Two reasons for this. First, the more links you have pointing to you, the higher you’ll rank in the search engines. That just tells search engines like Google that you’re important and relevant since so many other websites are saying you are. Second, the more chances you have for people to find you online, the more who will find you. Your links from other websites is how they find you.

Where do you get links? One of the easiest ways is through social media websites.

For example, tubemogul.com is a wonderful tool to use. It’s free and works like this: you submit ONE video to TubeMogul, and in return, it distributes it to dozens of sites for you. Just make sure you write a description with your FULL URL path to your website, and you’ll automatically get links back from all these social media video sharing sites.

Also, you should have a twitter page set up – if for no other reason than you’re allowed to put a link in your profile back to your business site. Then, if you wish to, you can tweet to your hearts content – but if not, at least you got that link!

You should also create a facebook fan page – again, for nothing else other than to put a link back to your local business site. Now, facebook itself has all kinds of uses far and beyond getting a link back to your site, but even if you don’t use all these other benefits… the link itself is worth it.

Other ways to get links – through press release distribution sites like prweb.com – these can get you tons of exposure and backlinks over night to your site. Plus you might score some free media and publicity in the process.

There are other social media sites to consider as well such as hub pages, squidoo, ezine articles and so forth – but just start with those described above to get your feet wet.

The first thing you need to know is where to look. If you’re going to go to your local yellow pages, or do a search in the search engines for a website designer, you’re starting off in the wrong place.

Think about it – the most prominent people are also the ones who have the most money invested into advertising their services. Thus, to recoup these fees, they have to pass them on to you!

There is no lack of talent in the website design industry. That means you don’t necessarily get what yo pay for. In fact, I know several designers who charge only a few hundred dollars to design a website who are better than designers who would charge $10,000 to do the exact same work.

How is this possible? Well, these designers are low key. They earn their living because they are quick at designing websites, specialize in one certain niche, and they don’t have any advertising expenses or a high overhead, since they work from home.

The only hard part is finding out how to get in contact with them. I’m lucky because I know where they hang out online.

If you’re getting your website designed, or need to get one re-designed, there is no reason to pay through the nose.

The only downside is that designers with reasonable fees and good talent are often hard to keep a secret for very long. They get a reputation and quickly become booked up months in advance in work.

That’s why it pays to start your search immediately, so you don’t have to wait forever to get your work done.

If you’re in need of good design at a reasonable fee, then feel free to contact me.

If nothing else, you should know this – there is absolutely no need for you to pay $10,000 or even $5,000 for a local business website, for it to do what you need it to accomplish.

Sadly, most local businesses leave it up to the customer to return back to the website, or take the next action and contact you to provide your services and products to them.

That’s not the smartest approach if you want to make more money in your business in the next 90 days as you did the previous 9 months.

How do be proactive? The first way is to develop an “online e-newsletter” that people can gain access to if they put their email address into a form on your site. If you do it right, most will sign up because you explain the benefits your newsletter provides.

Then, those who sign up are put into an “email database” that you can contact any time you wish, whenever you want to send out an email.

You could provide special offers, discounts, coupons, notifications of sales and all kinds of other stuff that will help your business bring in more profits.

One way to get immediate customers is to get on Google places for local search terms.

First, what is Google Places? It’s a free service specifically designed to help local businesses be found in the search engines when users perform a local search.

You can submit your Google Places business listening by going here – http://www.google.com/local/add/analyticsSplashPage?pli=1

Now here are some tips that can help you optimize your Google Places listings.

First, fill out every single detail you can. This will help you show up more often on the search engines and get more clicks. Simply put – Google favors local listings with MORE content. If this means making a simple slide show picture video so you can submit a video on your Google Places listing, so be it. If this means offering a 1 cent coupon just so you have a coupon listed on Google Places, so be it!

You want to also put at least 10 photos – and you want to know those photos appropriately in ways that would get your more traffic – i.e. keyword rich photo titles will increase your chances of getting more traffic in the search engines.

Let’s talk about keyword optimization a bit more. You have to optimize your keywords in your Google Places listing so more people can find you when they do local searches. So how do you know what keywords to go after? Simple. Find your competitors websites. Then right click -> view source once you’re on their website.

Next, look at the source code at the very top for something called “meta keywords”. Most sites have their meta keywords set. If you can’t find meta keywords, move on to the next site. If you do, simply write down all the meta keywords your competition is using on that one site, then move on.

Do this for all your competitor websites and you’ll have a whole bunch of keywords to use when you create your Google Places listings. For more information on Google Places, fill free to contact us!

Why? There  are some fundamental mistakes being committed, simply because no one knows better!

You’d think your web designer would know about these website no-no’s… but they don’t! In fact, they’re party to blame! Most “online consultants” aren’t aware of these everyday blunders either. What am I talking about?

I’m refering to mindset. Most small business brick ‘n mortar owners approach a website from a mindset of desperation. They know that it’s important to have their own website. They may even know that more people are now using search engines to find businesses than the yellow pages.

And they know they need a website as well. So they rush out and find a web designer who is all too happy to charge them an inflated figure to quickly throw together a web site that may look pretty, but completely fails to enhance their business.

Why? It’s an easy sell for these web designers!

A much better approach is to come up with a plan before you even consider getting a website built. The second thing you should do is seek out small business owners who already have websites and talk to a few of them.

You’ll be amazed at what you’ll learn. They’ll give you an inside perspective of what it’s like to have a website, what works and what doesn’t work. At the very least you’ll learn what to avoid.

At the same time, they may be able to recommend a good graphic designer at a reasonable fee. However, before you hire one, there is something else you should do as well…

Research how search engines index websites! Why is this important? Well most techy and eye-candy rich websites can’t even be read by the search engines. If they can’t read your site, they can’t rank it for searches!

What’s more important… beauty or getting visitors to your site, and pre-conditioning them to respond to your products and services? As a business person, I’ll take the latter any day.

The key takeaway from this article is simple – do your homework. Before rushing out to get a website built, or improving an existing website, understand that a little bit of intelligence goes a long way.