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Awesome response...thank you so much for the advice! I will be trying this over the weekend to see how it works.

Okay...let's start off with the basic "do's" and "don'ts":

1. Hire a quality web designer, have him build a CSS compliant site(for more information, visit http://www.html.net/tutorials/css/lesson1.asp), or build it yourself, if you don't mind reading alot and making many mistakes along the way.

2. Write articles on your field, or in your area of expertise at places like http://www.ezinearticles.com . They will allow you to put "links" to your website in the signature field.

3. Talk with someone about Search Engine Optimization, or read about it at these sites: http://www.seomoz.org , http://www.sphinn.com

4. Develop a budget for Pay-Per-Click, and get it up and running. Google "Adwords" and Yahoo PPC are the leaders at this time.

5.Get a domain name of your own. Sorry.. whatever.blogspot.com is not going to do it for you. Go to http://www.dreamhost.com or http://www.godaddy.com. to do so. I prefer dreamhost, as they give you one domain name free with paid hosting. If someone else is developing your website, they will appreciate DreamHost more as well.

6. Start a blog...it's a great way to develop relationships with your customers, and keep them up to date with your industry. Wordpress and Moveable Type are the two biggies. DreamHost has a one-click installation feature for this that is extremely easy to set up.

Now the "don'ts"

1. Never let a designer talk you into an "All Flash" site. These do not show up on the search engines, and they are not easy to add content or pages to.

2.Don't just keep running a PPC campaign. This is only a substitute until "organic" traffic begins to arrive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_traffic)

3. Never rest on your laurels. The search engines and web technologies change daily. The site that cut it 6 months ago, won't cut it today. I am currently on my third site redesign in 9 mos.

4. Never pay for those scams that promise "Front Page of Google for $160 a month" they are just upcharging you for a PPC campaign. They are not actually doing any work.

5. Never engage in reciprocal linking. Trust me on this one. DON"T

6. Never get impatient. Web growth is incremental...and is measured in baby steps. Sorry, results are not guaranteed. Just because you built it, doesn't mean they will come.

7. Never stop learning. There's always something that will make you better, stronger, faster, and less likely to get ripped off.

That's all I have for now. The Web is a great place to grow and retain business.

Good Luck.

You've been given some great advice already. I'd add one additional thought. Get published on the web. There are any number of sites with which you can post an article relating to your business. Make sure you use your URL in your bio. and folks will be able to link back to your website. If you have a "free" report or tip sheet etc. that they can acquire by going to your site you can put that offer in your bio as well.

Before reading my comments let me submit publicly that I am the principal owner of a Search Engine Marketing Firm called Search-Werks.

Reading the comments here, I think BuyBigTires gave some good advice but I would alternatively offer that a PayPerClick search engine marketing campaign should ALWAYS be running in some form. It does not have to be big $, just smart $. Organically generated free traffic is never a guarantee and most small businesses struggle mightily in this arena to compete against the scale of large websites that seem to always show in top positions regardless of whether they are relevant to the search query (ie. Wikipedia, Amazon, etc.). My suggestion would be:

1. ALWAYS install some sort of tracking mechanism on your site before you get started so that you know how many visits you receive, where they are looking on your site, what terms are they searching for in your onsite search box, what terms drove them to your site, which terms seem to grab the most engagement, etc. Options for tracking include free solutions from Google Analytics (very easy to install the basic tracking) and subscription services from companies like ClickTracks. You can get a Google Analytics account when you open a Google AdWords account.

2. Start small and test the water. Its easy to quickly blow cash on Google and Yahoo. Use the daily budget function on Google and Yahoo to protect you from spending too much. It can be capped at any level. Figure out what works with your analytics tool before increasing the effort or spend.

3. Use your natural search traffic keywords (shown in your analytics tool) to build strong PayPerClick campaigns that work very synergistically and vice versa. For instance, if you find a paid search term is working well at your business goal for the site, make sure you move that term into your title tags in your website content. Then you can compete on those terms in the free natural search market as well. Additionally, if you find you are performing well on Yahoo but not on Google on specific critical keywords, you can use paid search engine advertising to capture impressions where your natural ranking is not up to par. Natural search traffic and paid search traffic complement each other. If your budgets are small, just use it sensibly.

4. If you do proceed with a PayPerClick campaign, _understand how keyword match types work_! The search engines are motivated to show ads and receive clicks on paid ads. Broad matching logic generates traffic but it does not generate as much QUALITY traffic. Use match types to generate traffic that is highly relevant to your website business goals. Also make sure you implement negative keywords. For instance, on the term "champion", you will find a sportswear company, a spark plug company, a boat company, a home company, and information on who won last years sports titles. With negative keywords in your campaigns, you can prevent your ad from showing up for a spark plug search when you are trying to sell boats.

PayPerClick search engine advertising is the most efficient advertising available when its done well.

Do you mind giving an example of a negative keyword?

JP1234 - sure no problem on the negative keyword post. Taking my previous post as the example, if I am ChampionBoats.com, in my campaign set up, I would put in my negative keyword set terms associated with sportswear, windows, NCAA football, homes, etc. You want to bid on the terms: Champion boats, Championboats, etc and add as a negative keyword sportswear, clothing, window, windows, etc. This will prevent the ad from showing on any search with that word in it.

You can populate your negative keyword list at the campaign level in AdWords and Yahoo Search. Google shows it very prominently on the campaign page but Yahoo makes it a little harder to find.

Negative keywords are designed to suppress your ad from showing when a similar but irrelevant search query is performed. It keeps your ad relevancy high and prevents paid clicks on your ad from people who had no intention of buying boats but really were looking for windows.

Spot on buybigtires! Nice outline and advice above.

As for negative keywords, keep in mind that negatives can also have match types. So using -dirt bikes would negate misspellings, etc. But -"dirt bikes" will knock out all potential matches with those words in that order from showing.
Cliff

There's a fast and easy service called Breez-e.com (http://www.breez-e.com) where you can get a great website for only a few dollars. The results are great and customer service, if needed is excellent.

I think before building a web presence you must read a lot of tips online from different sources, most of them are webmaster forums.

Avoid all SEO (Search Engine Optimization) companies whom claim they can put your site on the top 10 with guarantees, there is no guarantee with search engines changes.

I did the SEO myself, because the cost could be very expensive from a good SEO compagnie. We are talking about a few thousand dollars, perhaps if you are good enough you won't need this kind of services anyway.

Back to the topic, there are many ways to build a web presence, you just need to find wich one work best for your business.

I head many people I know of, saying build an e-commerce, wait a little and make money. That is so wrong...

To Build a web present, you need to submit your site to directories, social bookmarks, forums, search engines, and the most important writing articles on your site. As far as I am concern, recipro links should be use carefully, and corresponding to your topic.

Good luck !

Google search refers more visitors to all of my websites more than any other search engine, so I would focus more energy on their SEO practices. Use lots of text in your website, but not in a spamming technique. They can actually tell the grade level of the context writing on your website. Flash is pretty, but doesn't end up on search engines like text.

One of the most important things people often leave out is "link backs". The more websites (related to your business) that link back to your website, the more relevant you become in a search engine. Some people say this is how Google determines how important a website is. So if you run a window company and there are a thousand New Window product websites linking back to your "window manufacturing" company website, then you must be a pretty good "window manufacturing" company. Getting links from myspace, press releases, and non related websites will get you in the search engines, but not at the top if someone searches "window manufacturer".

You are right backlinks are very important for all search engines, particularly Google.

Did anyone say use the Google Webmaster Central tools? Upload Google XML sitemaps, social networking and best of all em images

David

http://www.vivawebsitedesign works wonders for me and you get a $10,000 looking website for $399

Nice templates, yes lol but I stay away from this kind of kit, because once you buy it:

You cannot master your domain
You cannot choose the hosting company you want
You cannot take your site if for whatever reason you want to leave this people, etc...
You don't have full coding access

I have one friend who sign up for this kind of kit, they make it easy to use for main purposes, but for accuracy technics, no.

This is just my opinion, I am sure it is working for some people

PR is just a gadget, I am more concern about serps and traffic

Are people online already buying what you sell?

If so, it's easier. You just need to get found when they search. There are already a bunch of good posts about how to achieve that goal.

What if you have something really unique? How do people find you if they aren't even looking for you?

One strategy is to have a combination of unique items and items that already have a customer base on the internet. Optimize your site for products that people are out there looking for and then make sure your website encourages them to look around at your more unique items.

I believe if a product is unique, the search engines will put your site on the top with a very light SEO

If your products are unique, if is not arts, many people will do the same as you do

I've got good results from http://www.free-traffic-guru.com
It's easy to get a web presence and my message out by
attracting targeted unique visitors to my website.

If you sell custom made wall hangings, you could get a
domain custom-made-wall-hangings.com. The unique
system targets highly relevant specific keyword niches
which only bring interested visitors who are looking for
exactly what you are selling.

You can also create subdomains which are highly targeted
to your specific niche product that will drive daily targeted
traffic to any website you might have.

A good question ! Do every thing !!. Then start test, test, test and retest.Modify,change and monitor. The power of internet will take you to your dream paradise. Wish to know "everything" Please down load Dotcomology by Mr.Stone Evans from http://www.u2many.com, It is FREE

You should also try posting a business profile on Handyherman.com. It is a website for small businesses to advertising thier business using a profile based format. Customers search for a service or good in thier area can search Handyherman.com for business profiles that match thier needs. Please let me know what you think. Thank you.

-Drew