Agree with the other responses here, CDN first...its cheap and easy to implement vs another data centre.

You could go 2 levels of CDN - use Cloudflare which will act as a more general purpose or basic CDN and then if you have large static assets use a dedicated CDN service to host those.

Ultimately it depends if where the response time problem is being generated from - if the app itself is slow to respond then a CDN won't fix that and nor will having a local data centre as the problem is the time the app takes to spin up

Crappy DNS hosting will also contribute to latency - again moving to cloudflare will resolve this

Lot of good advice here - generally this is the process we use with clients:

http://www.thesearchengineshop.com/how-to-get-google-places-reviews

...ultimately, unless you can automate this process it ends up not happening. There are a handful of tools that can do this such as http://www.getfivestars.com/home/

The answer here ultimately depends on what the product is - whether its something you need to generate awareness of or is something you can capture existing demand for...capturing existing demand works if your product is the solution for a problem.

If you need to generate awareness....then FB ads and Google Display Network are the way to go, more on display network here: http://www.thesearchengineshop.com/how-to-promote-your-business-using-google-display-network

If there's already active demand or your product is a problem/solution type of product Adwords can work well

First step for any ecommerce business - setup google product listing ads, it will give you immediate access to at least somewhat qualified traffic

When you say "minimal cost" the alarm bells start ringing, you need to have a decent marketing budget especially at launch because its going to take some time and its going to burn some $$$ before you get the marketing right

Etsy, instagram, facebook and pinterest are all useful too as they're visual mediums but as other posters have pointed out, you need to test and see what works for you.

If you're new to this, perry marshalls 8020 marketing book is a good place to get a better understanding of online marketing

Its probably wiser to use a welcomegate versus popups especially as popups break on mobile devices

Your original question is pretty vague, if you're looking to build a list and use that list to convert prospects then yes that strategy may work but as other posters have mentioned, a tactic like this is not going to do anything for conversion unless it fits well into the broader marketing strategy

Agree with Tom Williams

We bought another small agency a couple of years ago...apart from the hosting clients, the "book" of clients was pretty much rubbish as they had a relationship with the agency owner and to them, transitioning to a new owner was an opportunity to go elsewhere to fix things they didn't like with the existing service agreement.

Ultimately as a service business owner, productising your services and making them recurring if possible is going to generate the most lifetime customer value hence make the business a better buy for an acquirer

You've asked a very vague question - if you start out with a vague (aka poor quality) question you'll get a poor quality result.

There are all sorts of different coaches and consultants so it ultimately depends on what stage your business is currently, eg startup, existing profitable business with stable cashflow, existing business with cashflow problems, and what your goal is, eg get the business of the ground, grow the business, dig out of a cashflow hole.

To me is sounds like you need a more specific set of criteria and tangible, measureable outcomes before going any further.

Interesting question - curious as to why you want to start this business if you have no IT background? Ultimately it depends if you're bootstrapping to start with or have a lot of capital to invest - broadly, unless you have a technical cofounder I'd say you have a fairly daunting task ahead of you if you proceed.