I am finally ready to announce my new blog.

Online IT Guide is my new blog.

It is computer advice and blogging for people who have a life. I’ll be sharing computer advice to help with everyday computer problems. I have a very heavy emphasis on handling viruses and malware there right now (there has been so much lately that I think it is a priority).

I’ll also be talking about blogging.

Initially, my emphasis will be on building a blog or website for a small business, although much of that will be applicable to anyone starting a blog. I see a lot of local small business that have a terrible website (if they even have a website). Many barely rank for their own name, much less typical search engine searches that they need to. I’ve grown tired of searching for a local business and finding the typical citysearch type directory instead. I’m looking to help them develop a site that they can change on their own without having to fork over a couple thousand dollars to a developer when they need to change something.

My goal at Online IT Guide will be to make the information understandable to everyday people.

Information like:

• What they need to do to keep their computer safe.
• How to maintain their computer.
• How to back up their data.
• How to set up WordPress for a business site.
• How to create content on a business website that will bring in paying clients.
• When it is time to find an expert to handle the situation.

Again, I am going to try and present this information so anyone can understand (I know I’m doing it right if my mom can follow it).

I will be putting nearly all my blogging effort and time into Online IT Guide.

Much of the blogging topics I would cover here will be covered there. I won’t be making much effort to post here anymore. However, there are some things I may want to post that will not fit into the topic there. Those posts may find a place here. For the most part though, Digital Key is not going to be much of an active blog.

For those that have taken the time to read, follow, and comment here over the years, I thank you. I think you’ll like the new site too. I personally think that everyone you know should subscribe to the site so you know if there is an important update or malware you may need to be concerned about (and there is a lot at the moment).

Head over to http://onlineitguide.com because you’re going to like it!

I’ll be removing the top commentator and making some other changes here but for the most part this site will still stay the same. It is just not going to get the same priority. Who knows, it work out better than it did before.

Your Avatar represents you and your blog.

What does your image say about you and your blog? What does it say about your business? Do you even have one (a photo that is)?

Image via Wikipedia

Believe it or not an avatar is important for your business.

You should have a photo of yourself on your website or blog. There is a reason that realtors all started having their photo on business cards long before it became common in the rest of the business world. Even if you decide to use a logo for an avatar you still need back it up on your site with a photo.

A personal photo brings recognition to your name and trust.

When people can relate a name to a face, it helps create a relationship. On the internet, taking advice or purchasing something from someone you have not seen can be intimidating. Your photo on the site will help the reader feel that they know you. It builds trust. If you are afraid to show who you are, why should I trust you?

What kind of photo should you use?

As a former photographer, I would recommend getting a professional portrait taken. I see a lot of photos on websites that are almost as bad as no photo at all. The top of the head is chopped off. The color is way off (shot with a webcam with the glow from the screen as a light). Some look like an audition for a horror movie.

You can get away with a good photo by a friend. Make sure the background is not distracting if it is not related to your blog or business. Make sure it is a close up. Most avatars are fairly small so it will need to be close to be much use. If your friend can’t get a good photo of you, then find a good professional that will help make sure the photo will work for the online use you need it for. Tell the photographer up front what you need and be prepared to pay for it.

You want to look professional, but not artificial.

No need for a suit if you don’t wear one usually. At the same time, don’t be too cute. Let us see the real you, but don’t be too real. Professional is the word. On the other hand, if you are the SEO of a Fortune 500 company, a photo in a suit is a requirement for most purposes.

Once you have a good photograph make sure you have it sized and cropped right.

Some uses require a square crop, otherwise the top of your head is always cut off. Others need a normal vertical photo. Some need a smaller resolution (like 100×100 pixels) others need a higher resolution or the image looks bad. You’ll need several resolutions of both vertical and square formats. It’s always a pain when you find you need to resize the photo yet again for some new site or social network, but take the time to present yourself right.

After you get a good image, use it.

Add it to Gravitar, MyBlogLog, and Blog Catalog. Use it in your Google profile and Yahoo profile. Make sure it is on your Facebook page. Make yourself famous by using your image as a press release. Use it for your Twitter avatar. Have it ready to use and add to any site you join that takes an image.

In my own case, I misplaced my portrait for a while.

Yeah, I know, you would expect more from a photographer. I thought I had it handy, but it ended up I only had a low resolution image and it took me a while to find the full image. In the meantime, I used a photo of my wife and I. While my wife is the most important part of my life, she really does not have much to do with the marketing of my blogs or my online presence. I needed to find that portrait (or I would have needed to get another one taken). I am glad I took the time.

Your online business is not the place to be anonymous.

Let people see that you are someone to be trusted. Let them see that you are someone to be taken seriously. Let your social networks see that you are social. In the end, a good photo for an avatar and on your website will pay off.

Keywords for your small business website.

Part Three of creating an effective small business website.

Not the best pizza in Chicago because it's in Lake Geneva, WI

I did not ask the question in the post title because I am looking for pizza in Chicago. Although, I have had some very good pizza in Chicago. I also know a great place to get Chicago Style Pizza in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. This is about keywords for your small business website. We are going to start working on the content for your website.

What are keywords and why are they important?

Basically, keywords are the words people might use to find your type of business in a search engine like Google. The words they type in the box. What they want to know. Keyword study can even be nearly a full time occupation for some internet marketers as they try to rank for different keywords to get traffic.

Most small business websites don’t rank for any related keywords.

Typing in “Where is the best pizza in Chicago, Illinois gets some pizza restaurants in Chicago.

Is this the best pizza in Chicago?

It also gets a bunch of sites that are not even from Chicago. List type sites that rank better than most pizza restaurants. Many are not much better than spam sites. Yet, they know more about keywords and search engine optimization than a local restaurant owner does. In fact, I am guessing that not long after this post, this site might rank better than some pizza places for where is the best pizza in Chicago. “Best Pizza” is a different beast altogether in my guess though.

Keywords are the words  used most often in searches.

There are short tail keywords and long tail keywords. A short tail keyword might be “business website”. The short phrase is searched for more often then a longer one. Long tail keywords might be more like “effective small business website”. Both of these are probably very difficult phrases to rank for though. There is a lot of competition for small business websites by those who have a lot more time to spend on SEO than I do.

You as a small business owner have an advantage in keywords though.

You can work the long tail a lot longer than most search engine optimized list type sites. You can also work it better. Keep reading this series and I’ll cover how to use them.

Once you have a list of keywords you can start to use the keywords as your write the content for your site.

You will need to make sure you use them. It is best, however; to use them just slightly more than often than you would in normal writing or communication. You don’t want it to sound strange when someone reads it. You do want to make sure the search engines know what your talking about on the page. Some people go so far as to worry about the exact percentage a keyword shows on a page. I just type the whole keyword or keyword phrase a bit more often where I might use a pronoun. Two to four times a will be good.

My next post in this series will cover some of the ways to figure out the keywords you need in your small business website content.

For the first time, this site has a new host.

New Host For This Site

Frequent visitors will notice that the previous web hosting banner disappeared and was recently replaced by the HostGator banner. To be honest, the old banner should have been taken down long ago. The only reason it was not, was due to laziness on my part and the difficulties I was having with the site over the past few months of having them host it.

I had a few problems with the previous host before.

Just after starting this site, the entire host went down for an entire day. The reason given was a power failure to the server floor. Although the building had backup power, it would not work as the problem was only on the one floor. They promised to make sure that it would not happen again. Ok, I can see things like that happening (I am generally a forgiving person).

Sometime last year, the same thing happened.

The exact same excuse was given. The exact same promise was made. This time, I was not happy but I did not act fast enough to move. They renewed my account for the next year before I was able to move. So, I figured I would take my time for the move – after all, usually there were no real problems. I had a full year to make the move.

Last summer (2009) things really fell apart here.

I tried an update. I have been very busy with outherFor once, I tried the shortcut and tried and auto-update and failed to do my usual. I did not shut off extra plugins. I did not do a backup. Saying the update did not go smoothly would be an understatement. There were problems with the file transfer and things came back scrambled.

Additionally, I could not get a good FTP connection.

My FTP connection kept failing while I tried to upload the files manually. It is hard to repair something when the connection to the host keeps failing. My opinion is that this connection failure may have been part of the cause for the bad update but I could be wrong.

Denis de Bernardy, the creator of Semiologic Pro, the theme I use did all he could to help.

He spent several hours trying to straighten things out. He did finally get it working. Well, as good as he could.

I soon got an alert that my site was using too many resourced from the host.

This is where things got really bad. I replied to the alert to ask what was the problem. The site was moved to a backup server long before I received any reply. Not that the reply did any good. The only thing I could do was shut down any added features the site was running and hope that would fix it. Apparently, it did as they stopped telling me there was a problem.

I thought the site was Ok again.

I added back a few plugins. Trying to get the site close to where it was. Still trying to avoid anything that I thought would be a problem.

Again the alert from the host.

Again, before I received a reply from my own reply as to what might be the problem, I was told the site was moved to a backup server. Just a note, when this was done, I was unable to make any corrections as all my links to the site would no longer work and the domain would turn up the host’s “this page has been suspended” type of notice. All before I would receive any reply from them. If your going to suspend an account, shouldn’t you answer the trouble ticket first?

Talk about terrible service.

How can you fix something that you cannot connect to? What kind of service suspends the account before replying?

Anyways, lack of time to do much forced me to deactivate nearly everything behind the scenes on this site.

That is why this site has been neglected for the past few months. I had no time to try a move (this was a first time moving a blog to a new host for me). I had not idea what could be causing the problem. Semiologic Pro runs fine on other hosts. I could not think of anything that would be using extra resources. All I could do was deactivate everything I could think of. Afraid any excess changes would get it suspended again, I was afraid to make posts.

I also had some additional minor problems with the previous host.

I mentioned the FTP connection problem. This was always a problem with them. Since they were the first host I had, I had gotten used to it. Only now I realize that I do not have the same problem with FTP on other hosts. There were occasional outages. These were always attributed to them as some type of DNS problem with my ISP or a routing problem between here and there. I am not entirely sure that is the truth. I cannot think why the DNS or routing would fail. The internet is designed to be redundant in this regard. I have had some schooling in regard to routers.

So, this site is now hosted by HostGator.

I have not had any problems that I know of with any sites I run on them. I expect few problems now. HostGator will now be one of the ads featured on this site and I am comfortable recommending them to anyone. Service has been great from them when I needed it. In fact, they were quicker to reply to questions when I was getting alerts threats from the old host than the old host was about my request for information about the problem.

I am looking forward to a long, happy hosting relationship with HostGator.

They will be one of the few companies that I directly feature in ads here. If you are looking for  a host, I hope you’ll consider them.

This is Part Two the the Keys to an Effective Small Business Website Series

Your Unique Selling Proposition – the USP

No matter who creates your website, no matter what it looks like, no matter where the traffic comes from, you need to give the reader a reason to buy from you. This is marketing 101 and you can skip a lot of the homework but if you miss this you fail the class. Your unique selling proposition or unique selling point is what will give potential customers the reason to purchase from you. Without it, your small business website is virtually useless.

Why do you need a unique selling proposition?

If you cannot separate your business from the other businesses (or separate your product) customers will not have any reason to buy from you. They will go someplace that can give them a reason. At the very best, your potential customer will have to contact you to ask for a reason to buy from you. Often this desperate cry for a reason to utilize your services will start with the word “How much is _________.” You can fill in the blank with whatever your business typically hears. In my case, every photographer could guess the first words you hear after answering the phone:

“How much is an 8×10?”

To which nearly every photographer answers the question and the potential customer says goodbye and calls the next photographer in the phone book with the same question. This goes on until the customer hears a price that sounds good, or, a photographer that knows better.

This is true for nearly every type of business.

It does not matter what you sell or what service you provide. The product is a bit different but the rest of the sentence (as well as the conversation) is most likely the same. Many small business websites are just as bad as their phone book ads. They give the name, address, phone number and maybe an email address. The website may have some pretty pictures or flashy graphics but no real reason for the customer to do business. Of course, you can save a lot wasted time answering the phone by putting prices on your site. Then they don’t even call. The small business owner then wonders why his expensive pretty website brings in no business.

You need to get your small business website away from the phone book mentality.

You should also probably change your phone book ads. You need to give potential clients more than you name, address, and phone number. Everyone else has the same ad already. Look at your local phone book ads. They are all the same business. In 90% of the ads in a niche, only the name, address, and phone number are different. You could substitute the name “Giant Donut” for the name of many of the businesses listed and it would still make sense. Most small business websites are the same. They just add some flashy graphics.

Before you spend any time building a website, you need your unique selling proposition.

What makes your business, your product, your service unique? Why should a customer come to you instead of the business down the block? What do you have to offer?

It better not be price!

If so, stop reading now and just flush any money you plan to invest in you business down the drain. You will soon be out of business. Maybe not this month or year, but eventually someone start to beat your price. Then why should I shop with you? You need to face the fact that most likely, you will eventually be facing competition that can beat your price. That may very well be Wal-Mart and they will beat your price if they have to lose money doing it. The will also probably be open longer hours than you can, and have a nice old lady to smile, to say hello, and to offer them a cart to shop with. You will be out of business.

Before you start to really set up a small business website, you need to find your USP.

Actually, you should come up with at least 10 unique things about your business. This will be the core of your website. The reason people will purchase your product or service from your business. Tell them why they should come to you instead of your competition. While you can cheat a little on a few of them, the majority of those USP’s need to truly be unique to your business. You probably are not a Giant Donut dealer, so make sure only your business can claim them.

Also, how do those unique selling propositions benefit the customer?

Be ready to tell your potential customer how a particular USP will matter to them. A lot of small businesses will mention that they use a particular brand of equipment or supplies (Remember Kodak film fellow photographers? It really does not matter to the customer). Unless it benefits the customer, it really does not count.The customer will not be impressed by your technology unless there is a benefit to the customer. Give them a benefit, and you will win the customer (even if the competition uses better technology but fails to demonstrate how that would benefit the customer). Why should they come to you instead of Wal-Mart? Perhaps you are less expensive even though Wal-Mart is cheaper. The preceding sentence only makes sense if you show the customer the difference between less expensive and cheap.

Your mission should you accept it:

Create at least 10 unique selling points about your business. Make them as truly unique as you can. Don’t forget there are emotional selling points to your business that may be even more valuable to a customer than non-emotional reasons.

Unless you are the only Bugatti dealer within 500 miles of Pocatello, Idaho your location probably isn’t a real big USP for you. You’ll need something more unique than being the only Ford dealer in a particular Chicago suburb.

These USP’s will be the basis for you website.

You will need to build on them and create content around them. This is why I wanted to cover this topic on your small business website early so you can begin preparing your USP’s. You should use them in all your advertising and marketing. If you do, you will stop hearing the words “How much is…” and hear “I want to buy, purchase, schedule or whatever from you” instead. You will need to do less “selling”. You will find that you do not need to worry about that Wal-Mart going up down the street. You will be able to charge more for you product or service and still have more business.

Always remember the marking saying:

It’s not features, it’s benefits.

The is part one of the Key to an Effective Small Business Website series.

Choosing A Domain for an Effective Small Business Website.

A domain name is your business’s address on the internet.

You want to own it (some businesses find themselves renting the domain from a web designer at high cost). You want control of it. A good domain name may even help your business. Many businesses are even using the domain name (complete with .com) as the business name.

Choosing a domain name for your small business should be fairly easy. We just want to make sure you do it right and don’t make a mistake because your first choice is not available. This is a little bit different than choosing a domain name for a niche sit which I have also pointed written about on this blog.

I am covering choosing a domain for your business website early in this series.

The reason is because there are people out there buying domains simply with the plan of selling them at a profit sometime in the future. I do not want you to miss getting one because someone purchased it two weeks earlier just as an investment and not use. In some industries this is a possibility.

First rule – .com and only .com

Don’t take a .net because your first choice is taken in .com but still available in .net. You will only be sending more traffic to someone else. Your customers will always assume it is .com if they are trying to remember. You will also often include your domain in advertising.

Second rule – do not use the free online tools to check if domains are available

Use the tool provided by your domain registrar and only search when you are ready to purchase it. Purchase the domain immediately. There are some sites online that use these searches to find prime domains for investment like I mentioned above. I have heard of more than one case where someone has checked for a domain and found suddenly purchased when they waited a bit before purchasing.

Search for the domain using your registrar’s search. Purchase the domain as soon as you find the best one for your business. Do not wait. I get to the recommended registrars in just a bit.

Third rule – no dashes in the name

You can use more than one word. Just do not separate them with dashes. Dashes (or underscores) will make it nearly impossible to give out your domain name orally in person or on a radio advertisement.

Fourth rule – Be very aware of homonyms

2, to, two, or too? Again, you want to be able to give your domain name out easy and for it to be easy to remember.

Fifth rule – Don’t be cute

This is your business website not a personal website. Be businesslike.

I suggest one of two options for your domain name.

First, your business name.

If your business name is short, easy to spell, and memorable take it if the domain is available. If your business name is too long, uses really long words, or hard to spell, look at the second option. Think about your customer. Would it be easy for them to remember and type out?

You have a bonus if your business name will also have keywords that people would typically type if they were looking for your type of business.

The second choice would be a domain name related to your business and area of business.

chicagoplumbing.com might be preferable to thomasscirrottoplumberextraordinaire.com even if the later is your business name. Using your business name will make it easier for people that are familiar with your business to find you.

However, using a locality and business type will help you get some additional search engine ranking for a phrase people will commonly search for. Many new customers you get from your website may very well be typing in the type of business you have and the city in a search engine. Using those terms in your domain name will help you rank a bit better. In the example in the previous paragraph, someone typing in “plumber Chicago” in Google is more likely to see chicagoplumbing.com in the listing than the second example.

This is only one factor, so do not be afraid to use your business name if you want. Just keep it in mind as an excellent alternative. It would not hurt to buy both domains. If your business name is not completely unique, you should buy the domain name for it even if you use the business and city domain. In my case, there were several other businesses with a similar name in the US alone. We were lucky to have the domain name. It has value far beyond the $10 annual fee should we decide to sell it.

Choose a good domain registrar

I recommend Namecheap as a registrar. My second choice is GoDaddy.com. GoDaddy is a bit better known but checkout with them is a maze of offers for all sorts of “extra” services that you do not need, want, or are usually free or cheaper anywhere else. Do not get hosting from Go Daddy! We will talk about hosting in a later article Getting your domain at Namecheap is simple. Create an account. Search and find the domain you want. Buy it. Namecheap may include a year of “whois” protection free. This will keep you from getting additional email spam.

I have used 4 different registrars online and these are the only two I feel good about recommending.

I have had friends purchase domain names and pay $40 and not get services they needed with it. A domain with Namecheap will be about $10 for a year. You may want to consider purchasing the domain for more than one year if you think your business will be around for longer than a year (I hope you are).

If you really want to use GoDaddy use my link, I’ll get a commission. I recommend Namecheap and there is no commission or compensation for doing so. That is how much more I think Namecheap is better for you.

I think you are ready to go buy that domain name now.

We won’t get around to using it for a bit, but buy it now. Once you purchase it you will have one less thing to worry about later. Just remember the details of your domain registrar account. We’ll need to hop in later and tell them where you site is hosted. Till that time, your registrar will probably put a holding page on it.

If you have a bit of extra money, it would not hurt to purchase a spare domain. If you bought a domain with your business name maybe get the locality-business type name or the other way around. You may change your mind and there are some other uses for a second domain.

In the next post in this series, I am going to cover a subject even more important to your small business and its website than a domain name. Without it, you really do not have a reason to stay in business.

Till then, happy domaining.

Creating An Effective Small Business Website – Introduction

This is the start of a series that will take a small business owner through the steps of creating a website for marketing his business.

Having been in small business, I have a good idea what the needs of a local small business are for a Website.

I also know that as an owner, you don’t have time to goof around or time to learn html. You also don’t want to waste money on a site that is not effective (that is if you have the money in the first place). You’ll want to read this series even if you are planning to have someone else create a Website for you. You may want to read this even if you have a website already because I plan to show you how to make one that will increase your business.

What will you learn in this series?

• You will learn how to set up a website that is very inexpensive (all the software is free).
• You will learn how to setup a website that is easy to modify, add to, and change.
• You will not need to learn code.
• If you can use a word processor and read and send email, you will find this fast and easy.
• You will learn what kind of content you need for the site to get business
• You will learn how to make that content bring in the traffic that you are currently missing
• You will learn how to use your site to bring your current customers back again – with their friends.
• How to use the website as the most cost effective advertising medium you have ever had.
• How to build customer loyalty
• I’ll show you what tools you need and software to download.
• I’ll take you step by step in using those tools and software.
• We will also look at some ways to work with other businesses in your area as joint ventures that help both businesses.

This series will not show how to set up an Ecommerce site.

For most local small businesses, you need to get more customers or clients in the door or to call you on the phone. That is what we are going to concentrate on. I want to help you survive that Wal-mart moving that moved into or is moving into your community. If you are looking to actually sell products on your site, this series will help you in getting customers to that site but you will need to get help in creating an online store. Ecommerce can be complicated to set up. It is also not what most small businesses need.

It really does not matter what kind of business you have.

An effective small business website can bring in more business. You can be a contractor, lawyer, photographer, a music store, a restaurant owner, mechanic,or a jeweler. If you are a one man shop or have 50 employees. We will make a website that is far more effective than any phone book ad ever could be and costs less.

How much should your small business website cost you?

If you do just about all the work yourself as little as $50 to start. That is estimating $20 for a domain, $20 for a custom header graphic, and $10 for hosting. After that, $10 a month for hosting and additional $20 a year when it is time to renew your domain. That is all you really need to pay if your budget is really tight (and I’ll show you a free option for the graphic). The way we are going to create the site will make a very nice looking and very effective site that costs about as much as a one week classified ad in many newspapers. If you want to add more features to your site you can get some custom options for a theme anywhere from $100 to $1000 but you may need to pay to have the theme upgraded in some cases.

It is important though that you start this way and maintain control of your hosting so you can keep it at $10. Many times businesses get locked into sites and end up paying hundreds a month for ineffective sites. The only reason you would need to pay more is if your site makes you so much money that you need a better server. If that happens, it is simple to fix and you’ll have the money to look at maybe even better options. Cross that road when you come to it.

How much time will this cost you?

Setting up the site will take anywhere from 2-6 hours after you finish this series. You will need to spend several additional hours before that creating content for the site. After that, plan on up to an hour a week adding to the site, not including answering emails and that sort of thing.

Creating the content will be the most important part of the process. This is often where most small business websites fail miserably. We will start to tackle the content early in the series so you will have time if you need to find help from a friend or professional copywriter. I cannot stress the importance of the content on your website enough. The way it is written, and its purpose is vital to making your website bring in more money. Once the original content is done, you need to add to the site weekly. This can be just a short bit of news or the latest testimonial from a customer. Adding this content will be quick and easy.

Start your small business webmastering right now by downloading the FireFox browser.

I’m not going to go into how much more safe it is, or how much better it is. I want you to use it because we will be adding some extensions to FireFox that will help with your website. You will want to have a section of bookmarks dedicated to your site an the tools you will use. Add FireFox to any computer you may use to work on. It is free.

The next post in this series will cover getting a domain for your business. I will cover this a bit differently than what I would recommend for someone wanting to blog or create niche sites.

If you want to make sure you catch all the posts in this series subscribe to this site in an RSS reader or by mail at the top right of the page so you do not miss an update.

Your small business does not need a website!

"What?"

What is a blog about websites and making money online doing saying your brick and mortar small business does not need a website?

Perhaps it would be best if I clarify.

You don’t need a website for your business. You need a marketing funnel. You need a web presence that creates a desire for your product or service as well as advertises your existence. The websites of many small businesses often fail at both.

If your a small business owner you probably either have or are constantly offered one of two different types of websites.

1. An online storefront for selling products directly online
2. A "Name, rank, and serial number" type of site that really just states facts about your business to create an "online presence."

Neither of these web presence ideas really helps make your small business more profitable.

The first is fine if you have a product or service that can be shipped to the customer at a financially feasible price. The second is not much different than phone book ad that fails to make you different to the potential customer.

At least once a week, I received calls by web developers for my small business.

Some wanted to create an online store for me. Great, but my business did not have something that could be sold online. The others wanted what I still consider obscene amounts of money to design a fancy looking site that would basically put my phone number online so I could get more useless calls like theirs (I am not saying don’t put your business phone number online, just make sure you will get more than telemarketers calling when you do it). This I could have done myself, I just failed to see the point.

I bet you get these calls too.

I also bet, that, if you have had one of these website developers create a site for you, at least one of the following is true:

• You paid over $1000 to have the site made
• You are paying over $50 a month for hosting
• Your website does not rank first place on Google for your own business name (instead some national site like CitySearch does)
• Your site only gets traffic when you pay for ads
• If someone is really trying, they can find your website if they need your address or phone number
• You cannot update information already on the site easily if you need to
• You cannot add new stuff to the website without paying more
• You have at least one perpetual "Under Construction" page
• Your pages sometimes look funny because the graphics don’t load
• You are wondering where all the money this website is supposed to bring in is

Most likely several of the above statements are true.

Some of them may be true even if you did not get a telemarketer call, but decided to find a website designer yourself. OK, maybe you paid even more.

Too often, businesses get a website designer that creates fancy graphics and a pretty looking.

Fancy graphics will not get you more business. A pretty looking site does not make more people come to it. In fact, some of the most profitable websites are somewhat ugly (Wal-Mart stores for the most part are too, and they make a lot of money).

What do you need from your small business website?

• Reasonable ranking in search engines like Google
• Give basic information about your business to those looking for it
• Be simple and fast for updates or additions by you or your sales and marketing team/person
• Most importantly, your website should share what makes your business unique – why should the potential customer come to you
• Your website should have testimonials from your other customers
• Share benefits of your product or service
• Hopefully, get some information from the potential customer so you can contact them with more information (including a well written sales letter).
• Create a desire for your product or service

Too many small business websites fail to provide a real reason the customer should come to you.

Too often, small business websites share the same trait most phone book ads share-nearly identical and have no unique selling point. You can often just change the company name and a competitor can use the website. Sometimes, even a company in completely different field could use the much of the site. If the customer does end up calling or contacting you they are only left with one question, "How much does (insert product or service here) cost?" Price then becomes the only factor the customer can judge by. All you can hope for is that you have the best price of the places they call. They usually end up going to Wal-Mart.

This is true in most small businesses.

It was true in my profession (photography) and I know that I have been left with the same choice by other small businesses. Unless your website separates you from the other businesses like yours, price becomes the only real factor a customer can judge you by.

You do not need an expensive website to do this.

It can all be handled extremely well by WordPress. No expensive software to buy. Once set up, it is easy to use and update. WordPress also has some advantages that you can use to make your site even more popular.

Over the next few weeks and months I’ll be going over in detail how to set up WordPress for your small business website.

I’ll include everything you need to use and download to do it. I’ll have video on how to set up the site. My goal is to show you how to do it so you can spend your time making money and not fooling with your website. You can do this without spending huge amounts of money and save that money for your family.

Your website can be an effective marketing funnel in bringing in new customers and keeping old customers for your small business.