Why Get on the Web??

Picture it. Modern times. A young American wants to 
     a) Plan a trip cross country
     b) Find a local Florist
     c) Learn to website coding
Where would this person go, or have gone to find all of this information? Well if this person lived before 1990, the answer would probably be to physical locations, like AAA, the White pages. or the library. 

But now-a-days, less than thirty years later, all of those questions are being answered in the same place...on the WEB. 



So, if you own a business, or are the business, you need to be where people go to find information. You need to be on the web. No matter how small your business, nor how local and loyal your customers may be...you should have a presence of some sort on the internet.  

Case in point...people used to ask solely for a person's business card, now immediately after receiving your business card, (and sometimes in lieu of it), they now ask for  your website address to accompany the information on the card. A website, your website is now fast becoming your business card and store front window all rolled into one medium.

So whether or not you are a budding author, an independent consultant or contractor, an actor, a back-up musician, a makeup artist, hairdresser or a photographer, you now need a website to legitimize your business. It doesn't have to be super fancy, but it DOES need to be easy to navigate, and aesthetically presentable. It needs to focus on your work and provide information to potential customers that perhaps would not be suitable to be exchanged in a networking event. It needs to portray why someone would want to allow you to do for them that which you are offering, at the price you are asking.

There are many resources out there to help you decipher which road to take...(Wordpress.org, Wordpress.com, Wix.com, Blogger.com, MySpace.com, Facebook.com etc) but the bottom, top and overall message is...to get on a site and do so ASAP!!!

Here's a resource to get you started:

by Lori Culwell

"Million Dollar Website: Simple Steps to Help You Compete with the Big Boys" - Even on a Small BusinessBudget [Bargain Price] [Paperback]

"I bought this book thinking it would be a summary of the usual fluff for getting your web site noticed. I was pleasantly surprised to find it went well beyond this and offered detailed procedures and best practices for getting my site noticed. Following Ms. Culwell's advice, my site went from nowhere -- to page one on Google in just three weeks. This isn't possible without dedicating some time to the processes she describes, but I found her book deconstructs what needs to be done in the right order and explains it in easy to understand steps. Having followed her advice, I'm able to apply the same SEO that the larger outfits do but only with a fraction of the cost." -by PeterP "Media Maseur" 11/4/09 on Amazon