As an entrepreneur, have you ever wondered where to look for help with business development or how to go about securing a loan from the Small Business Administration? Have you asked yourself, "Should my company go public?" and if the answer was yes, did you then ask, "How does my small business register a public offering?" Perhaps you have been curious as to whether your business is eligible for assistance from the Minority Business Development Agency? Or have you just wanted to know something as simple as whether the Internal Revenue Service provides free tax information and services?

More than 60 different federal organizations exist to assist or regulate business, and the government sponsors 27 million Web pages. With so many sources of information, finding answers to your questions can be both laborious and time-consuming.

Help has arrived. A new Web site called FirstGov (www.firstgov.gov) links to virtually all government Web pages from one convenient location. The government sites are grouped according to 15 categories, including Business and Economy, and Money and Taxes.

From FirstGov, you can do much more than simply search, locate, and acquire government and business information - you can, for instance, register business securities, pay property taxes, clear parking tickets, buy postage stamps, and apply for patents, building permits, and federal grants. What's more, the search engine is designed to facilitate searching by topic rather than by government agency, which takes the guesswork out of fact-finding and saves you valuable time.

Here are just a handful of the agencies and services with sites under the FirstGov umbrella that you as an entrepreneur might find helpful:

 • Small Business Administration (www.sbaonline.sba.gov). Detailed information on how to start, finance, and run your small business, plus links to business-related resources such as PRO-Net, a procurement marketing and access service, ACE-Net, an angel capital electronic network, and disaster assistance loan programs, await you at this site devoted to small business advocacy.

 • Service Corps of Retired Executives (www.score.org). This nonprofit association comprises 11,500 volunteer businesspeople trained to serve as counselors, advisers, and mentors to aspiring entrepreneurs and business owners. The site offers practical "how to" information to help you run your business, e-mail counseling, workshops, a business resource index, and links to related sites.

 • United States Postal Service (www.usps.com). Find ZIP codes, calculate postage, change your address, locate post offices, track/confirm deliveries, receive and pay bills online, transmit secure electronic documents, create and dispatch mailings, and even send greeting cards from the USPS's official Web site.

 • Internal Revenue Service (www.irs.gov). If you're looking for business tax information, plus a wealth of advice about setting up and running a small business, this is the site for you. Loaded with taxpayer help and educational services, tax regulations explained in easy-to-grasp terms, news, forms, and publications, the IRS site will answer questions and step you through the process of filing your return electronically.

 • Department of Labor (www.dol.gov). Two areas of particular interest on this vast site are the eLaws (Employment Laws Assistance for Workers and Small Businesses) section, which helps you understand your rights and responsibilities under the employment laws and regulations administered by the Department of Labor, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which supplies small business statistics, economic indicators, demographics, finance information, firm size data, and much more.

 • Occupational Safety and Health Administration (www.osha.gov). In addition to providing up-to-the-minute news stories on safety and health issues, this site is a comprehensive collection of OSHA history, regulations, training courses and materials, upcoming events, outreach programs, state plans, and office directories.