1) Make your site more search engine-friendly.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a must, not a ‘maybe,’ if you want your business site to be found in Google. If you have a great-looking site that no one can find, it’s not doing its job.

2) Add a blog or podcast to your site.

If you like to talk (or write) about your business and you’re good at what you do, a blog or podcast may be just the thing. Both of them do one thing very well – they encourage visitors to come back to your site again and again. And they’re so easy to use! (I’m a huge fan of Wordpress). Blogs give you the advantage of adding a new page of fresh content to your site every time you post, while a podcast is like having your very own radio show.

3) Remove a blog from your site.

That might sound odd – but if you have a business blog and haven’t committed the time and effort to post fairly regularly, it’s probably better *not* to have one at all. If your last post was in 2005, consider removing the link to the blog for the time being. It reflects poorly on your company and makes it look like you don’t keep up with things.

4) Write articles about your industry.

Whether you’re a retailer, an architect, or a coach, you have a unique take on your business. Writing articles about it that you can both publish to the many free article syndication sites and post on your own website or blog both establish your expertise and create links back to your site - which Google likes a lot.

5) Give your site a makeover.

If your site is more than a couple of years old, or if it’s never had a facelift, now is the time. A more modern look and feel can give your site new life and make a better first impression. In addition, a redeveloped site can often benefit search engines and human visitors too, with cleaner, leaner code, faster loading times, and easier updating and maintenance.

6) Learn more about your visitors.

Google Analytics is a traffic analysis tool that does much more than just tell you how many people are visiting your site. You can learn, among other things: how much time they spend on each page; what navigation paths they follow through your site; where they come in and leave; what part of the country they’re in; and what links on your home page they’re clicking on. If you use Adwords for PPC marketing you can also learn how much revenue each product on your site is earning and how many have been sold in any given period. Google Analytics is free and easy to use.

7) Break up your content.

Even if you already have a lot of good content on your site, breaking it up into bite-size chunks is always a good way to increase readability. Studies show that people don’t often read websites – they scan them. Think headlines, bullet lists, pull quotes and short paragraphs rather than long uninterrupted text.

(Yes I know this is a lot of uninterrupted text but this isn’t my website. This is for readers, not scanners…)

Change the copyright date.

Don’t forget to change (or have someone change for you) the date on the copyright notice that should be at the bottom of your web pages. No, that won’t help you get more visitors, but it looks unprofessional if you forget to do it!

9) Make the product look great.

If you’re selling products, and the images aren’t that fantastic, consider having them redone by a professional. It makes a big difference in the credibility of your site and gives the buyer more confidence that the product will really meet their needs.

10) Consider video.

If you’re selling a product or provide a service that could benefit from visual instruction, think about having a short how-to video made. They’re easy to post on your website, and can do double-duty for your traffic if you also post them on sites like YouTube or Google Video.

Over the last couple of days, I’ve been doing what is sure to become an annual event: the purging of the office.

First I did something that’s been languishing in my to-do list for six months: I got all of my client data out of Excel/Word and wherever else it was hiding and into one single database. That was an enormous relief. I’d been looking for a CRM that would let me add an unlimited number of fields so I could enter info about URLs, logins, passwords, software installed on the server, IP addresses, domains, etc. and had never found anything that worked the way I wanted.

A few weeks ago I finally found the one true customizable DB platform for me (Filemaker Pro) and learned how to use it. Yes, I’m a PC user and yes, I do have Access on my desktop - but I don’t like it. I’m not an Office-basher because I love Word and Excel, but Access is not for me. I got Filemaker to do what I wanted in about 1/5 the time I spent screwing around with Access.

So anyway now I have a great-looking little DB form with tabs for all of the pertinent categories and all of my client data is in one compact place. Wonderful!

Second, I went through my file cabinet and discarded anything that could be trashed. I reorganized all the tabs on the folders so I could actually see them without them overlapping each other. I consolidated a few folders and made some new ones.

Third, and I just finished this: I went through all the dogeared design and web and IT magazines stacked in various places and cut out the articles I wanted to save. I made new folders for the file cabinet for all of those articles, probably 40-50 of them. And the magazines are going out the door.

My office is in much better shape now. I feel really good when I open that file cabinet and see all those tabs neatly arranged and also that the big stack of magazines beside the printer is, for the moment, no more. It’s a ‘working-with-your-hands’ feeling and I’m pretty satisfied with the results.

I’ve been using Adsense on my blog for awhile now (with little result) and am now in the process of changing that practice. For one thing, I don’t like the limited number of advertisers I have to choose from in the industries I’m interested in. And second, I just don’t like seeing all those obvious Google-based ads.

I’m trying an affiliate program that has (1) a big selection of good companies and (2) not a lot of self-promoting jargon surrounding the ads. And my policy will be that I only host ads for companies and products that I’ve actually used and would feel comfortable recommending to any reader. I’m not interested in hosting mystery ads anymore, so this is how it’s going to be for awhile.  I’ll mix up text and image ads, not have too many running at a time because I’m not interested in being a billboard.

I’ve been using a service called MyFax for a couple of years now, and since my account came up for renewal today I was doing some price checking among other services. I decided to stick with MyFax for now, since it’s only $10 per month for sending and receiving, but I did find this nifty tool for Internet fax price comparisons.

There’s an article in the Northern Colorado Business Report’s Edge section today about choosing a good web designer. I was interviewed as part of this story and have a few quotes in it along with a number of other local designers and developers.

Oddly enough, yesterday I posted a new article on my site based on this very topic - “Important Questions to Ask a Prospective Web Designer.” Mine is a bit more ‘top-ten’ list, though, but still I think it would be a good thing to have in hand when trying to determine who’s the best person (or company) to handle your business website.

It went really nicely, BTW. It really couldn’t have gone any better and all of the attendees took a lot of notes. I think I gave them their money’s worth. 

My marketing maven gives a monthly marketing forum here in Fort Collins - a 2-hour marketing fest that usually draws 12-20 local businesspeople.

Back in August she asked me to present at the one in October. It’s tomorrow.

I’m ready as far as the presentation goes - I’ve got my Powerpoint together, it’s cohesive and makes sense - but I haven’t given a presentation like this in a long while. I might be nervous and I hope I don’t talk too fast.

I’m trying to get in the same mindset of the final projects critique in design school at NC State. In that particular class, the semester project was the development of a cheetah habitat for the NC Zoo. I was one of only a few undergrads in the class and I really worked my tail off putting together an informed, creative and well-executed plan.

I saw my fellow students get reamed by the critiquers, a panel of guests of high status in the local landscape architectural world. One after the other they sat down in silence after the panel rather pointedly tore their work apart. I was the second or third from last to go.

And I went. I left my big stack of index cards on the floor. I presented, I explained, I illustrated my points and reinforced my ideas with a good solid design. Very calmly. And to my surprise I did not get reamed - I got praised. I did really, really well and you can guess how excessively happy I was when I went back and sat down with my index cards.

So I’m thinking tomorrow will be like that. I know the material because it’s what I do every day. I have useful information to share, 13 people are paying to hear me do just that and it’ll be my room for about two hours. But in this case, I’m sort of the critiquer and they are, for the most part, students. It should be interesting. And I don’t need index cards this time, either.

I know, I’m not an IT person. But ever since I rebuilt my main PC a few months ago, I’ve been thinking about taking the A+ exam - not because I plan to branch out, but because I really love working with computers in more ways than just web development, I’d like to quantify what I know, and I could, if I wanted to, expand my services if I had a certification. Maybe. Down the road.

I had a coupon from Barnes & Noble so I went there and pulled a copy of each of the A+ certification books off the shelf and sat there comparing them for an hour. I finally picked the A+ Certification All in One Exam Guide from Mike Meyers, for a few reasons.

First, it wasn’t just a study guide, it really looks and feels more like a reference book for all things IT techy.

Second, it has four tests for each real test (that’s eight total for the two required to get the cert).

Third - it has nice pictures. I do better with good visuals… of course I can always open up my machine. I really do need to get that front panel audio wiring issue resolved…

I plan to sign up for the test for about 10 weeks from now. I took the practice one and got about 58% correct without opening the book, so I think this will be enough study time…