had pot roast on the menu (alas, they didn't).

But here's the bottom line: I would have become a new customer at this restaurant -- because it offered what I wanted -- and I learned about it while searching the Web.

This underscores an important point: every business needs a Web site. Very simply, you never know when potential clients will be searching on the Web for something they need - and the name of your business or organization will come up.

Here's an example. The other night, I got a phone call from a writer in California. She was doing a story on P.R. and my name came up on her Internet search. If it weren't for my Web site, she never would have found me -- and I would have missed the opportunity for publicity.

Here's another example. One of my clients told me that a potential customer had decided to do business with his company because of the high quality of its Web site.

If you don't think your business or organization needs a Web site, consider this: quite possibly, this very minute, somebody out there is searching the Web for something he or she needs that you can provide.

Copyright 2004 Margie Fisher All rights reserved.

Margie Fisher, President of Margie Fisher Public Relations (www.margiefisher.com), offers a wide range of public relations services, from her Do-It-Yourself Public Relations Kit?, to her Pay for Results Publicity Program?.