business website success

The Wall Street Journal article on the front page of the Monday 8-11 Small Business section titled, “How To Create A Small Business Web Site For Nothing (Or Almost Nothing)” has some mistakes and missing information that could cost small business owners dearly in the future.

In other words, if a small business owner follows it verbatim, they are going to need to spend an inordinate amount of money later to fix the problems.

Boy, there is just no limit to how important anchor links and anchor tags are. I could write an entire article on the importance of anchor tags but for now, let’s just go over some of the essentials so you begin using them

I’ll bet your first question is, “What the heck is an anchor tag?” And your second question is, “what’s so damned important about anchor tags?” I’ll tell you right now. Anchor tags can be used for several things:

 The problem with success is that you no longer have time to work on your own “stuff”. if you’re working on marketing and sales, you aren’t getting client work done. And when things are hopping, you’re too busy working on client projects to bother with marketing.

To put it bluntly, you know the old saying, “do as I say, not as I do”? I am as guilty of that as anyone. I have a whole slew of articles on my website on every subject imaginable when it comes to writing copy or search engine optimization. But are they properly optimized for the search engines? No.

This really isn’t as easy a question as it might seem. There are many considerations you have to take into account to make the right decision. For instance, your URL, hopefully, will be the exact same thing as the name you give your website. And the name you give your business.

My business is called WordsmithBob.com because I’m an Internet-based business and my specialty is writing copy for websites. And my URL is wordsmithbob.com.
Simple enough you say. However, the questions get more complex when you consider:

A friend and business associate just sent me a link to a press release by WebVisible and Nielsen/NetRatings Report about their investigation into how Internet users interact with advertising. In the press release, they claim that their results show that “search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and Ask have become consumer’s most widely used source to find a local business from which to buy“.

If you have a small business or derive a lot of your business from local customers or clients, you really need to read this report. As far as I’m concerned, the most important thing for you to note is that “Search engines are used by 73% of consumers when seeking local products and services — more than any other media type.”

I don’t know how many times I have come to a website and they have some little box halfway down the page that says “Subscribe to our newsletter” and a “click here” button. Give me one good reason why I would subscribe to that newsletter. Actually, I’ll give you several great reasons why no one will:

• They didn’t even consider it important enough to give it a name. How lame or unimportant must that newsletter be?
• And is there anything there telling me why I should subscribe to that newsletter?
• Any hint of the powerful or useful information I’ll be regaled with should I subscribe?