It's a sad story.

If things had gone the way we planned, right now, my wife and I would be planning a move into a new condo.

The time was just right. We had saved up the money for a good down payment. My income was finally firming up. Interest rates are fairly low. Prices on the condos we wanted are currently falling like a lead balloon. We could afford exactly what we wanted.

We have been watching and waiting for the right place.

We fell in love with a particular place a few years ago. I am not much of a fan of condos, but this was better than anything I have seen anywhere. Unfortunately, besides not having the money for it, units in the complex were not often available. Especially the size we wanted. All that has changed in the last few months. It looked like this was going to be our chance to find a nearly perfect place and price. We were ready to start looking at mortgages.

We also had kept looking at other places.

We were checking all the homes for sale in the area. Calling the hotlines to see if there were any other better options than what we were thinking about. We found a few other options in homes that we were thinking about. When the time came to sign, we wanted to know we were satisified we had found the best place for us. Things were looking very good and very affordable right now.

All that changed with a call  to my cell phone from a collection agency looking for my wife.

Now, my wife and I do not have any debts. Our cars are paid off. We have no loans. We use credit cards, but pay the balance off in full every month. The only time I have ever missed a payment was once I tried to schedule a payment to pay while I was on vacation. The credit card company counted as two payments for the preceding month (even though that had been paid full before it was due) instead of counting it the month I thought.

We should have had an excellent credit rating.

We should have gotten excellent interest rates. We should have had our choice of mortgages to choose from. We both have never been late or missed a payment even before we were married. My wife was even better at paying them off monthly than I was.

What happened to our credit rating?

The call from the collection agency was just the tip of the iceberg. While I will not go into details, we had to pay the card off immediately. I then ordered credit histories for myself and my wife. Mine was very good. My wife's was a different story.

Unknown to us, my wife's credit history had years of bad credit card payments.

It was even worse. There were three more cards in her name that were overdue and nearly into collection also. She had no knowledge of those cards. Again, I cannot go into the details, but we cannot just claim fraud even though we were not responsible for the cards or the debt. While definitely victims of identity theft, we are still stuck with the ruined credit history and the debts in it. We do not have a real choice.

It will be two years before we can even think about applying for a mortgage now.

We used more than we were planning to use for a down payment to pay off the credit cards in my wife's name. So now we also have no downpayment. It was a devasting blow to go from finding what you want, to being in worse shape than when you began saving in the first place.

I find most people think identity theft comes from using your credit card online.

I think that this is truly a rare occurrence. Most identity theft happens by far more older traditional methods. Those "pre-approved" credit card applications are just one source. There are many ways it can happen. Let's face it, how many times this year have you needed to provide personal information for a legitimate reason? How do you know that your information is not getting stolen from those you need to give it to? Major retailers have admitted to losing customer data. Many large employers have had employee data lost or stolen. Even our blessed US Government has had entire hard drives lost with personal data of citizens on them.

For me, I have always thought I would get identity theft protection sometime in the future.

Maybe I thought I needed to make more money first. Maybe I thought the chances of it happening to me were too slim. I have known about Lifelock and their identity theft service for a long time and just simply put it off too long. I even had a very good reason sign up last August (a great company I work with announced a special Lifelock offer to members). Had we gotten Lifelock then, we may have been able to save our credit rating. We would have avoided the situation completely if we had signed up with Lifelock a few years ago when I first though it looked like a good idea.

We could have avoided the whole mess with Lifelock.

Credit card accounts in our name could not have been opened without our knowledge. We would have known about accounts wrongly attached to our credit history. We would have regularly seen our credit history - I put that off too long also. We also would have had the million dollar insurance to clean up the mess.

Some of what Lifelock does you can do yourself.

For free. You are entitled to a free copy of your credit history from each of the credit burau . You can request that credit card companies stop sending you applications by mail. Lifelock does this for you though, and keeps it all up to date. Many of these things need to be kept updated or you get put back on the list after a few months. Lifelock takes care of that for you and gives you a one stop source for starting and keeping it up to date.

You need to take steps to protect yourself from identity theft now!

Either take action yourself, or get Lifelock. Start immediately. Time can truly make a difference. I know this post sound like a commecial for Lifelock. In a way, it is. I do get a commission if you choose to buy from my links. Lifelock is also a service I personally now use and recommend to friends and family. I once thought I would wait a bit or that I did not yet make enough for the cost to be worth it - I was wrong. Nearly anyone can afford what Lifelock charges a month and you'll sleep better. It is simply good and inexpensive insurance. If you do not go the Lifelock route, you need to start taking serious steps to prevent identity theft yourself, starting today.

Not taking action cost my wife and I our dream home.

It cost us our credit rating. It cost us our entire downpayment that we had saved and then some. We may get the money back someday (while possible it won't happen anytime soon), but we may be losing the best chance on a great deal on the place we wanted. It is difficult to put a price on what the cost has truly been to my wife and I. It has been devastating and I know the hurt feeling my wife has everytime we pass a home for sale now. We do not even have a reason to look anymore.

After reading it on the AdSense blog I went and checked it out in my AdSense account. You have a had time believing this is not Photoshopped. It is a screen capture I made when it happened.

It is nice to know even someone that defines quality websites like Google can have problems too.

I'm not sure why the sample was messed up. Could it have been a browser glitch? I was using FireFox. Was Google's CSS messed up?

I know the improvement was in the way Search works not the look.

I still think it was pretty funny. Anyone else notice this happen when they announced it a while ago? I am sure it is fixed by now.

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, we are going to look at a few things to make taking care of your website a bit easier. I am also going to show you some free sites you are going to use to help along with your main site.

Till then, happy domaining.

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.

I think I have found a way Twitter can help you make money online!

Twitter has become a major part of online life for many bloggers.

Twitter started slow. Suddenly, a few months ago, it became very popular. So popular, that it has had many growing pains for the past few months. While some have started to look for other options, Twitter still tends to bring people back. It's ability to use email and maybe txt messaging on phones that makes it very portable even if you do not yet own an iPhone.

Still even Twitter supporters usually admit Twitter is often a time waster.

I've grown to be one of them. I Twitter supporter I mean. I also admit it has been a great time waster. I enjoy the links others find or post. I found some people that I met in other places on Twitter and have been able to be notified on Twitter when they are doing a Webcast or Videocast.

I have finally found something that may help Twitter become a source of income online.

Sherman Hu of WordPress Tutorials introduced me to a Twitter client called TweetDeck. My first look at it did not impress me. Twhirl was my favorite Twitter client and at the time had more features and was a bit more refined. TweetDeck has two features, that when combined, make it and Twitter really useful.

TweetDeck allows you to group the Tweets you are following.

The defaults are groups for all, replies, and direct messages. You can group your Twitter updates any way you want. Put your personal friends in one group. Put bloggers in another group. I have one called favorites that I put those I really want to pay attention to.

TweetDeck has a search function.

This is where the real power is hidden. TweetDeck can search the Tweets you follow or it can do a global search using Summize (Twitter Search) for a keyword. While as I write this post the search only works for one word, the capability to search for phrases is coming.

These searches TweetDeck makes are placed into individual groups.

This is where you can use Twitter to make money. If you are an expert in some area, someone is looking for help in it on Twitter. You can use the search to find people that need your help. Use the opportunity to develop a relationship (business type not the other) and perhaps show how your services can help them in the future. TweetDeck makes a grouping of people that have Tweets with the keyword.

You can find the people that are looking for your help.

Instead of just randomly spamming all your followers with "special sale on mint flavored coffee today." That just gets you unfollowed real fast. You can keep your general Twitters friendly and non-spammy. Carry on conversations.

I suggest you take a look at TweetDeck.

I think it may be one of the most useful ways to use Twitter. See if you can find a way to make money online with Twitter.

You can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/shokthx

Have you found another way to use Twitter to make money online?

Share it with us in a comment.

• Comment Luv
• Keyword Luv

I really appreciate those that take the time to comment on my posts.

It lets me know if I am writing in a way that make sense. It also lets me know a bit more about my readers. These plugins are a way to thank you.

What do they do?

Comment Luv

Comment Luv checks your blog to see what the last post you made was. It then adds a link to that post using the title as anchor text. This provides an exceptional way for you to get deep links to posts on your blog. I hope you use keywords in your blog post titles.

I really like this plugin when I comment on other blogs. I think it may be one of the best ways to reward commentators.

Keyword Luv

I came across this plugin and thought it sounded very interesting. After reading the author's thoughts about it, I like it even more.

Keyword Luv is designed to help make conversations in comments more natural. One reason for commenting is to get backlinks to your blog. Let's face it, even if it's not your main purpose for commenting, it is sitting there in the back of your mind. However, to make these backlinks work best the link should have keywords in it. This is why you see so many commentator's names that look like makemoneyonline.

I don't mind on my blog, but others consider this spam. I look at the quality of the comment and the blog being linked to. The only problem is that it is not much fun to reply to a commentator whose name is makemoneyonline or webmasterinternet.

Enter Keyword Luv.

Keyword Luv allows you to specify your name and make the anchor text in the link from keywords. This way, we can use names when we want to address someone in the comments and they can still use keywords in the link back to the home page of their website or blog. Use a name for yourself and use a few decent keywords for your link. I think this will allow more readable anchor text too.

How to use Keyword Luv when you comment.

Use the following format:

yourname@yourkeywords

The part after the @symbol will become the anchor text. If you want your name as the anchor text simple don't use the @ symbol. Unless your John Chow, you probably already rank very well for your own name so take advantage and use it for the subject or subjects of your blog or site.

What makes this all useful to you is the Do Follow plugin.

I use the one that comes with Semiologic Pro created by Denis de Bernardy This removes the no follow tag from the links.

I am also considering two more options.

I may remove the Top Commentator widget and plugin. I like it, but I feel Comment Luv and Keyword Luv more than compensate for it. Everytime you make a comment, you will get a link to your latest post, so I hope you can comment for every post you make. I will keep a widget showing the latest comments made on the page and probably nearer the top.

I am also looking into using Brian's Threaded posts. This is more of a WordPress modification and I kind of want to check if other using this theme have had luck with it. If it looks like it will work I will try to add it also after the next them update.

Once again, a big thanks to all of you who take the time to comment.

If you can read other languages besides English please take a look at some of the translated versions of this blog using the flag icons at the bottom of the home page. What do you think of the non-English versions of this blog? Are the translations really useful? Do they seem to get the point across?

For nearly years I have used Translation Gold on this and several other sites.

This translation script seem to work well from a software point of view. It translates the pages and saves them in a cache that can be found by search engines and indexed. I actually get a very high percentage of non-English visitors to this blog and the other sites and blogs I run the translation script on.

Why am I considering removing Translation Gold from this site?

I have a high number of bounced visitors.

The bounce percentage is definately higher on the translations. I would like to lower that percentage. While some translated pages rank fairly high, the traffic is not staying. This leads me to think the translations may not be that good anyway.

Poor ad performance.

Many advertisers only want English traffic. AdSense does not seem to perform very well on these pages either. It may be because of the translation or simply lack of demand for ads in those languages. To put it shortly, there's no money in it.

Google has recently started to complain about the redirects in translated pages.

Google likes the pages themselves. Google does not like it when these pages have links that lead to pages that are blocked by robots.txt. This gives me errors in Google Webmaster Tools and simply makes me nervous. This may be due to the way the pages are cached and the robots.txt is made, but I do not have the skill needed to figure out how to make Google happy with this. Perhaps a better writted robots.txt would do it.

Translation Gold is no longer available.

I am not sure if it is still supported. It has worked very well and is a testament to good scripts. It may be time to stop using it though.

Please share your opinion of translation software with a comment below.

Please make the comment in English from the English version of the page.

**Update**

As pointed out by Apollia in the comment below, the software is not working anymore. This answers my question and I have removed the software since it is now useless.

I also discovered that there was an extreme error in the comment section of the blog with a plugin blocking comments it should not have. I have disabled this plugin till I can make sure comments are working properly. Thanks for all those that have tried to comment and were not able to.

It is time to do some WordPress blog updating.

I am not an early adopter unless there are serious security problems. In most cases, the Semiologic theme designers have a better handle on the security problems already. In this case, most of my blogs are on reasonably secure versions already and there is no hurry.

In fact, it has been recommended not to update to WordPress 2.6.

WordPress 2.6 has some serious bugs. There is a permalink problem and also security flaw. If you have not updated your WordPress installation to 2.6, you should wait till 2.6.1 comes out in a few more days. 2.6 was not a real security update so you are not taking much risk waiting.

I am updating at this time just to be prepared for further updates.

As WordPress and Semiologic Pro continue to advance, there is an increased possibility of problems with upgrades to blogs running older versions. I want to avoid this in the future. I am also considering host changes for many of my sites and I think it would be better to be using the latest supported versions on my sites and blogs if I decide to move anything.

I am sort of expecting a few problems with this update.

Mostly in the subscribe and bookmark plugins. I am also concerned about a potential feed problem. There were some bugs in these that may not be completely ironed out, but I think those are minor problems.

May I inlist your help?

Does my feed seem to be working right? If you are not subscribed to my RSS feed, now would be a great time to try and see if my subscribe plugin is working. Also, if you have found some posts here useful, why not test my bookmark plugin and let me know of any problems. Yes, I realize this seems to be a poorly masked attempt to get more subscribers and social bookmarks. It is, but I am curious to know if everything is working at this point. How's that for honesty?

I have plans for more changes to some of my blogs.

I need to make a new header both here and at my photography blog (the header on the photography blog needs it really soon there is a real problem with it). I also plan to use some of the new features in Semiologic Pro to improve some things on the home page and add some interesting things. I am really excited about some of them.

So, lots of fun blogging stuff to do.

"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.

While not a security release, you may want to download the new version right away anyways.

There are some very cool new features. Some features WordPress users have been waiting for a long time to see.

Here's a few of my favorite new WordPress 2.6 features.

Image captions for WordPress!

Finally! Why we had to wait so long for image captions to be added to WordPress I do not understand. This is something that anyone posting photos on their blog should find very useful. I have been wanting and waiting for this since I started using WordPress.

Improved image control in WordPress.

Many have seemed to have problems with images since the last version came out. While I did not have any uploading problems, I have seen a few quirks that were annoying. Hopefully, now getting those images to float where they are supposed to will be much easier.

Word count.

This should help me keep track of the size of my posts a bit better. Sometimes I get shocked to see the length of a post after writting for a while. I think a word count can help you focus on one idea and finish it before a post gets a bit too long and starts to ramble. I believe there is a sweet spot in post length that makes it more readable (I never seem to follow this - maybe word count will help).

Bulk managment of plugins.

I like to deactivate many plugins before updates. There are often several that could cause a problem with a theme or with the new update. Deactivating before the update can make life a bit easier. Until now, you had to wait for the page to reload after each plugin was deactivated. Now you can select more than one at a time. This will make life much easier. Too bad I have to update first to get the feature.

Here's the WordPress video showing some of the latest enhancements.

 For most users updating should be easy.

In most cases, start by downloading the files to your desktop. Unzip the files and FTP them to the directory you have installed WordPress into. If you have used Fantasitco to install WordPress, you can upgrade as soon as your host upgraded the Fantastico script, or you can do it manually also.