Meddaugh Advertising Blogger

1. Buy a Domain name (i.e. www.yourbusinessname.com)

We have always recommended buying domain names from Network Solutions. They are one of the oldest and most experienced registrars around. Using their services insures that the domain name you choose is owned by YOU. Some host or service providers will happily register your domain name for you, many even for free, but they retain ownership for themselves. That can be a problem when you decide to move your web site to a different service provider or when the provider goes out of business. Your domain name should be owned and controlled by you.

2. Find a web host service provider

Back in the early days of web hosting you would have to budget a large amount of money for a web host for your web site and the extras like form processing, email and shopping cart utilities, were just that, extra money. These days there are many reliable (read 100% up time) web hosting services available at a fraction of the cost. Lunarpages and IPower Web both offer plans to house moderate to large web sites for about $10 per month. Pricing varies based on term of prepaid contract, site size and extras.

3. Build your web site

That’s were we come in! We can design and build a custom web site for you with a homepage, contact page and “about us” page for $1000. Each additional page is approximately $50-$100 depending on content. Of course, you could design your own site. There are many templates and free programs out there and you don’t have to be a techie to use them. The thing to remember is if you’re not a web designer you may end up spending a lot more time than you had planned producing a mediocre site and taking precious time away from your actual business. Spending your hard earned money on professional design and production of a web site will prove to be a very worthwhile investment in your business.

4. Optimize and list your site with the search engines

We talk a lot about how to optimize your site on this blog. Everyone has their own favorites. There are many SEO articles from the top names in Search engine optimization to peruse. The one key element to keep in mind is that you must have good and interesting content. Meta tags, key words and all the other TRICKS to high rankings in Google and Yahoo and MSN are all secondary. I’m not saying they aren’t helpful because they are - I’m just saying that content is what will drive visitors to your site!

People need to find you and once there need to be able to view your content. That means regardless of which operating system, browser or handheld device they are using to surf the web, your content has to be available to them. Cross browser and system compatibility is a must.

Small businesses need to get out there on the web. A recent report in the Wall Street Journal stated that just 36% of small businesses (i.e. businesses with fewer than 100 employees) have web sites. The future is the web. More and more people are turning to the web as their first source for information. You need to be there.

By Bill Platt (c) 2008 the Phantom Writers
For businesses that market wholly or partially online, it may seem that three words are the only way to get more customers: search engine optimization (SEO). Typically, the search engines being referred to are: Google, Yahoo, and MSN. These three engines have almost become interchangeable with the phrase “do a search”, so much so that the word “Google” has entered the English lexicon as “find information”.

There are actually hundreds of search engines, not just the Big Three (Google, Yahoo, and MSN) that many Internet users think of. By focusing only on the most well known search engines for your marketing online strategy, you may be missing out on as much as 30% of the billions of searches being done online every single day.
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• Date: June 30th, 2008
• Author: Justin James

Politics, lack of planning, overlooked details, and poor prioritizing can compromise your Web design or redesign effort. Justin James offers a simple roadmap to lead your project to a successful conclusion.

Time and time again, I have seen companies struggle with Web site design projects. Initial Web site design and redesigns of existing sites may each face a few different challenges, but overall, they are similar. My experience has been that these problems are not technical issues, but project management and cultural issues. Often, no one follows a game plan — they just blindly rush off and attempt to re/design the Web site with little forethought. On the other hand, I have also been through a number of successful Web site re/design projects (measured by, “Did we get a good-looking, usable Web site deployed in a reasonable amount of time?”). Here are some of the things I’ve learned to do that will help make any Web site design project go smoothly.

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By Jennifer Horowitz (c) 2008

Social Media, Social Networking, Leveraging Web 2.0 - it’s known by many names and it’s all the rage!

Let me start by saying I am a fan of social media, I personally choose to participate in social media. However when you read about social media, you often only hear one side of things - the message is clear - Participate or miss out! And while I do believe that is true, I think it’s not always that simple.

There is so much to read, so many different opinions. It can be overwhelming. First you have to decide which sites to participate in and then you have to create your account and learn how to participate. It’s often confusing.
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By Michael Small (c) 2008
I got into search engine optimization back in 1998. It sure has changed a lot since then. Back in the day you could use invisible text, load keywords to the point of overflowing and fill META tags with anything even close to what you had on your page. And you could do well on Google, Yahoo, Alta Vista; all the biggies. Not anymore.

Today SEO is about a 75% / 25% split between links and content, with inbound links being the most important thing. Especially on Google. When all is said and done, you can get to the top of Google in just two simple steps. Seriously. I’ve done it hundreds of times and it’s easier than you’d imagine.
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By Jennifer Horowitz in SE Optimization

It is time to look at those SEO questions from the folks who need help and guidance. Let’s take a read of some of the Dear SEO Drama Queen email, which floods her box every day.

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By Michael Small (c) 2008

Ranking well on Google takes two things, good content and great links. But it’s not an even split. Because Google assumes only a page with good content would get great inbound links it puts about 70% of the importance for ranking on links and only about 30% on content. That little tidbit alone will put you head and shoulders above all those competitors still messing with META tags and spamming keywords. But if you want a huge advantage over the rest of your competition, keep reading. I’m about to show you how the pros do it and win every time.

Part 1: Perfect Your Anchor Text
So just what is anchor text and why is it important? Anchor text is the clickable word or words that make up the hyperlink. You’ve seen anchor text a million times (the underlined words that are typically blue.) Google figures any words special enough to be used as a guide in a link are extra valuable, which makes anchor text extremely important for you to use properly.

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By Bhaskar Thakur (c) 2008

Most of the time when we pitch to a new client we are asked for SEO guarantees. “Your competition has guaranteed top results and submission to 100,000 Search Engines and Directories”. We go all out educating clients that Search Engine Optimization is all about smart work and not just adding random keywords and submittíng to every directory possible. I’m writing this article to reach out to the SEO buyers and help them distinguish the crooks from the genuine SEO cos. I’ve compiled my Search marketing experience over the years in this article. I hope this helps you in selecting your Search Marketing initiative.

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By Jerry Bader (c) 2008
The Web consumes content like a teenager at an all-you-can-eat buffet. Lots and lots of content makes you more search engine friendly, helps establish your knowledge and expertise, explains in detail what you offer, and justifies that offer with all the explanations, statistics, and rationale you can muster. The problem is no one reads it.

Well that’s not exactly true: some people read every scrap of information on your site; they just happen to be the tire-kickers, the people looking for ways to get stuff they don’t have to pay for, or they’re competitors looking for ways to copy what you do, or worse find something wrong. This is definitely a dilemma that needs to be addressed.

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