And it dawned on me that he’s absolutely right.

So many service providers give descriptions of the services they offer, but in order to buy what they sell, you have to use a contact form to request an estimate.

Unfortunately, in a market where you evaluate and buy most anything online, that way of doing things is a bit antiquated. And that’s not all. Generations X and Y, who both grew up with computers and the Internet and use it heavily as a resource, are filling more and more decision-making roles in companies. Given their familiarity and comfort with buying things online, not allowing them to buy your services online could be costing you sales you didn’t even know existed.

A need to provide estimates is OK, but limiting.

Now running a service-based business myself, I’m fully aware of the need to provide estimates. It’s virtually impossible to predict how much work will be required for each project. There are just too many variables from client to client.

Or is there?

Believe it or not, selling services online is actually easier than it sounds at first. The trick is a clear definition of the project, and plenty of up front communication with the client.

Here’s some ways you can do it:

1. Create pre-defined packages

One of the simplest ways to sell your services online is to create packages you can sell at a set price. And don’t worry about variables that you would normally need to estimate. When you create packages to sell on your site, you get to choose what is, and what’s not, included in the package. Anything outside the scope of work you define is extra and incurs additional cost.

When you’re creating your packages, it’s also a good idea to create three different pricing levels for each package – a low priced one, a high priced one, and one in the middle. You can adjust what’s included to compensate for the pricing differences, but having a few options to pick from allows you to sell to more people with a wider range of budgets. The best way I found to do this is to create a package that has everything I can think of in it, and then take away a little and lower the price a bit for each cheaper package I want to create.

2. Offer consulting-only packages

Another way you can sell your services online is by letting people buy your time by the hour as consulting packages. Easiest way to do this is post a price for one hour of your time that people can buy, and then add a few options for groups of hours at a slightly reduced rate. For example, if they buy one hour, the price is $100, three hours is $270 (10% off), five hours is $375 (25% off), etc.

3. Turn your service into a product

Do you have a service that people seem to request a lot? Do your customers seem to ask the same basic questions over and over again? If so, you have a great opportunity to turn your service into a product you can sell.

There’s many different ways to do this. You could write an eBook that offers a solution to a common problem your clients have. You could create an online "course" that offers training your clients are looking for in the form of videos and/or audio you pre-record, downloadable PDFs, worksheets, etc. If you planned it out right, you could even turn your service into a software program, mobile app, or other such product to sell. These are all just examples, but with some good planning and a little work, you can turn your service into something that sells over and over again.

It all adds up to more sales, more often.

So as you can see, selling your services online isn’t hard to do at all. You can still offer to provide estimates to people who have projects that are outside the scope of your packages. But by offering your services in a way that people can buy them online, you make it easier for customers to do business with you, and set yourself up to be able to accept purchases outside of normal business hours.

Below, I’ve compiled a list of unconventional ways to market your business online. I’m calling these methods unconventional from the perspective that they delve into a deeper level of Internet marketing than most small business owners ever consider. So without further "ado," here they are…

Webinar Marketing

Webinars are nothing new when it comes to Internet marketing. However, very few small businesses seem to take full advantage of this very effective marketing tool. Many of you are probably familiar with the concept of seminar marketing where you put on a live, offline event at your lock hotel or conference center and teach prospective customers about what you do (positioning yourself as an expert). Webinar marketing is the same thing, but done online. The beauty of webinars is that they are much less costly to do than in-person seminars. Plus, they can be recorded and posted on your website for people to watch on demand. By creating a series of webinars that help your customers and showcase your expertise, you position yourself as an expert in your field and an important resource to your customers.

Mobile Advertising (Apple iAds)

I’ve included mobile advertising here because, as of this writing, it’s a relatively new opportunity. Specifically, with the newly available "iAds" from Apple, you can place banner ads that will show up within applications on peoples’ iPhone. Basically, this puts your message in front of people right on the cell phone they carry with them at all times. Again, as of this writing, this method of advertising is only a few days old, but you can get more information about it at Apple’s website.

Virtual Worlds

This is where Internet marketing can really get creative. Imagine being able to build a virtual, 3-dimensional store that people can literally walk through online just like a video game. Or perhaps building an entire campus or even an entire planet dedicated to helping customers experience your brand. Believe it or not it IS possible, and is NOT as expensive as you may think. There are several MMORPG (that stands for massively multiplayer online role-playing game for you non-geeks out there) gaming sites out there that allow people to create a virtual version of themselves, then use that character to navigate through virtual worlds. Several companies have used this unique media to build their own virtual businesses and let people experience their brand or order from their business online, yet in-person. It’s an extremely unique approach to marketing that is effective across many age groups. For example, Pontiac built a virtual brand experience in SecondLife, and national organizations like the American Cancer Society have also built public-awareness campuses there as well. Many colleges are also using this technique as a way to attract new students. For more information on this, check out SecondLife or Entropia Universe.

Streaming Online "Events"

With some technology and a little ingenuity you can take a local event and bring it to an online audience. For example, if you’re having a grand opening event, or are participating in a "Taste of Your City" event, you can record the video and stream it live online as the event happens so people who can’t be there can still feel like they’re participating. This is especially powerful if you combine this technique with Twitter so people online can submit questions or comments and you respond to the live on the video feed. This is also great for conventions, and conferences. For example, Apple uses this to great effect every year for their WWDC and Product Launch keynote addresses.

Video Blogging (called "vlogging")

How about giving your customers a "behind the scenes" look at what you do? This is actually one of the easiest ways to connect with clients in a unique way since all it takes is an in-expensive video camera that connects to your computer, and a little imagination. It’s also very easy to do – just carry your little video camera around with you behind the scenes filming what you do, and then post short video clips of it online (no more than 5 minutes long each). This is a great way for customers to learn more about what you do AND who you are – and gives them the feeling that they "know" you which builds trust. For a great example of this technique, check out Les Stroud’s video blog. ( http://lesstroud.ca/videoblog )

Game & App Marketing

With the popularity of the iPhone (and to a lesser extent the Android), mobile apps and games can be a great way to promote what you sell. Just take a good look at your business and see if there’s an element of it that could be turned into a useful application or a fun game. For example, a home improvement store could offer customers a free iPhone app that helps them calculate how much lumber, paint, or concrete they need to finish a project. Or maybe a daycare that offers a game that’s like the old arcade classic "Beer Tapper" but instead of beer it’s bottles of milk you have to get to the kids to keep them from crying. The possibilities are endless, and the cost for the programming isn’t as expensive as you might think. These days you can outsource the programming work through sites like Elance and Guru.com. These projects can start as low as a few hundred dollars and go up from there based on the complexity of your app. Then once the programming is complete, simply submit it to the iTunes App store for customers to download. You can even charge for the app if you like and might even make money off it!

Online Activist Marketing

What if your customers developed the product they wanted to buy, designed the packaging, and built all the marketing for you? That’s exactly what the folks over at Mt Dew did with their "Dewmocracy" campaign – and had HUGE success with it. They let the fans suggest flavors, design the packaging, create the marketing, build blogs, and spread the word – and then had them vote on which flavor they would add to their soda line-up. Getting customers involved in the process if always a good idea. But when you can take these customers from just being involved to actively promoting what you sell – you’ve got a formula for explosive success.

These are just a few of the ways you can be creative with your Internet marketing to draw more attention to what you sell. There are lots of other ideas out there as well. So don’t be afraid to think outside the box and do something creative.

Just the fact that it seems so mysterious has played right into the hands of many companies that sell SEO services at thousands of dollars per month. The sad thing is that many of those companies are the modern-day version of snake oil peddlers who don’t fully understand proper SEO themselves! Even a lot of advertising agencies don’t quite "get it" when it comes to SEO – but they still sell the service to their clients anyway. So what’s a small business owner to do? The answer: do it yourself.

The good news it that SEO isn’t hard to do at all. It’s really quite easy. All it requires is attention to specific details.

The trick to doing your own SEO work is patience and perseverance. It’s not rocket science. It’s doesn’t involve complicated formulas. All it requires is that you do a little planning, pay attention to specific details on your site, and "tweak" those details as needed. In fact, most of it revolves around selecting the right keywords and using them in the right places on your site.

Now before I get started, let me state the obvious…

In order to do your own SEO work, you’ll need to have access to make changes to your website. Ideally your site would be built on a content management system that lets you log in and make changes without needing web design software. However, if your site is not built that way, you can either buy some web design software (like Adobe Dreamweaver for example), or you can assume the role of "project manager" and give your existing web designer specific instructions on what you want changed. Either way would work.

Now that we have that out of the way, here are specific things you can do to increase your site’s SEO:

1. Be search engine "friendly"

Start by taking a close look at your website. How is it built?

If the bulk of your site content is built in Adobe Flash, or if all the text is actually images, then you need to start from scratch. How can you tell? Well, if all the content on your site (including the text) loads as part of a whole-page animation, then your site is most likely Flash-based.

Also, if you place your mouse cursor over the text on your site, hold down the left-click button on your mouse and drag to the side, does it highlight the text or does the text seem to come off the page in a chunk? If it comes off as one chunk, then your site is probably image based. If you still can’t tell after trying these tests, ask the person that built it for you.

Why is this important? Search engines use automated software called "spiders" or "robots" to rank websites, and those robots cannot read text that is in Flash files or image files. All the search engine sees is an image. And without being able to read the text on your site, the search engines basically see an empty site, which actually hurts your search engine ranking. In order for search engines to properly index (read) your site, you need to have all the main content as actual HTML text.

It’s OK to have images and animations on your site, just don’t make those the primary content. Use them as "window dressing" to enhance your content instead.

2. Plan your use of keywords

Keywords are an area a lot of small business owners get stuck on, or go overboard with. The important thing to do is to plan your use of keywords. Having too many keywords is just as bad as not using the right ones. Also, you want to try and target your keywords by location as much as possible. Let’s look at some specifics on how to do this…

First of all, be selective about which keywords you target. Don’t just cram your meta tags and content full of as many keywords as you can think of. That’s called "keyword stuffing" and search engines penalize for that.

Instead, do some research and some serious thinking about what keywords are most applicable to what you sell and compare that to what keywords your customers actually search for. For example, if you sell gift baskets in the state of Michigan, instead of using a crazy long string of keywords like "gift, basket, gift basket, baskets, gifts, etc" use something like "holiday gift baskets michigan" as one keyword string then maybe "birthday gift baskets michigan" as another. The point is, if you focus on a few highly target keywords you’ll get better results.

Some online tools that will help you choose your keywords are Google’s Keyword Tool, SpyFu, and WordTracker.

3. Be smart with your header tags

When you’re editing the text on your site and you need a big, bold headline in the text, don’t just make the text bold and change the type size.

Make use of HTML header tags.

These tags are built right into HTML and are usually numbered H1 through H6 with H1 being the largest and sizes getting smaller from there. The reason this is important is because search engines see header tag content as being more important than the rest of the text. So you want to try and work important keywords into your header tags as much as possible, but be smart about it. Using the gift basket example above, you might have a page on your site with information on special gift baskets you do for birthdays. In that case, an appropriate "H1" header for that page would be "Birthday Gift Baskets from Your Company." And just like with keywords, don’t go "hog wild" with this using tons of header tags all over your page. Be smart about it, plan it out and work in some targeted keywords for best results.

4. Use image descriptions (alt tags)

As I mentioned earlier, search engines can’t see what’s in an image so it’s important to tell them what the image is using the "alt" tag (also called an image description). Think of a short sentence that describes your image and use that in your alt tag. If your image applies to any of the keywords you’ve chosen, find a way to work those keywords into your sentence.

The other reason image descriptions are important is to help folks with a disability be able to navigate your site. There are software programs out there that allow people with blindness or other disabilities to browse the web. These programs achieve this by literally reading the web page to the person. Providing image descriptions help these people by making it easier for them to access the information on your site and know what is there.

5. Use keyword-optimized URLs and Titles

This one is a biggie. Take the keywords you’ve decided on and work them into your website’s page URLs and the page title tags.

For example (again using the gift basket example above), if you had a page on your site that was about holiday gif baskets you sold, the actual page address (called a URL) should be something like http://www.yourcompany.com/holiday-gift-baskets-michigan.html. The important points here is to only use keywords that coincide with the content of the page, never have spaces in the URL (use-hyphens-instead), and keep it down to 3 or 4 keywords.

Also, each page of your site has a space for a title – make sure you use it! Insert a page title that accurately reflects the content of the page and uses your keywords where appropriate. Also, put your company name AFTER the description in the title. For example, for the holiday gift baskets page above, the title might read something like "Holiday Gift Basket Selections from Your Company." The reason to put your company name last is it gives priority to the keywords at the front of the title, which search engines like to see.

6. Be smart with your meta tags

Meta tags are those "invisible" fields of content hidden in the code of your website that tell the search engines things like the keywords that relate to your site, the description of your site, whether or not to index a certain page, etc. There’s a lot of debate about the effectiveness of meta tags these days.

However, the general consensus is that it’s still a good idea to use them. I especially encourage you to use the description meta tag for each page on your site and write a short, one sentence description of what that page is all about, working in your keywords for that page.

Doing this will display that description in search results instead of something random the search engine selects (like the copyright notice), and will make your page appear more relevant to the keywords you used. And remember, keep it short. Google only displays 152 characters (including spaces) as a site description before it cuts off. So if you try to keep your descriptions about the same length as a Twitter post, you’ll be in good shape.

7. Test and monitor

The last thing you need to do is track your progress. This is an area where patience comes into play.

The search engines only update their information periodically – in some cases only once every 90 days or so. So you’ll need to be patient while they update their listings, and periodically check to see how your site ranks when you search for one of the keywords you chose. If you’re still not happy with your rank, there are things you can do, but it’s a process of making adjustments, then monitoring the results until you get your site where you want it to be.

And don’t forget this is an ongoing process. In other words, you can’t do this once and then forget it. Keep in mind there are other people out there just like you who are trying to get their site to rank higher too. So keep at it to keep your site well ranked.

This will get you started in the right direction

Keep in mind that these tips only deal with optimizing your website and making it more search engine friendly. Your actual rank in the search engines also involves thinks like how many sites link to yours, the quality of those links, how long your web address has been registered (and how long until it expires), and how often you post fresh content to your site to name just a few. These are all topics I’ll be covering in future articles, but if you start with the tips above to get your site optimized and ready for some of those "next steps," you’ll have a strong foundation to build on.

The days of running a business without having a website are LONG gone (and short of a major solar storm or act of God, they’re not coming back). Well, if you still need convincing (or know someone who does), here are a couple very compelling reasons to get a website, and get one now.

(By the way, if you’re reading this blog I’m guessing you already have a site. If so, PLEASE, please print out this post, call that friend you know that owns a business but doesn’t have a website, sit down with them, and have an intervention. They’ll thank you for it in the long run.)

97% of consumers use the Internet to research local purchases.

What if I told you that almost 100% of your local market was looking for your business online?

My guess is you’d beat a path to the nearest web designer as fast as your fingers could dial the number.

Oh wait.

Where would you look for your nearest web designer? Ah ha – you said online didn’t you? If you did, you’re absolutely right. In fact, a recent study done by BIA / Kelsey Group reveled that a full 97% of consumers search online for local products and services to buy. In comparison, only 30% use the yellow pages according to a study by TMP Directional Marketing.

The fact of the matter is that Internet usage is no longer seen as just an additional resource, it’s become a way of life. People instinctively turn to the Internet when they’re trying to find something. So if you’re not online today, it’s as detrimental to your business as not advertising in the yellow pages was 15 years ago. You’ll be missing out on tons of sales you never knew existed.

Your website is your online identity.

In a way, the Internet is a separate world that you need to establish your identity in, and your website does that for you. It’s like driving a stake, planting a flag, and claiming that space in the name of your business. And since I can see all the "nay-sayers" shrugging at this point and thinking "so what?" – let me tell you about something that happened to a local car dealership here in Michigan that didn’t have a website – an had their business identity stolen.

Click here to read the original story in the Oakland Press

Summit Auto Sales in Pontiac didn’t have a website. They thought they didn’t need one – until someone took their business name and set up a fake website claiming to be them. This fake site looked like a legitimate business site, used the Summit Auto name, and even used the dealership’s actual address. The purpose of the fake site was to trick customers into buying cars at "too good to be true" prices – and it worked. People from all over the country paid money to the scammers, then when their car never arrived, they hunted down the real dealership demanding an explanation and their money back. In short, a HUGE nightmare ensued. Read the story. Seriously.

Get a website.

Seriously if you don’t have a site yet, get one. There’s no legitimate excuse anymore for not having a site, and if you continue to operate without one it could do irreparable harm to your business. In today’s marketplace, having a site is as important as having a business card, and many customers gauge a company’s reliability and reputation by the site they have. So be sure to get yourself a professional site for your business. Your customers, and your profit margin, will thank you.

Here are just a few ideas on where you can find ideas for your blog…

1. Questions your customers or clients ask. One of the best ways to come up with blog ideas is to think about what questions your customers or clients tend to ask a lot. Is there one specific area of what you do or sell that your customers ask you about quite often? Discuss the question and it’s answer in a blog post.

2. Are there any interesting facts or information about what you sell that your customers would find intriguing?

3. Is there something unique happening in your industry that you want to comment on or let your customers know about?

4. Is there an opportunity to feature specific customers and the success they’ve had using your product or service? (with their permission of course!)

5. Is there a new product or service you’re launching, or have you updated an existing one? (don’t overdo it with this one or your blog will seem too self-centered)

Here are a few things you should NEVER post on your blog…

• 1. Never write about a conversation you had with a customer in a way that belittles them.
• 2. Never write a blog post that is complaining or venting about a customer.
• 3. Never post specific personal details to your blog (identity theft risk people).
• 4. Never post someone else’s work on your blog without their permission and giving them proper credit.
• 5. Never post something just to post something – make sure there’s a purpose to each of your blog posts.

1. Position yourself as an expert

Writing a blog allows you to showcase what you know about your industry, your products, and your services in a way that can position you as an expert in your field. The trick is writing strong content, and freely giving away your best knowledge and insights. By doing that, people will recognize your skill and begin to trust what you write – which elevates you to "expert" level in their eyes.

2. Search engines love blogs

I’ve built a lot of websites over the years, and without exception, blogs I’ve set up get indexed faster than regular sites by the major search engines. For example, I just set up a new blog on Friday of last week, and by Monday you could find it in Google. This same process can take weeks or even months for static, brochure-type sites. The reason search engines like blogs so much is because they know the content on a blog gets updated on a much more frequent basis than most other websites – which means fresh, relevant content for the people searching their sites.

3. Build a following

Having a blog allows you a unique opportunity to build a following among your customers. When you put forth your best content, be your authentic self, and focus on connecting with people, those that read your blog will come to like and respect you, and will typically sign up to follow you by Email or RSS feed. When they do that, they’re signing up to be alerted any time you post new content because they’re interested in what you have to say, and find your content useful. This is a powerful way to build new business opportunities (more on that in a minute), and increase referrals.

4. Engage your customers

If you want to get any kind of meaningful results from your online marketing efforts, you need to learn how to engage your customers. A blog is a great way to accomplish that goal because it allows readers to post comments on the articles you write, and lets you respond to those comments – creating a "dialog" of sorts between you and your customers.

5. Be more approachable

Once you set up a blog and get used to posting on it, you’ll find that your unique personality and experience will start to come out in your writing. That’s a good thing. It helps make your business seem more "human" and makes you feel more approachable, because as people read what you write, they’ll start to feel like they know you. And having that kind of connect with your customers can be a powerful asset to your business.

6. Promote your products and services

Having a blog gives you an additional venue to promote your products and/or services to people who are truly interested in what you have to offer. Be careful though. You don’t want to overdo the promotional posts and make people thing your blog is just a glorified advertisement. However, when done in moderation, promoting what you sell through your blog can generate some great sales success, because of the higher conversion rates an engaged audience creates.

7. Attract new business leads

Blogs are fast becoming a powerful marketing tool for companies that know how to use them effectively. When prospective customers come to your blog and see lots of relevant, insightful, and useful content, it’s easier for them to feel that you’re an expert in your field, and trust that you will do a good job for them. I’ve heard countless stories about very small companies who have landed significant business deals as a direct result of information they’ve posted on their blog.

So if you don’t currently have a blog, it would be a good idea to get one set up right away. There’s some great tips over at Copyblogger that will help you better understand content marketing, and Problogger also has great tips on blogging as well.

Photo credit: Mike Licht

Here’s a good article from an attorney explaining this in more detail.

So be sure to pay close attention to who actually owns your domain name. I’ve seen far too many companies fall prey to unethical web designers who register a client’s domain in their own name, and use that ownership as leverage to basically hold the domain (and client) hostage – forcing the client to pay them for all web related services. If you’ve never looked to see who owns your domain, you can use the WHOIS tool at Network Solutions or GoDaddy to look up your website address.

Oh, and by the way, if you happen to get those “your domain is about to expire” or “renew your domain” letters in the mail from a different company than the one you originally ordered your domain name through – SHRED IT IMMEDIATELY! Those letters are scams that will cause you to lose your domain (by paying those companies you transfer ownership of your domain to them – I had a client lose her domain that way). Only pay renewal fees to the company you originally registered the domain name through.

Photo credit: JasonWalton

Planning a redesign of your website can be a challenge, and if your planning your first website, the task can seem even more intimidating. Well, to help make it a little easier, we’ve put together a list of things you’ll want to consider when planning your site. This list is by no means comprehensive, but it will give you a solid foundation to start from.

1. What is your site for, and who is your audience?

The first thing you need to consider when planning your site is it’s purpose and audience. Why are you putting up a site in the first place? Is it to have an online “brochure?” To provide information and resources? To increase your sales? Each of these reasons need a slightly different approach in the way the site is actually built in order to be effective.

Likewise, who your audience is plays a big part in the direction your website should take. Are you trying to reach geeks or technophobes? Kids or adults? Men or women? Generation X or Baby Boomers? How you answer these questions should guide the rest of your decisions about the site. For example, a site that’s meant to help people who have sustained a traumatic brain injury can’t have anything on the site that’s too brightly colored, moves too fast, or blinks, because it could trigger seizures for some people with that kind of injury.

2. Do you need a content management system?

Having the ability to update the content of your site on your own can be a blessing – and a curse. The benefit is that you can post things quickly yourself and not have to pay a web designer to do it for you. The downside is you need a basic understanding of how websites work, and need to be committed to keeping your site up to date.

If you decide you want your site built on a content management system (CMS for short), another thing you need to consider is which one you’re going to want. WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Dot Net Nuke, BusinessCatalyst…there’s quite a few of them out there, and each one has it’s pros and cons. You’ll want to spend some time understanding what can and can’t be done with each one, so you’ll know what your limitations will be if your site is built on that platform.

3. What do you need your site to actually do?

One of the things you’ll want to plan out carefully is the functionality of your site. What features do you want it to have? Is there any special functions your audience would expect from a site like yours? Is there any unique usability needs you have that are specific to your business? These are all questions to consider carefully, because they directly affect the amount of programming that needs to be done for your site – and the overall cost.

For example, if you needed to have your product inventory database on your site in a way that customers could search and sort the data to find what they need, that can be fairly involved to set up from a programmer’s perspective. However, if all you need is a couple contact forms and integration with social media sites, that involves much less programming. So give careful thought to what you need your site to do, and don’t be afraid to plan ahead for things you’d like it to do down the road.

4. Don’t forget the e-mail newsletter signup.

One of the most powerful things you can do for your business is to build a list of people who have requested to hear from you on a regular basis – who have expressed interest in what you offer. That’s why having an e-mail marketing opt-in form on your site is so important. It allows your audience to tell you “hey, market to ME!”

Once you have built this kind of a list, it can be a potential gold mine for your business. Because the people on the list have specifically requested information from you, marketing what you offer to this list can have HUGE conversion rates if you’ve treated the people right. Direct mail companies will tell you you’re lucky to get 1-2% response rate from a mailing, but with a well-built e-mail marketing list, you can easily hit 20-40% or more who buy what you offer.

5. Blog your way to more sales.

Blogs are powerful business growth tools when used right. They can help you raise awareness, build a following, accumulate fans, and even help your search engine results. The trick is using them in a way that connects with and engages your audience.

When you decide to have a blog, you’re making a commitment – well several actually. First, you’re committing to your audience that you’re going to provide them with useful, relevant content. You’re also committing to do that on a regular basis – for years. So it’s not a decision to be taken lightly, because nothing screams “outdated website” like an abandoned blog.

To learn more about blogging, check out copyblogger.com and problogger.net.

6. Who will be building your new site?

This one, while important can be a little tricky. Thinking of having your brother’s boss’s cousin’s nephew build your site. I’d be careful. Who builds your site can have a direct effect on how successful your site will be. Do they have a strong portfolio? What programming languages do they specialize in? Heck, do they even DO their own programming or do they outsource it (you’d be surprised how often this is the case).

The old adage “let the buyer beware” applies here. Know exactly what you’re going to get before you spend the money, and be sure to get them to agree to a project timeline in writing. I’ve heard countless horror stories of people who have paid a web designer to build their site and were still waiting a year later.

7. When do you need it to be online?

This one goes hand-in-hand with knowing what you need your site to do. Because some features take longer to program than others, you’ll want to make sure you’ve left plenty of time for your site to be built if you need it online by a specific date. The last thing you want to happen is to need your site up within a month only ti find out it’s going to take 90 days to get all the programming done.

By thinking about these things while you’re still in the planning stages of your new site will help you build a more effective site, and help you avoid surprise expenses in it’s creation.

Photo courtesy Orange County Archives.