How much time do you have to devote to your site? The average small business owner has very little time to manage all the tasks necessary to keep their business going.

Under the tasks that probably should get a chunk of time is marketing - online marketing specifically. A good web presence is like a great sales force working for you 24/7.

Why do so few businesses take advantage of this incredible free or mostly free tool. The internet offers so many opportunites for free and inexpensive marketing.

I suspect the reason lies somewhere between not having enough time to get ahead of the day to day demands of operating a business and being intimidated with learning new technologies and embracing the rapid changes going on in web marketing and social media

It doesn't have to be a chore to get a new site developed and a web presence built. You simply need the right tools to maximize your time and leverage your activities.

Here are a few of my recommendations and the strategies I use on the sites I develop for my clients:

1. Keyword and niche research. It doesn't make sense to shoot from the hip and guess where your potential clients are. Some of my clients think they know where they're customers are based on a previous site and the keywords used there. A little keyword research usually finds different stats.
2. Good web host provider. Getting a good web host provider is one of the most important things you can do. I would compare it to picking your cell phone carrier. Do you want a lot of dropped calls??? Or downtime on your site. I recommend a couple of web host providers, one of which is Bluehost. They offer a great deal, but that's for another hubpage.
3. Implement a Content Management System (CMS). A CMS system like Wordpress will enable you or your designated web maintainance person iterally make changes on the fly withou touching the site's design. It will also help you keep your site's content organized by categories, tags, date, and whatever you designate.
4. Implement Good Search Engine Optimization on the site. Based on the keyword research from two services I like, Wordtracker & believe it or not, Google Adsense's External Keyword analyzer. Using a CMS system like Wordpress puts my clients in great shape to take advantage of quick indexing with the search engines and site optimization. Google LOVES Wordpress.
5. Welcome your visitors personally. When someone gets to one of my clients sites,they will be personally welcomed, preferably with video. You wouldn't believe what a difference it makes in people staying on your site longer.

6. Make your site easy to navigate. Making my client's site easy to navigate means alot. It means visitors have to click less and don't have to use a magnifying class to find what they came for. It also means that the Google spiders can eat up those links and index pages faster. It's a win-win.
7. Providing good content. Make sure your site unique. Provide good content. Give your readers and client a reason to visit your site again.
8. Add an opt-in mailing list capture form. Whenever I can convince my clients to add a mailing list to their site, I'm excited. Most small businesses don't realize how important this is. Getting a customer and retaining them is much easier and cost effective than constantly seeking and acquiring new customers. Don't waist your traffic. Give something of value away and get your potential clients engaged from the start. They could be your biggest assets in the future.
9. Promote and drive traffic offsite. This is more than a notion, but usingthe buzz word "social media" is powerful and necessary. In order to get the attention of your potential clients, you have to go where they are. According to recent statistics, 50% of all new content added to the internet is video. What does that mean to you

Here's a site I did recently for author Marie Bookman. She needed a cost effective site that would help her promote her recently released book "Straight From My Heart" and continue to get the word out about her previous book "Breach Of My Heart."

We were able to complete the major portions of her site in about a week. Why so quickly? She was prepared and gave us all the necessary information we needed

• Author Bio
• Contact Information
• Publisher Information
• Book Information
• Written Testimonials from supporters and fans
• Pictures of her in action

This was enough for us to get started and fill in the gaps as we went. We even went to her first book signing and created some video testimonials and videos of her reading from her books. From there we created a Youtube channel that will further increase her web presence.

There are several different tools I use on any given site for my clients.Some services are free and some require a monthly service fee. Below are just a few of the tools I use in developing sites around New Orleans and beyond.

My job is to stay up to date on the latest tools and strategies online. If I can't do that, I don't need to be working on your web presence.

I've noticed lots of web designers just don't get it yet. Some are really stuck in the dark ages. The sites of old just don't have an impact today. Be ware and do your research.

Getting personal trainer and fitness studio owner, Deanne Feaster, to work with me was a treat. She had lots of ideas and lots of goals for her site.

My job as a web person, was to give her all the room she needed to be expansive and grow with her site. She can market anything, add events via her site and a Google calendar, add additional videos to the video sharing site profiles we setup for her, and on and on and on.

Filmmaker Aishah Shahidah Simmons needed a new site. She was tired of trying to get her site updated and having it always lag behind what was going on in her business and her film projects.

She was a little nervous about getting into a new site, but happy to have the ability to edit it.

Today, she's one of my prize pupils. She regularly maintains her site, has me coach her from time to time, tweek her site a bit, and share tips. Best of all, she's rocking in the search engines because of her good use of tags and Title Tags. Google respects her site and comes back often to search for new content.

This, my friends is what you want in a good site.

In closing, it takes a good bit of effort to get your web presence up and moving. It takes strategy, out of the box thinking, technical know how, and patience.

Getting your site built is just the beginning. If you're starting from scratch, there's no better of time. You can still be competitive. You can still compete with big sites that have been around for years. You just have to know where the nearest entrance is into your targeted niche.

Good luck and please contact me if I can be of any assistance.