Website Marketing Made Easy

Anyone who has done website marketing knows that the lifeblood of an online business is the traffic to their website. However, here are some tips to give your sales a boost without the need to get more visitors. Couple these website marketing tips with some traffic building techniques and you can increase your website’s revenue greatly.

1. Be a Friend.
Put a personal touch to your website marketing sales message. Nobody wants to be sold to by a complete stranger, but many people will buy what their friends recommend to them. If you can be seen by your audience as a good friend with their wellbeing in mind, they will be more likely lead to buy your products. Make sure to speak to an individual in your sales letter, not to your entire audience.

2. Offer Quality Bonuses Along With Your Product.
When you give bonuses that balance your product, your visitors will feel you are giving them with a good deal and it would be crazy for them to miss it. Be sure to list the price of your bonuses so that your visitors are compelled to grab your exceptional value-added deal.

3. Be Visual.
Website marketing 101: Use visual demonstrations for the problems your visitors may have and solutions that your product gives. Most people will not read your copy from the head to the tail, but many will notice the graphics on your website – especially moving images. Add an image of a person’s face and you increase interest even more.

4. Publish Testimonials and Comments from your customers.
Publish both positive and negative comments together, so that visitors will be more trusting that your testimonials are real. When visitors can read testimonials on your website, they will have greater confidence and purchase from you because humans like to follow others. When others have bought and proven something is not a scam or over-priced, your visitors will most likely do the same and purchase as well.

5. A Squeaky Wheel Gets Oiled.
An often forgotten basic website marketing must is demand the sale! A lot of people entice their visitors with the value of their products, and offer them stories of how they have solved many problems, even offering awesome bonuses - but forget to ask for the sale! Supply a clear direction on how to purchase your product (e.g. “Press the button to buy now!”)

Start using these five simple website marketing ideas today and you will be able to improve your web sales time and time again.

Take a Closer Look at Your Web Site Traffic

Many small business owners don't have the time or inclination to look at their web site traffic stats after the excitement of getting a web site has worn off. This is a BIG mistake! With a little time spent looking over your stats you might find some gaping holes in your site's structure, or well visited web pages that are not designed to help you close a sale.

Most web hosting companies will provide you with basic web site traffic information that you then have to sort through. However, the information you receive from your hosting company’s numbers can be confusing to interpret if you don’t know how to apply it in relation to your particular business and web site. So let's look at some simple yet important web site traffic elements to gauge your site's success.

Let’s begin by studying the most basic data – the average visitors to your site on a daily, weekly, and monthly rate. These numbers are the most accurate measure of your website’s activity. It would appear on the surface that the more traffic you see documented the greater you can assume your website is doing, but this is a misconceived perception. You must also look research the behavior of your visitors once they come to visit your web site to accurately register the effectiveness of your site.

Genuine or quality traffic to your site is sometimes commonly confused with the term "hits". Hits typically means the number of registered by the server. When you realize hits can simply mean the number of graphics seen on a page, you will get an idea of how overblown the notion of hits can be. For example, if your homepage has thirty graphics on it, the server records this as thirty hits, when actually we are really tracking a single visitor looking at a single page on your site. Therefore, you can assume hits are not helpful when analyzing your website traffic.

Your intention is to use the web site traffic numbers to find out how well, or how poorly, your site is working for your visitors. One way to evaluate this is to find out how long on average your visitors spend on your site. If the time spent is typically brief, it usually shows an underlying situation. Then the challenge is to find out what that situation is.

It's also important to remember that the more people that visit your web site, the more accurate your results will be of overall trends in visitor behavior. The smaller the number of visitors, the more a few anomalous visitors can throw your analysis.

In my next post I'll be looking at a few other aspects of your web site traffic stats that will alert you to your web site's overall performance and whether it really is as good or bad as you think.

Search Engine Optimization - An Overview

Let’s define Search Engine Optimization [SEO] and why to use it. Search Engine Optimization is needed to rank highest on search engine results pages and thus increase traffic and/or generate revenue for your site.

Each day, more and more sites are clamoring to optimize their website's rankings and if you lose your guard, you may just get left in the abyss filled with so many failed web dreams. You want to make sure when people do web searches your site is found! To know what people search for, and how to make your site rank well in search engine results you need to be familiar with Search Engine Optimization, or SEO - it’s not just for internet marketing companies any more.

People who use search engines primarily use the top ten search results on the first page. Making it to the first page, more so to the top three on that page, is a barometer of a site’s success using search engine optimization. When you rank high, your website has a greater chance of being clicked on. You generate more business to your site with an increased volume of traffic.

With Search Engine Optimization you can get the benefit of generating high traffic volume. Let’s say you only create a conversion rate for sales with 10 to 20 percent of your traffic. You get good results already if you get a hundred hits or more per day. If you get only ten to twenty hits a day, you might only get one or two transactions or none at all.

You may need to rewrite your site’s text so that you get the correct phrases in your web content, and avoid making it too technical, but light and illustrative. You must follow a certain criteria to make your site conducive and applicable to high search engine rankings.

You will also need to join forces with other websites so that you can get link exchanges and page transfers. The number of inbound and outbound traffic produced by other sites among others is one of the details search engines uses to rank sites.

Spend some time studying a variety of articles like this one on keyword research, or this one on the basics of onpage seo that can benefit your site in search engine results. The more knowledge and information you gather the better. These methods will assist you in maintaining the high rankings you want to achieve. You may have to put in a little extra effort but the benefits will be astonishing.

There are many companies that will assist you with Search Engine Optimization but if you are on a limited budget you can spend time looking at the many sites that help in tracking keyword phrases that can help your site. There are also innumerable content writers that have lots of experience in making good keyword laden content for your sites – check out craigslist.com or elance.com for postings.

So once again, what is Search Engine Optimization? SEO is utilizing tools and methods in making your site get top rankings in the results of search engines. Getting yourself on the first page, and better yet in the top half of the page, will ensure that your site will generate public awareness of your site’s existence and subsequently generate more traffic, traffic that could lead to potential income and business.

If you start now you will see the rewards of using Search Engine Optimization in a short amount of time. If you keep updating your content, creating quality links and marketing your site you will achieve high rankings in search engine results.

Sharing and Editing Your Web Content

I love writing articles and blog posting but they can be time consuming and when you want to share more important text with other collaborators you need to be able to keep up with changes and be able to work together easily. I want to share a couple of free web based applications that I use successfully to do this.

Writeboards
There is a wonderful company called 37 Signals that has a series of very useful web based apps that you can use, from contact management to project collaboration. I love using their apps but I wish they had a 'one app for everything' solution for me. It's one of the complaints you hear by other users but I guess you have to look at the pricing and structuring to realize that 37 Signals would have to charge an awful lot for that, or not - if they want to have as many customers - and so their business model works best for them.

Anyway, one shouldn't complain too loudly - they offer great services for free. One of them, used completely solo, is the writeboard.

Other project collab solutions offer similar systems, calling them different names [like whiteboard] but they are essentially the same: a place where you can write and make changes, by yourself or with others.

For my writing, even for posts like this, I find writeboards very useful. You can create a document and then compare it to other versions. I know you can do this with MS Word but it is laborious. With 37 Signals' solution you can just check and uncheck dated and times versions and see the similarities/differences in an instant. And if you are savvy with RSS you can subscribe to be notified of any changes!

Go to writeboard.com and read up on this brilliant FREE service - there's little point me rewriting it all here, just know that I give it 2 big thumbs up.

Google Docs
This service from Google offers a suite of office apps like you'd get from MS Office. The features are not as rich but for sharing a document or spreadsheet with a group it is really handy. And if you are the one doing the sharing you can set up a report so you can see who has made changes to the documents on a moment to moment, or daily, basis.

You can also set up the 'master' sharing rules for the document so that those you share with can't invite just anyone and everyone to work on the doc too. Upload and download is also very easy, and combined with a gmail account makes working online very easy when you are on the road.

Editing Tip: when you cut and paste from different apps, web based or not, you can get a lot of annoying extra behind the scenes coding. Notorious for this is MS word. This behind the scenes text can really mess up your HTML and if you are a web design newbie you may not be able to work out why.

A good way to remedy this is to cut and paste your text/document into notepad or other pain text editor and then cut and paste again into your HTML editor/blog editing window/other document. You will lose your formatting [like bold, italic, heading sizes etc] but if your document is not too reliant on formatting it's preferable.

Make a Color Statement With Your Web Site

You don't have to be an expert in graphic design or art to put together a web site that looks esthetically pleasing. It helps, but it's not mandatory. With a myriad of resources available on the Internet you can easily put together a color scheme that will look like a professional designer did it for you.

When I am designing a color scheme for a client's web site, I often look at their logo to lead me in my color choices. Existing marketing collateral is taken into consideration also.

But what if you want to design your web site's color palette? Visit these web sites for some great color combination ideas:

Is there a web site you like and want to know the colors used in it? This site helps you quickly select and test website color combinations: ColorCombos.

You can buy software that will do what this site does for free - color scheme generation.

I have this software and it's great. They have an online scaled down edition at colorschemer.com.

Like some colors in a photo you saw online? Use this site to tell you the Hex values.

And on the same lines: ColorHunter.

Use this online app to take a base color in hex format and create a palette of ten shades of that color for you.

Click on one of the hundreds of little boxes to see the color values in expanded mode at colorjack.com.

Another free online tool for color matching and palette design.

Colors, palettes and even backgrounds for your web site at colourlovers.

Color harmonies, matching and tint searches at EasyRGB.

And finally

Get fresh color scheme ideas every day.

If You Build It, Who Will Come?

Just because you spent time putting a web site together, and maybe a good amount of money too, it doesn't mean anyone will come to your web site. Oh, the horror! Yes, pretty awful to hear the truth, but that's how it works - if you don't try and drive traffic to your site then no one will come, even if you have the most fabulous concept, or cool games.

So how do you get traffic - especially if you are trying to build a web site within a limited budget?

Easy Traffic Builder: The Page Title
There are many ways to build traffic but I will just go over one here for now: the title of your web page. And for arguments sake we will presume that you have a website about widgets and not a Carmen Electra photo gallery fan site - a site that will, by its very nature, get a lot more visitors than a site about widgets.

Your widget site must at its very base level have good content. But let's bypass that and just talk about how to get visitors to be curious enough to feel like clicking on a link to your site. If you just wrote a great piece on your site about the latest, greatest widget then by titling that page 'Widget X" you will not create a surge of curious visitors to your site. Take a leaf out of the tabloid press' book and create titles that make you want to click [turn that page].

Linkbaiting is when you create unique and interesting, and/or controversial content [not solely with web page content, but other media like videos and games too] that other web sites will link to. The main purpose of setting up linkbait is to get links, but that is not really what I am talking about here.

You won't get visitors to stick around your site if you brought them toy our site under false pretenses - "Carmen Electra Loves My Widget" might bring some traffic but they are looking to see what it is that Carmen likes, not your widget. A better hook would be something like "5 reasons why Widget X makes you cool," if indeed it does.

People love to know things in a condensed version, know that it won't take eons of scanning to get to the juicy part. Giving a "Top 10" of something, or if you can't think of that many - a 5 or 3 of something, will pique interest too. A negative works well also - "5 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Buy X, " or a little mystery: "The Secrets of X Revealed" help bring traffic to your site. Tips for things, or information for 'Beginners' or 'Newbies' works well too.

So remember to make the title interesting, but relevant, and then people will be a lot more likely to click on your link. Later on I will talk about some great places to put some of those links to help drive traffic to your site beyond just the regular search engines.

The Basics of Onpage SEO

Search engines do not rank whole web sites, but individual pages within the site. When doing some Page Rank research you may see that pages within a web site can have very different rankings. Therefore, with single web pages in mind, start small to build up your rankings within as many pages of your site as possible. You need to use what is known as onpage SEO to give your web page the best advantage, and if you have many highly optimized pages they will help you more than just a homepage with a good ranking.

The most base level onpage SEO techniques that you need to encompass within your web pages are as follows:

1. Page title
   This is what appears in the blue bar at the very top of your browser window. This 'title tag' must list your keywords. If you leave your title out it will be listed by default as 'Untitled'. This is to be avoided as your title tag lets the search engines know what your page is about. So, 'untitled' doesn't tell them anything other than you omitted the title. In a search result the title tag is displayed so you want to keep it short and to the point using about 7 or 8 words. Make sure all the pages on your site have different title tags.
   
   
2. Metadata
   This is coding found before your 'head' tag. Search engines used to use metadata for page rank much more than they do these days, but don't overlook your meta tags - Google differentiates between your pages by using your metadata. List your keywords in your meta tags, do not list words that you don't have in your content.
   
   
3. Web page content
   Use a light peppering of keywords throughout your web page content but don't overdo it and 'stuff' your pages. The search engines will regard that as a negative. As long as your web copy is relevant to your title tags and keywords you are OK. Think big picture and 'theme' your web page. And try using synonyms as well as your keywords so that your text reads properly.
   
   
4. Links
   Link to pages within your web site using your chosen keywords. This internal linking will inform search engines that the keyword has importance. Refrain from linking all over the place within your web copy as your theme will 'bleed'. Keep things tight by controlling where your links go out to, and remember this means content links here, not your menu links.
   
   
5. Your domain name
   If you want to improve in the search engine rankings it helps to have your keywords in your url. If your keyword is "weightloss tips" you should chose weightlosstips.com which will rank much higher for your keyword term than, say, healthyeating101.com. Of course you have to make sure each page is fully optimized too.

Remember as you optimize your web page content to make sure that it reads well. Naturally flowing text will make your visitors feel like sticking around, and later returning; and by using these few, easy to follow pointers, your onpage SEO will be a success.

10 Tips for Web Page Content Layout

If you are one of the many small business owners who out of necessity to stay within a budget, has become a newbie web author, then you need to know a few easy to remember guidelines for publishing reader-friendly, relevant and effective web page content that will have your visitors staying around for more.

Studies have shown what we already know is true - reading a web page is very different to reading a printed page.

Many people dislike reading on the web so intensely that they print out web pages and articles to read in greater detail later. And the truth is that most visitors to your web site will merely skim through your content and make a lightning fast judgment as to whether or not it is worth printing and reading later on.

So what can you do to ensure that visitors to your web site will stick around until the last paragraph? Make your point - and make it fast!

You have to grab your visitor's attention immediately so that in those few precious moments that they scan your web page content to see if it is relevant to them, they can see that it is. So, what is the best way to get your message across effectively?

Here are my ten top tips to writing effective web page content:

1. Well written, relevant content is important - use a spell checker so typos don't let you down
2. Use your keywords in a manner that won't bore the reader - don't needlessly repeat them
3. Give concise information - get to the bare bones fast, don't waffle!
4. Use short sentences and very short paragraphs - a few sentences per paragraph tops
5. Break up long content and link it to bullet points at the top of the page
6. Cross-reference your content with other pages
7. Format your page's text content width to narrow
8. Keep content relevant to the subject header - extraneous information should go elsewhere
9. Make use of white space to make your text easy to read
10. Bold/enlarge your subject headings so that they are clear

Small business owners are often too busy to frequently update their web sites and often leave them full of old, stale pages. If you are in this situation, but you want to write relevant, effective web page content and don't have time to add new copy, use my tips and re-work what you already have. You don't need to spend hours generating new text, as often just a few aesthetic enhancements, like those listed, can go a long way to making your web site an easy read.

The Seven Deadly Words a Web Designer Doesn't Want to Hear

Okay, 'deadly' is a little strong, but nevertheless: "I'll Know It When I see It" are words that make most web designers recoil in horror when talking with clients in the R&D phase regarding the client's web site design ideas.

There are some designers out there that love to hear those words because then that gives them free license, and if they are heavy on sales, they could probably palm off a quick design and as long as the client pays, get a quick buck. But a professional web designer worth their salt will need a lot more to go on than obscure references to several elements, of several web sites, that the client visited several months back.

If you are planning to build a web site, whether yourself or with a web designer, you need to plan, plan, plan. When you need to get a small business web presence on a budget, planning will save a lot of money in the long run.

From a designer's point of view it can be a real money loser trying to guess what a client is really after. Often the designer ends up losing out because the project drags on for way too long.

As the person who wants a web site, think about these few items to get some ideas flowing; then you will be able to have some more concrete ideas for your web site design:

• If you have corporate colors do you want them to be the focus, complemented, or accented in your design?
  

• Do you wish to make a visual statement with a large graphic as the home page's focus?

• What is your web site about - are you needing a portal, ecommerce, portfolio, niche market affiliate style web site, or a blog - or both?

• Do you like clean and contemporary designs, or busy, detailed web sites? Reading back to the last point - if you have an artist's portfolio to promote, a portal type design won't really be appropriate.

• Menus - like 'em at the top, both sides, left only, right only?

• Cute or classy?
  

• Text oriented or eye candy?
  

The above are just a few things to consider when thinking about your design. Now you need to go out on the web and find a web site that you like the look of. You will not copy the design, but rather use that as inspiration to create your own unique web site.

A place I love to get my design inspiration from is Cool Homepages, they have a lot of categories, and you can get lost in all the design ideas as there are so many of them. Then, when the discussion of site design comes up between you and your web designer, you can tell them exactly what it is that you want.

The Big Deal About Keyword Research for Search Engine Optimization

When you use a search engine you put in a word or phrase to find web sites that contain information about that word or phrase. You are using what is known as a keyword.

Knowing what keywords people are using the most will help you when writing your content and structuring your site. By using the right keywords your links will come up in search engines high enough that people will click on them. And by setting up your site optimally for higher rankings you are getting involved in the 'science' of Search Engine Optimization, or SEO.

Keywords Must be Relevant
If your business sells widgets you don't want to write about Britney Spears just because you know lots of people like to read about her. Search engines go through your site and 'know' what your content is about. By writing about Britney Spears all of a sudden: "Britney Spears Loves Widgets!" you might get the odd visitor through a Google Alert, but your page will not get an inflated ranking on any search engine.

The Best Relevant Keywords
So how do you know which are the best relevant keywords? Well you know your business best, so you will have an idea about what phrases and words people might use in a search engine to find you. What you need to do is take your ideas over to a couple of keyword analysis sites like Google, MSN and Wordtracker, and see how often these search terms are being used.

If you sell widgets and you notice that the search count for that word is very high you will likely find there is a lot of competition for it. For a new web site with little credibility amongst the search engines, selecting more obscure search terms will yield better traffic for your site. Why? Because there may be lots of 'low key' searches going on cumulatively, that if tapped, can lead to a lot of traffic.

Search engine optimization for your web site is something that needs to be taken on from the get go. Why spend time building a site no one can find in the search engines? Do your keyword research and then get writing good, relevant [to your business] content.

Navigating Your Way Through HTML Waters

I mentioned in my last post that planning is a very important part of any web design project, for several reasons. One of those reasons is the ability to set up a site's structure so that search engines will be able to properly spider the content and list your site's pages.

You may have written a fantastic piece of copy about Corinthian leather, only for it to be lost in cyberspace because it is not properly linked to within your site.

For small business owners, not having your site indexed and listed correctly can be a virtual death sentence.

So, if you have more than one page on your web site you are going to have links to other pages and thus need a navigation system to make it easy for your visitors to find information.

The Nav System
You know how GPS makes driving through a new city a real time saver? Well that's what your site's nav system will do for visitors to your virtual neck of the woods. A menu is the main component, so how do you want it to look - vertical or horizontal? Vertical? Okay - left side or right side? Horizontal? Do you have lots of links? Yes, well then you will need an expandable menu...

You get the idea.

You can get a lot of links going vertically and not need to get into any kind of expandable menu, which can be made with Cascading Style Sheets [CSS]. Here's a web site where you can make your own CSS menu - it's pretty cool. If you sign up you can make lots of menus and store them online.

I have found that one of the best ways to plan a site's structure is to get a batch of Post-it notes and write the page name/menu item on them. Then sticking them on a wall just reposition them as you need to, create duplicates as needed to identify if some pages will need to go in any sub menus also - like 'contact us'.

What you need to remember as you plan your menu structure, is that as your site is designed the menu system must be a constant: you don't want to have the menu on the left on some pages, the right on others. This confuses visitors. Keep you nav system the same on all pages [much easier if you are using a content management system - CMS].

And finally, you need a site map so that search robots and spiders can locate all the pages on your site. If you want Google to get all your pages you can easily create a site map in XML and upload the link to Google and just let them do what they know best.

5 Reasons Why You’re Wasting Your Money Building a Web Site…

If:
you have no concrete plan before you start building one,
your content sucks,
your site looks like it has no cohesion,
you don’t know who is visiting your site,
your site doesn’t get updated

then:
you are wasting your time and money on building a web site.

If content is king, then planning is God
I am sure that subtitle will rile some visitors, but I don’t mean to be inflammatory. What I mean to do is show a relationship between the two. Your plan has to be the most important element of your web site from day one. Period. No throwing things together in a mixer and seeing what comes out – have a plan. You don’t have to stick to it word for word – it can change - but if you detail everything you will be able to see any flaws early on.

I speak to people a lot who have no clue what they want on a web site – they just HAVE TO HAVE A WEB SITE NOW!

If you are going to spend good old fashioned hard earned cashola on something you had better know what it is. PLAN.

Yes, content is king
Now you have a plan for what you want, you need to implement it. The text content that you have on your web site will determine how people and search engines will view your site. If visitors come but find nothing worthwhile reading they will leave fast. Your beautifully designed site will be just another click but no sale.

Laser in that focus
When you plan out your web site - from its design elements to its text, your site it will have a focus and look cohesive. A site that looks like a disjointed mess has no focus. So PLAN.

No visitors today, sorry
You built it but they didn’t come. Why? Do you know? Part of your PLAN needs to be tracking your site’s stats from Day 1. You need to know who came, where they went, where they were when they said goodbye. Sign up for Google Analytics for free – it’s amazingly complex but easy on the eyes for those who don’t want to delve too deep into site stats.

R.I.P. ye olde web site
Your site went live 4 years ago and that was the last time content was added. If this is your, was your, or will be your web site’s story then there is no point having a web site at all.

With the millions upon millions of web sites that have come since your last update, guess which end of the pile your listing is at? Unless your web site is so unique that no one else has mentioned anything that is on your site anywhere else on the web, because you have let your site get dusty on the shelf, no one will visit your web site – except your mom.

The above are just five reasons why your web site could be a big waste of your time and money. There are many more. Keep coming back as I write more about those going forward. In the meantime, start planning!

Niche Marketing - not all it's cracked up to be

Maybe you don't have a web site yet, maybe you don't even have a business yet, but somehow thanks to the wonder of the internet you have found this web site. If you fall into the latter category you may have found this blog because you are interested in starting an online business. I mean why not? After all, you could be lying on a beach in Bora Bora just posting away to your online empire, raking in the dough.

I hope you haven't come across the plethora of niche market sites out there and become sold on the fact that there is easy money to be made on the web, if you just pay a mere $97 NOW.

Niche marketing is a real buzz term at the moment, and yes you can make money at it. But you need a lot of time and energy if you want to do it right.

Do not believe 'them' when they tell you it is easy.

As I have a couple of market niche sites myself I can tell you that it is very time consuming to maintain these projects - IF YOU WANT TO DO IT RIGHT. And what I mean by that is not fill up the internet and blogosphere with nonsensical articles, or even downright non-truths about subjects.

I started out a site called 'know about martial arts'. I wanted to write about martial arts, it's history as well as general info. I am an avid kickboxer so it sounded like a good niche to get into. But after a while the articles that came my way were so appallingly bad that I had to re-write them myself so that I could sleep at night!

I am not lying.

I read articles that were so blatantly wrong in their information that I could not, with good conscience, publish them to the web. I wrote this article, which I am proud of, about African martial arts. You should have seen the original that I purchased in a niche pack to get my web site off to a 'flying start'. It was basically another article in the pack with all the terms for 'martial arts' replaced with 'African martial arts'. It was therefore totally incorrect.

This made me mad and so I did research on the subject myself to come up with my article. This obviously takes a lot of time. Now multiply that work by tens of other sites and you will see there just aren't enough hours in the day. See how long it has taken me on this rant already?!

I haven't updated my martial arts site for 3 months now. It's a shame as I really believed it would be a fun ongoing project.

Bottom line - if you want to purchase niche articles packs to start an online empire know what you are getting into. If you don't care what you are publishing - just publishing for the sake of getting content online - then go ahead. But just know that a lot of people believe what they read. Someone whose mother tongue is not English and writes nonsense so they can earn a crust on the other side of the world should not have their 'pearls of wisdom' immortalized just so that someone might make a few cents with their Google Adsense account.

Easy project collaboration solutions

OK, you have lots of 'stuff' that you need to work on, some on your own, some with others. You need somewhere for you and your team to work on things together while you are in project mode.

For small projects you can choose from some of the fantastic project collaboration web sites available. Being web based solutions means that you can access your files/notes/chats/calendar from any computer with internet access. How neat is that?

I have used several online project collaboration web sites, and I have my favorites, but let me give you some links so you can go and check them out and decide for yourself which best fits your needs.

The following sites all offer a healthy dose of options for FREE, and you will be able to see from the pricing breakdowns they publish that the next level up is still not an expensive option. But if you need to project manage a couple of other people you can do a great job for $0 and save your company money.

Here's the list. There are more options available than noted - some are the same thing, just called another name. But here is the boiled down essence of each one:

huddle.com
Unlimited users/3 projects at a time/free storage/works with facebook.com

basecamphq.com
Unlimited users/1 projects at a time/real time chat

goplan.org
4 users per project/2 projects at a time/free storage

jointcontact.com
2 users/2 projects at a time/contacts/calendar/chat

wrike.com
1 user/time tracking/20 tasks/free storage/works via email as well

santexQ.com
Unlimited users/unlimited projects at a time/

comindwork.com
5 users per project/5 projects at a time/free storage/calendar with 3 month view only

Domain registration - the good news

Domain registration is relatively painless compared to other web design project tasks. Let's go over it together.

Why you need a domain name
The bottom line is you don't need to to buy a domain name to get on the web. You can sign up on one of the many free blogging services and have a web site in minutes. But you won't have the traditional yourdomainname.com, rather something like this url: yoursmallbusinesswebsitedesign.blogspot.com/.

The main reason you want a traditional domain name is it shows you are reputable and professional. If you can't fork out a few bucks for a domain name how profitable does that make your business look? My company name is i-contact web design so I use icontactwebdesign.com for my business web site.

Which domain type should you get?
By that I mean a .com/.net/.org/.something else. Back in the old days .com was pretty much the only domain type you should purchase. While it is still the case that your primary domain name should ideally be a .com [if you live in the States anyway] you should also snap up a few others to cover all the bases: get the .net,.org,.biz,.info and whatever others take your fancy. All these domains can be pointed to your primary name so that visitors don't have to try and remember what your web address really is.

Where to buy a domain name
There used to be just one place for domain names - register.com, and they were expensive. But now you can buy domain names all over the internet and you are not getting scammed if you pay just $1.99 for one [usually a promo price]. I like to use name.com and godaddy.com but there are many others.

When you go to a domain provider there is a search box that you can fill out with your desired domain name. You then choose the type [.com etc] and as if by magic a result will appear telling you whether it is available. Most often the disheartening words 'Not Available' show up - the result of the proliferation of web sites over the last decade. But don't give up hope - keep typing out choices till one is available.

What domain name should I choose?
Well I can't tell you that but what I mean is what type of domain name should you choose - business or 'snappy'. It depends on your business - if you are a law firm then you would want your business name, like AndrewsYawleyKrugerAndAssociates.com as opposed to SueAndGetRich.com. You get the idea. However, if you are the owner of Joe's Pizza and joespizza.com is taken then something snappy like pizzayouwannaeata.com might work for your customers.

Some pointers to remember:
Keep your domain name as short as you can get away with and check it reads OK when the words are all strung together, e.g. A pen shop owner might think a snappy, catchy name for his site would be the pen is mightier than the sword.com. Now push those words together. Do you see anything x-rated in there?

Depending on where you buy your domain name you will get different options and different pricing. Most registrars now offer Private Whois, a feature whereby your details are not available to everyone on the net. At the time of writing name.com did not charge for this option which is a nice little saving. Some registrars will also offer you 'free' hosting and a myriad of other things at time of registration, so read up on what they offer, as you likely won't need half the stuff they are pushing.

And lastly, after you have made your purchase remember to PRINT OUT your receipt and the emails you are sent after sign up that tell you all about how to login to your domain management panel - you will need to make some changes to it when you set up your hosting. Harking back to my pet peeves: this information is important. You might think you'll remember it, but I come across clients regularly who don't have a clue where they bought their domain name anymore!

I'll touch on hosting briefly as I'll go over this in another post - you need it. It is not expensive but you need a reliable host. Look at godaddy.com and hostgator.com and Google's first search page should bring up some other good ones. Often the features are many and you don't need all the bells and whistles - even for most business accounts.

And finally after you have your domain name bought and hosting covered you can now start to think about web design. :)

Note: This post was put together using a mind map.I wrote yesterday about how to use them for helping you when writing web content.

Unblock your writer within

Sometimes the seeming enormity of getting a web site project completed just puts you in such a tizzy that you can't think of what to write about! I'm going to share with you one of my invaluable techniques when it comes to planning what to write.

Get a piece of white paper - just reach over the your printer right now.

Write down the topic you are going to be writing about smack dab in the middle of the paper.

Circle it.

You will now write whatever comes to mind:

Starting from about the 1 o'clock position I want you to draw a line that's as long as the word that you just thought of. Draw a line under that word coming out from the edge of your center circle. Imagine this is a 'tree trunk'.

If you think of anything that comes under that subject just add a 'branch' and write your new word on it. Keep branching out till you run dry.

No more branches on that first tree trunk? Ok, going clockwise, create another tree trunk and branch combo.

Keep doing this until you come all the way back to the 11 or 12 o'clock position.

If you notice anything on your trunk or branches that might need connecting then join them up, as creatively as you please. Add little doodles or notes here and there if you need to.

In essence what you have created is a mind map.

Mind maps are fabulous tools that throw the rigidity of lists out the window. They are a lot more fun to write out than lists too, and because of their structure you can remember their content better, while seeing relationships between elements clearly.

I use this technique every day for my to-do list. I find it a lot more effective that using my PDA or other electronic system to notify me of what I need to do. I use some bright highlighters to mark of items as I work through them. By the end of the day if I am dazzled by color I know I did my job. :)

Tomorrow you can read the article I wrote about using the mind map at the top of this post.

Scratch 'write content' off your to-do list

Writing can be a hard thing; we all know the term 'writer's block' and we know that another block can be involved if you get it: the chopping block.

If you rely on your web site for bringing in an income you have to make sure that your CONTENT IS WORTH READING. Of course what I think is worth reading might not be the same as what you think is worth reading so let me broaden it up a little bit: make your content worth reading for your reader base. If you sell cotton candy machines, write about them so that fellow cotton candy machine lovers/buyers/repair men are hanging on to your every word!

I didn't start blogging with any real desire until about 6 months ago. I had tried blogging on and off for years, but all those blogs just took up server space somewhere and I let them die quietly. That was until about 10 months ago when I started writing more often about things that interest me. And finally, web design really interests me so I thought it about time I actually wrote about it. :) But I know, you don't want me to blab on about my writing, but yours.

The #1 hump that I have clients trying to get over almost every single time is their site's content. This is especially true for sole proprietors and Mom and Pops who are the jack of all trades and they are spread really thin by the time 'writer' gets added to their list of roles.

So, how can you easily scratch 'write content' off your to-do list when you so badly need to get your sales blurb out on the web? The best way, the most painless way time-wise, is to hire someone else to do it. Often that copy writer will begin by just doing what you can also do: seek out other web sites in your field, see what they have written about, read it, digest it, and serve up your own content from the smörgåsbord.

I am not telling you to PLAGIARIZE any one - let's get that understood!

But if you are just blocked beyond belief, have no idea where to start or just don't know if you want to say is good business etiquette, then reading other people's work can help you get over the hump - for free.

One of my pet peeves [should I write a post just solely on my pet peeves and not pepper them throughout my posts? Let me know via comment... one of my PPs is that sometimes prospective clients come forth and everything is wonderful as we discuss the design and development, but as soon as I let them know that the time frame for getting the site up is really reliant on them [i.e. how quick they can get me the fully edited content they require] then the umming begins.

I can set any client up with a very good copy professional as and when needed, but here I am talking about going the free/limited budget route. Many are under the impression that a web designer will also write about what the client does for business, when the web designer doesn't have a clue about building custom homes or tennis coaching, for example.

You know your business best. If you are on a tight web budget use your people resources to look over your text, ask family and friends, 'does this make any sense?' and if not keep editing.

You don't have to have pages of text on a web site, so if that fear is stopping you from getting one, don't let it. Go for a more arty looking site - more aesthetic to keep the eye busy while taxing the brain less. :)

Web design in your spare time

Yesterday I wrote about time issues and getting a web site online. I mentioned that most small business owners I talk with who wish they had a web site have some time to spare getting everything together for me to build a site for them.

Recap: I have some time to spare

If you just want to get on the blog bandwagon you can have a site up and running in minutes. If you need something more customized you might be able to find it on some of the template sites out there.

So let's look at the use of templates. When I design a web site I use a content management system [CMS] called Joomla. There are several great ones out there but after playing around with them I decided Joomla was my kinda CMS. It is Open Source, which means FREE, and by using that I pass on savings to my clients while ensuring they are getting a top notch product. Joomla is so popular s a CMS that there are a million and one [OK, that's a bit over the top] add ons for it to make it anything you dream of - in an online sense.

Joomla - check it out.

Using Joomla means I need to create a template to get everything up and running. The template is a framework for the various add ons that I need to customize a site with. Using Joomla also means that my clients can easily edit their web sites and do not have to trouble me for a few changes here and there - which saves them money.

If you have ever used a word processor you will be very comfortable using Joomla to edit your web pages. You can edit the text inside your web page while you are looking at it in your browser - how cool is that?

I also love Joomla because it is flexible: as your web site grows you won't need to redo all your pages - just change the template and with one click you have a new looking site. No cut and paste anywhere!

Consider Joomla if you have some money to spend on a designer who can install and configure everything for you as it will take a loooong time to learn all that stuff yourself. If you don't have the bucks then maybe just the regular HTML route will be your best bet.

What do I mean by 'regular HTML route'? I mean getting an out of the box template and creating a web site that is not reliant on a database working 'behind the scenes', keeping your content separate from the design. That feature is what enables Joomla to change the look of your web site in a click - the pages and the framework tying them all together are not all in the same king size bed, but more like in twin beds pushed up close together... am I making any sense? I hope so! :)

Ah, now a quick chat on blogging. You can get a web site like this one set up in minutes and be on the web. If you like the blog format but need more freedom of customization than what you see here, you might want to use Wordpress and set it up on your own server. Again you need a template [or theme as Wordpress templates are called] - and some come free with your install - or you can easily find some very nice ones out there that can have to upload to your server before you can use them.

Why not just use a free template? No reason against it but they do have copyrights attached you you may have to keep certain links visible on your site that might not meld well with your business persona. Just something to think about. Also, because you don't know the author of the template you might not always get want you bargained for.

Here are some free Joomla and Wordpress template sites I like.

Best of Joomla
Joomla Shack
Themes Base

Free Wordpress Themes
Top Wordpress Themes
CSS Design Templates
Wordpress Templates

Should I build my own business web site?

As a web designer my first thought is ONLY IF YOU ARE A PROFESSIONAL WEB DESIGNER. But then I stop thinking about myself [!] and offer up the question, 'can - or should?'

For some reason web design has fallen into a void where everything seems up for grabs. There are very few professions where 'lay' people would ever consider learning the trade to get a job done, but where web design is concerned there are a lot of people who buy an 'out of the box' piece of software, crank out a site with one of the set templates it comes with, and hey presto another web designer is created. We are legion!

I guess you can tell that that is one of my pet peeves, but this post is not about my pets or peeves - I'll save them for another time! Back to my question of can, or should.

You definitely can build your own web site, and this blog will help you work out how to do that in a cost effective manner. But what a web design newbie needs to remember, and a small business owner be very aware of: this web design stuff takes a long time and time is limited especially when there is your livelihood to put first.

As a web designer who has been around for over a decade I take pride in my work, but the bottom line is that I am a resource that will save your company money by freeing you up to do what you do best - running your business.

So should you build you own web site? That depends on how much time you have and how big your web design budget is. Let's look at a few options:

1. I have lots of time, I just decided to dedicate 100% of my time to getting on the web.
   
   OK, you have plenty of time to learn the basics of web design. This is a good place to get tips on how to get a small business web presence on a budget. There are many more - Google can show you the way.
   
   
2. I have some time to spare.
   
   If you just want to get on the blog bandwagon you can have a site up and running in minutes. If you need something more customized you might be able to find it on some of the template sites out there [stay tuned - this will be on another post].
   
   
3. I barely have time to sleep let alone plan a web site.
   
   OK, I hope you have some money in your web design budget or you will have a hard time getting on the web any time soon.
   

Of all the people I talk with who want a web site they tend to fall in the middle of 2 & 3. My next chat with you will go over #2, so come back!

I need a web site, but...

When small business owners tell me that they 'need a web site, but' - fill in the blank - the reason is most often, 'I don't have the time'.

What this often really means is 'I don't have the budget to get a web site' [because they are really expensive, aren't they?]

This thought is usually because they got a quote for a web site about 8 or 9 years ago, when those that could often gouged, so the small business owner thinks, 'I don't have all that money so I will have to build my own web site and learn so much stuff, and in essence become a web designer, on top of what I do already - so I OBVIOUSLY DO NOT HAVE THE TIME!'

I hear that a lot.

So you obviously found this site because you are interested in a web presence and you are in business. Let me guide you. You can get a web site for free. You can get a web site for very little expense per year. You can spend around $1000 on a fine looking web site. You can spends thousands on your web site. If you spend more you most likely will have to do less work to get your web site up and running.

Now that the obvious has been stated let's look at the pros and cons and talk about getting a web site without spending any money.

Free Business Web Sites - not a good idea
If you wish to convey professionalism having a free web site is not the way to go about it. Using a free blogging service like this has its uses: this site is a blog, but this is not my small business web site. Blogs are fabulous formats to be more casual and informal, to discuss topics on a regular basis. If you want to go into the blogging business then blogs like this are a good idea, but for the sake of argument I am not talking about blogging as a business here, but regular Mom and Pop business owners trying to get online.

At the very least you need your own domain name: www.yourdomainname.com. A .com is the most prized and well known, but there are also .net/.org/.biz.info and others to consider. To get a domain name you don't have to spend a lot of money any more at register.com. Check out these great resources: godaddy.com, name.com.

Then once you have a domain name, hopefully one that is easy to remember and spell, you need somewhere for your web site to live. You need a web host. There are a million web hosting companies out there and a lot of them, unfortunately are not good.

Many people go into internet business by becoming hosting resellers. They are buying server space from another company and then selling it on to make money. There is nothing wrong with this except that most often the customer service is not there as they do not have employees, and their service is down more frequently, or emails are not delivered in a timely fashion.

Because of the proliferation of unreliable hosting companies your best bet is to go with some of the biggies. Again godaddy.com or hostgator.com are good options at a great price. You can also call them up and talk to a real support person if needed.

So to get on the internet you need a domain name [your web address], a hosting account [a physical location where your web site's files reside] and a web site [a group of files created by someone with web design knowledge].

That's it. Now get those three and your'e all set! Joking aside, those three components are the basics; the latter being the one that causes the small business owner the most grief and what this blog is all about.

The downfall of the 'very' small business owner

I've met many 'very' small business owners over the years and these hard working individuals are often the most misguided and mislead clients I get.

When a Mom & Pop operation dreams of global internet domination, selling their goods or services while they are asleep, or lying on a beach, they often forget to get out of that dream mode and actually plan how they are going to carve out a little piece of the web for themselves.

If you are thinking about getting a web site - congratulations - you are joining the masses, but with that you have to know your options so you can make the best plan going forward. And that is where I would like to help. Using my experience from the last eleven years of interacting with Mom and Pop businesses I am going to share with you some information that I believe you need to know when you decide to get on the web.

I myself live in the quaint small town of Davidson, North Carolina. We have many small businesses here and I come across wannabe entrepreneurs and small business owners frequently that all tell me the same thing: I really want a web site, but...

So let's look at those buts and see if some ring any bells for you!