“When it comes to the success of any new business, you -- the business owner -- are ultimately the “secret” to your success. For many successful business owners, failure was never an option. Armed with drive, determination, and a positive mind set, these individuals view any setback as only an opportunity to learn and grow. Most self-made millionaires possess average intelligence. What sets them apart is their openness to new knowledge and their willingness to learn whatever it takes to succeed. ”We’re here to give you an insight into what you need know! We have a new site and its on the first page in Google for “web site design, Costa Mesa” 1. You still need a traditional website and the reason is CONTROL. Original content is King and will be even MORE rewarded in the future as Search Engines improve. Think of it as the most amazing, ever changing advertisement that you can add to in order to be found easier. YOU can write your own future success. The older a website is the more value it can have so don’t wait, now’s the time. 2. Concentrate on just one site, make it as deep and as useful to the visitor as humanly possible and you will be rewarded by the search engines. The goal is 100 pages of content. Start with simple articles/pages of 150-200 words and then expand from there, up to 1000 words, ideally. Consider adding content once a month at a minimum. 3. Create a Blog, yes, even you have something to talk about! Tell the story of your business and link back to your standard site for reference. Integrate your blog with RSS (Really Simple Syndication) so that you have fresh content there. Talk about the jobs you got, the jobs you didn’t get, trends, experiences, problems overcome, your past history in the business, YOUR life and job experience are a rich source of content, ever fresh. Consider adding content once a week if you are catering to a regular readership. 4. Take advantage of the LeTip WOC site: make sure we have your Business Profile, as soon as you get a website make sure we add it to the Links page (a mini-directory) on the LeTip WOC site, make sure we have your Members contact information right, make sure we have your picture for the Featured Member area, have us place the LeTips links page on YOUR website. 5. Take advantage of every free listing that you can: SuperPages, Yahoo! Maps, Google Maps, review each other’s businesses online, it all adds up! 6. Seriously consider creating an online community: if you have it in you, sincerely, to start an online community hosting a discussion board can be a great benefit to your site and your business and your professional reputation. There is a hunger for community and leadership, it is a natural, normal human inclination and online is no different. 7. Exchange links with legitimate, related businesses: while incoming links are valuable think quality, not quantity. You can be punished by having links in from Link Farms or Search Engine Spammers. 8. Web page design itself is changing: web pages are evolving away from simple HTML code designs and into Cascading Style Sheet controlled designs that separate the styling from the content to improve Search Engine Optimization. Content Management Systems (CMS) are database driven sites that can be self-edited through a web-based interface. Though more expensive to design and build they give you and excellent long term return on investment as site updating can be done in-house. Time’s Person of the Year 2006: You Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2006 By LEV GROSSMAN “It’s a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It’s about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people’s network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It’s about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.” “The tool that makes this possible is the World Wide Web. Not the Web that Tim Berners-Lee hacked together (15 years ago, according to Wikipedia) as a way for scientists to share research. It’s not even the over hyped dotcom Web of the late 1990s. The new Web is a very different thing. It’s a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter. Silicon Valley consultants call it Web 2.0, as if it were a new version of some old software. But it’s really a revolution.” There is a ton to digest here, we understand, just know that we are here to help you navigate this complex and changing landscape. Feel free to call us regarding any questions that you have regarding the web and we will do our best to answer them. We look forward to serving you in 2007 and beyond.