How Do I Get My Website to Rank Well in Google? (Part 3)

Okay, so we've been discussing keyword generation, search engine optimization, link building and today we tackle the basics of paid online advertising...

Online Advertising

There are a lot of places you can spend your money advertising on the web. Some places yield better results than others. Find sites that rank well in searches, and don't forget you can advertise directly on search engines using Google Adwords or Yahoo Online Marketing. Often it's easier to pay for an ad for a key phrase than to rank for it organically. This is especially true for highly competitive phrases. The best part is you get almost instant results with paid advertising, unlike link building, which takes months to see the full benefits of your labor. Also think about sites where your target demographic are. Facebook Advertising, for example, has a great advertising program that let's you target specific demographics.

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Page Progressive, LLC: Web. Print. Smart.

How Do I Get My Website to Rank Well in Google? (Part 2)

Last post I discussed the importance of developing good key phrases and optimizing your website for search engines. This post is going to cover the basics of link building.

Link Building

Now we need to get a lot of high quality links pointing to your site. Start of by searching the web for your key words and see what comes up. Take note of which sites seem to come up again and again. Those are sites you want to get linking to you. Also look for local business directories or directories that specialize in your industry as well as forums where you can post as an authority on a topic. Put a link to your website in your profile and signature. Write up several articles about your industry, include your key phrases, and post them on the web at online article syndication websites. Make sure to include links back to yourself. Post online press releases. Sign up for social media sites and find a few you really dig and set up camp. Build a network of friends and colleagues and link back to your site. Find other companies that are synergistic to what you do and contact them to see if they will link to you.

Rinse and repeat.

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Page Progressive, LLC: Web. Print. Smart.

How Do I Get My Website to Rank Well in Google? (Part 1)

One of the things we get asked a lot by business owners is "How do I get my website to rank well in Google searches."

I typically respond with "It's kinda complicated, but here's the basics..."

So, here's that "basics" shpeel for those out there still wondering.

This is a large conversation that all falls under the umbrella of "Online marketing." Online marketing is composed of three main subsets in my mind: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) , Link Building, and Paid Advertising. Over the next couple of days, I'm going to focus on each of these three areas.

Search Engine Optimization

SEO can be broken down into two things:

1. Making sure your website contains the key phrases that people will be searching for on a search engine
2. Making sure those key phrases are in the right places

Come up with a list of key phrases that should land a potential client or customer to your site. Go ahead...I'll wait. You may come up with 10-20, if you're good. Now we need to multiply that by ten :-) Think like a layperson. You may need to include terms that aren't really accurate but they are what the general population might think to search on. Now think like an expert...a person in a desperate situation that may need your product or service right this second (Think emergency 24-hour plumber). Now look at your competitor's websites. Notice any key phrases being mentioned that you didn't think of? Try viewing the source of their site and look for key words in META tags, the title, or as ALT names for images. Now pull out a thesaurus and come up with alternate synonyms for your words or concepts. Now plug in some adjectives that describe your terms like "free" or "best" or "cheap" or "friendly." Now think of geographical names for areas you marks to. Now mix and match all of the above. Your list ought to be rolling now. Note, there are tons of tools on the web that help with combining phrases or identifying new ones.

Getting keywords in the right places may mean checking with your web designer, but basically, it means putting them in body copy, headers (H1, H2, H3, etc.), in the page title, as ALT tags on images, in TITLE tags for links, lists, in bold and italic. Also, put absolute links on your pages to other pages on your site and make sure each page of your site uses different keywords in the title and META tags. Many people use the same info for all pages and that is not ideal.

So now you should have a bunch of key phrases and your website should be optimized for those phrases. Stay tuned for the next post, where I'll discuss link building!

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Page Progressive, LLC: Web. Print. Smart.

What is Twitter and Why Should I Care?

When I first heard of Twitter a couple years ago I thought "Nobody will ever use that!" Apparently I was wrong, as Twitter has become the "Next big thing" in the social media arena and is poised to outpace Facebook in the next year. I get asked a lot from our clients what Twitter is, so here's a brief explanation to the non-tweeters out there.

Twitter is basically a micro blog. So instead of writing a long, thought out post, you can keep it short and sweet. In fact, you have to as each "tweet" is only allowed 180 characters. You can tweet text, links and even photos and you can do it from your computer and even from your cell phone.

So why tweet? Good question. It's a great way to let friends and family know what you're up to and share the little things that happen in your day. Often people use it for sharing a random funny thought or a great website link or a photo of their kids. Professionally it's a great way to find other people with similar interests and learn from them and share things you've found to be helpful too. Often people use Twitter for posting questions to friends and colleagues as well.

Recently Twitter added the ability to search tweets. This is huge. Now you can see trends of what people are talking about right this second, unlike searching on Google and finding pages that were indexed days or even weeks ago. It's like a giant, world-wide chat room. For example, your wife may be a huge American Idol Fan (This is all hypothetical, of course).  You could search on the term "Idol" and find what a bazillion other people are talking about right that second regarding American Idol. And it's usually pretty amusing.Will Twitter replace Google....I doubt it, but it does have it's place for searching for things that are very time sensitive, like news.

So anyway, it's a very interesting piece of technology and definitely worth checking out. if you'd like to follow Page Progressive on Twitter, click here, or to follow Daniel Trimpey, Click here.

 

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Page Progressive, LLC: Web. Print. Smart.

PDF Files Now Allowed in Google Docs

For those of you out there using Google Apps, you may have noticed that Google has added a lot of new features lately, like working in Google Docs and email offline, and templates for presentations, spreadsheets and forms. One thing I'm pretty excited about is Google Docs now allows PDF file uploads, in addition to word processing, spreadsheet and presentation files. So if you have a nice, jazzy PDF of a price list, newsletter or sales sheet, you can post it in Google Docs and share it with your staff or clients. I feature I've been waiting for for a long time. You still can't edit PDF files....but I wouldn't be suprized to see that feature coming soon.

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Page Progressive, LLC: Web. Print. Smart.

News Module Now Posts to External Blogs!

One of the painful parts of getting your company information out there on the web for better Google page rank is manually posting news and other information to the main blogs out there, such as Blogger and Wordpress. Since Blogger has the feature to post items via email, we've added a new feature to our news module that send out an email every time you post something new. So that means that if you are using our CMS and it's now updated News module, your Blogger account will update automatically with the new post. That means more exposure for you, with no extra work. As for Wordpress and Facebook, they can subscribe to your news RSS feed, so those can get updated automatically too. Cool, eh?
Page Progressive, LLC

Technigrafa Now Page Progressive!

As of the first quarter of 2008, Technigrafa will begin transitioning to the new name "Page Progressive, LLC."

This transition is the result of a rebranding strategy that primarily focused on trademarking the new business name. Unfortunately, as much as we loved it, Technigrafa could not be trademarked and with the tremendous growth of the company the last 2 years we felt a trademark was an important step in protecting our brand.

This transition will not affect our clients in any way. Our services and ownership remains unchanged and our commitment to excellence is as strong as ever.

Page Progressive - Print design, web design and web hosting in Raleigh, NC

Web-based Photo Editing

I've now seen it all...As web 2.0 apps become more and more capable with new tecnologies like AJAX and Flex, the world of computing will become a very different place. Take Fauxto, for example. It's a web-based photo editing tool that may give Photoshop Elements a run for it's money. Another promising photo editing app is Picnik. And these apps appear to be free, although still in beta. Don't you just love the internet? ;-)

Technigrafa
Print design, web design and web hosting in Raleigh, NC
919.374.3014
toll-free: 1.877.GRAFA.NC

Macs Just Rule

Well, I must admit that I've always been partial to Macs. My first post-DOS "real" computer in college was an old PowerComputing Mac clone. I even worked as a Mac technician at my college. But when I first started my business, I bought a killer 17" LCD Toshiba PC laptop because I thought that a PC might be better, since the business world seems to prefer PCs. And, don't get me wrong, it's been a great machine. But recently we replaced our home computer with a Mac Mini and there's nothing that really demonstrates the superiority of a Mac to a PC until you have them sitting next to each other and you try to do the same thing on both machines.

For example, I have a Windows Mobile phone: a Motorola Q. When I first got it, I was surprised at how easy it was to sync with my PC laptop. I installed the utility that came with the phone and plugged it in and my calendar and contacts just synced with Outlook, the way it should be. Wow, that was easy. Great!

Now, here's where it got hairy. I use Google Calendar, as it's great because I can have several shared calendars and my wife can put things on our calendar from her work. That gave it an advantage over Outlook, and besides that, Outlook, although powerful as it is, is a bloated piece of software and after having the PC for 6 months, the whole system was getting sluggish. Keep in mind that this machine was top of the line 6 months earlier. So I was starting to get tired of waiting on Outlook to render my calendar. So I needed a way to sync my Google calendar with my Outlook calendar. After a web search, I found CompanionLink, which sounded like it would do what I needed. 2-way syncing. So I bought this utility and installed it. To my dissatisfaction, I had to manually run the CompanionLink program everytime I wanted to sync the calendars, and Outlook had to not be open when I ran it, otherwise I got an error. At first it worked pretty well, but then the syncs started taking HOURS to complete. What's that all about? So I pretty much had to remember to run the update utility at the end of the day...which never happened.

My laptop was acting a little screwy yesterday, so I thought, I wonder if I can sync my phone to the Mac Mini, which I'd had for about 6 months. I thought it would probably be a pain since it's a Windows Mobile phone, but I decided to do a little research. Although it wasn't quite as plug and play as I've found most things to be on the Mac, it was remarkably easy. I did have to purchase The Missing Sync utility to allow my Windows Mobile phone to sync with my Mac's Calendar, contacts, etc. But I installed it, plugged in my phone, and voila, it synced perfectly. And to my ecstatic discovery, I could even automatically sync iTunes playlists (and photos) with my phone, and now every time I sync my phone The Missing Sync Utility will look and see when the last time my playlist was updated, and according to my settings, if it's time, it will automatically refresh the music on my phone with new MP3s from my selected iTunes playlist. I can even tell it to leave a certain amount of space on my phone's memory, so it doesn't fill it completely up with MP3s. Wow.

Okay, so my phone syncs with my Mac, and it's just as easy as it was on my PC. Now for the hard part, getting iCal on the Mac to sync with Google Calendar. Enter Spanning Sync. Yes, this is another utility I had to pay for, but I had to pay for the PC utility too, so I can't count that as a drawback. Here's the good part. I installed the utility and hit sync, and voila my iCal was synced both ways with all of my Google Calendars. AND it checks for updates regularly every hour, so I don't have to remember to sync anything. And it takes WAY less time than my PC did. Now I'm a happy, synced up guy.

So, yes, I know it's been a running debate since the beginning of time, but I have to admit, things are just easier to do on my Mac. Things work the way they are supposed to out of the box. My Mac boots up faster, and doesn't get horribly sluggish when I leave it on for weeks at a time without a reboot, unlike my PC which almost grinds to a halt if I don't reboot every day. My Mac interface looks cooler than Windows XP on my laptop (and better than Vista from what I've seen of it) and Macs are less susceptible to virii and other malware. I guess it just comes down to one thing: I love my Mac.

So, although I'll need to keep a PC around to do browser checks on the websites we're developing, my next purchase this fall is going to be a MacBook Pro. The "fun" part will be converting my copy of Adobe CS to a Mac version, as I upgrade to CS3. But after this experience, I know that it will be worth it, and probably not near as tricky as I fear.

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Technigrafa
Print design, web design and web hosting in Raleigh, NC
919.374.3014
toll-free: 1.877.GRAFA.NC

Google Tools

I can't get enough of Google. They just keep on cranking out great web-based tools! I'm lovin' it! My most recent discoveries are Google Checkout, Google Analytics, Picasa Web Albums. While most of these services are not new (except to me), I've added these to my growing list of other free tools from Google:

iGoogle - a customized search start page. You can fill this thing up with all kinds of RSS feeds from your favorite sources, and then organize them onto different tabs. There are tons of Google widgets you can add too, for showing a daily Bible study, local weather, movie times, your Gmail inbox, and just about anything else you can think of.

Gmail - Simply the best free webmail around.

Google Talk - A great IM program so you can chat with all of your friends.

Google Maps - My favorite mapping website of choice. The drag around feature is great, and their new "Street view" blows me away!

The Picasa Web Albums give you a free GB of storage for your images online. You can share any album, and it's a breeze to edit captions. And of course every image is searchable. And if you are a Mac user and use iPhoto, there's even a plugin for exporting images to Picasa web albums.

Google Analytics is a tool that lets you track ALL KINDS of information about people who are visiting your website. What browser they are using, what country they are in, which search engines are bringing you the most hits, average time a user spends on your site...you name it. And it even ties in with Google Adwords if you are paying for advertising.

And finally, Google Checkout, which lets you buy things online more securely (similar to Paypal) shop faster and even sell items. When you checkout from your favorite online vendor, if they support Google Checkout, you can keep your email address private and Google will relay emails to your account and if you start getting spammed, you can turn that store's unwanted emails off.

All-in-all, Google gets my award for the company producing the coolest stuff on the web. And most of it is FREE! Does it get any better?

Accepting Payments Online

We do a lot of e-commerce websites and one thing that many people don't know that if you want to sell something online, you need to have what's called a "merchant account" with a payment company. Your payment company might be your bank or another organization like PayPal. If you go with a bank (will will set you up with a payment processor like Verisign or Authorize.net), you'll most likely get better transaction rates. For example, with Paypal, there is roughly a 3% transaction fee, where as most other merchants charge around 2.2%. BUT, most banks will have a monthly fee of around $40, where Paypal does not. So if you anticipate moving a lot of product, or large amounts, a credit card merchant other than Paypal may be ideal. Keep in mind Paypal, as well as other credit card merchants, have several different plans, so this is a generalization, for simplicity's sake.

An advantage of Paypal, other than there not being a monthly fee (unless you get one of their higher plans), is it is quite easy and quick to set up. Create a new Paypal account and then you have to link your account to your bank account, so you can make deposits from your Paypal account to your bank (which is something you have to do manually, but there is no charge for it). Then you verify your account by entering in the amount of two small deposits Paypal will make into your linked account. This is how they make sure you indeed own that bank account. If you don't link to a bank account, Paypal can mail you a check, but there is a small fee for that service.

So it's best to shop around with credit card merchants and get the best rate you can, but also make sure it is compatible with whatever shopping cart system you may have.

The Battle on Spam Rages On...

It's been a while since I posted last, because, well, we've been crazy busy! We recently upgraded our hosting package in order to add several new spam blocking applications, and I have to say that it is working amazingly so far - and we're not even done yet. We have established a real-time black list (among other things) that actively checks all emails to see if they are being sent from a server known for spamming. If you want all the juicy details, read this.

Anyway, just thought you may want to know that we're always doing our best to keep up with spam. We hate it more than you do (believe it or not ;-)

Back in the Classroom Again...

Well, I have to admit, I was a little nervous to get back in the front of the classroom again, but it turned out to be a great experience. This morning I volunteered at East Millbrook Magnet Middle School. They had "Career Day" and asked me to come speak to three groups of 8th graders about owning a graphic design business.

Overall, I don't think I bored then completely to death ;-) Most of the kids seemed pretty interested. It makes me miss my teacher days...

AVG Antivirus update and Pando

Recently a friend told me about Pando, a program that lets you send files up to 1GB for free to someone else that has Pando. It's free and easy to install and plugs right in to most email programs, so it's very convienent to use. And due to the limited capability of email - which takes forever to send big files and sometimes doesn't even work, Pando is an excellent alternative.

Also, Grisoft is releasing it's new 7.5 version of it's antivirus program. I've been using the 7.1 version for some time and it's been great. There is a free version of 7.5 available here for personal use. It even runs on Linux :-) If you run Windows and don't have any antivirus program, I highly recommend this one. In fact, I recommend running two antivirus programs in Windows, since Windows users are almost always the target of virus attacks. Don't forget to scan for spyware and adware too!

Technigrafa
Print design, web design and web hosting in Raleigh, NC
919.374.3014
toll-free: 1.877.GRAFA.NC

Technigrafa Gets Design Award from the XOOPS Community

Hooray! Technigrafa received XoopsFactory's award for top XOOPS site for the month of September. The site received 52% of the vote from the XOOPS community.

Click here to read the announcement.

Thanks goes out to Marcan at Inbox International and Jeff at ThirdEye Software for their support!

Technigrafa
Print design, web design and web hosting in Raleigh, NC
919.374.3014
toll-free: 1.877.GRAFA.NC

Paypal Scams (aka Phishing) and Identity Theft

I'm sure you've gotten emails that look like they are from someone they aren't. Many scammers send out mail posing to be from a bank. Paypal is notoriously spoofed. The basic rule of thumb to identify these spoofs is if the email starts with "Dear Paypal User." Paypal emails will always be addressed to your real name. Don't be fooled by links that look like http://www.paypal.com in the emails. It might look legit, but often the link really takes you to a site that looks just like Paypal's site, but instead collects your Paypal account info so they can later rob your account.

If you get one of these emails, posing to be from Paypal, but obviously are not, forward it to spoof@paypal.com and they will track down the scammer.

Here's some tips from Paypal on how to handle other Paypal Scams:

Please follow the instructions below to report an unauthorized transaction associated with your PayPal account:

If you are able to log into your PayPal account:

1. Log in to your account at https://www.paypal.com
2. Select the "Resolution Center" subtab.
3. Click "Open a dispute."
4. Select "Unauthorized transaction," then click "Continue."
5. Enter or select the transaction ID for the transaction you would like to dispute, then click "Continue."
6. Complete the report for Unauthorized Use on a PayPal Account, then click "Continue."
7. Confirm that the claim is correct, then click "Submit."

If you cannot log in to your account, follow the instructions below to report an unauthorized transaction associated with your PayPal account:

1. Go to https://www.paypal.com/
2. Click on the "Security Center" link located at the bottom of any page.
3. Under the "Report a Problem" column, click on "Unauthorized Transaction."
4. Click "Continue" under "Unable to log in?"
5. Confirm that the transaction in question is unauthorized then click "Continue."
6. Complete the report for Unauthorized Use on a PayPal Account, then click "Preview."
7. Confirm that the claim is correct, then click "Submit."
8. Confirm your account ownership by entering the financial information requested, then click "Continue."

Lastly, we recommend taking a few steps to protect yourself from identity theft:

1. Download the SafetyBar, a toolbar for Outlook and Outlook Express, which identifies known spoof emails.
2. Get eBay Toolbar with Account Guard which warns you when you're on a potentially fraudulent (spoof) Web site.
3. Sign up for Equifax Credit Alerts for PayPal Users, a program that provides an early warning detection system in the event of identity theft. Find out more by visiting the PayPal Identity Protection Center at www.paypal.com/idprotection.
4. Frequently monitor your PayPal account for suspicious activity.

Technigrafa
Print design, web design and web hosting in Raleigh, NC
919.374.3014
toll-free: 1.877.GRAFA.NC

Firefox 2 Released

Firefox 2 was released recently and offers a slew of security and performance improvements. The main user interface change I've noticed is tabs now have their own button to close them, rather than using the "master" close tab icon that was on the right in earlier releases.

If you aren't using the Firefox web browser yet, WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU!!! :-) It really is way better than Internet Explorer. And it's FREE!

Get it here, or upgrade if you have an older version.

OSCommerce Shopping Cart Book

One of the shopping cart systems we utilize often is OSCommerce, for many reasons. One, it's been around a long time and is very stable and there are a lot of plugin contributions readily available. Two, it's open source. And three, we work regularly with an amazing OSCommerce programmer - Monika, who recently wrote this book.

It does a great job of providing easy to understand instructions on how to modify the OSCommerce shopping cart. I recommend it heartily and if you are interested in customizing OSCommerce - this is a must have book.

Technigrafa Now a Member of the BBB

Technigrafa is now a member of the Eastern North Carolina Better Business Bureau. The BBB is a great organization to belong to because it is recognized by many people as a reputable company that makes sure that it's members are also reputable companies. Becoming a member allows you to use their logo in your printed materials as well as on your website, which is important to establish credibility for your company.

You must have been in business for over a year and agree to their terms reguarding operating your business in a moral manner. Of course there is a yearly membership fee as well, based on how many employees your company has.

You can sign up for the BBB Online program here, but remember, you must be a member of a local chapter as well.

Daniel Trimpey
President of Technigrafa, LLC
Print design, web design and web hosting in Raleigh, NC
919.374.3014
toll-free: 1.877.GRAFA.NC

Starting a Business - What do I do first?

Being in the logo design & branding field, we run into a lot of people who are starting up a small company and need to get their promotional items created (business cards, brochures, web site, etc.) A lot of the time it can be confusing knowing exactly what you need to do to start up a business right.

Here are a few tips to make sure you get everything set up right. This is by no means a complete list, or a sequential list, but just a set of recommendations based on some common problems we run into with clients and some lessons we've learned well from our own experiences:

1) Get Ready to Spend Money
It's true that you have to spend money to make money. It may be tempting to go the cheap route, but if you want your business to succeed, I've found that doing it right the first time is worth the money your spend up front. If you try to cut corners, you may not be real happy with the results. Get a loan and pay off these expenses later when you have money coming in. At least you can know that you are putting your best foot forward and you're not sabotaging your business's success over the relatively minimal amount of money you need to spend up front to develop a good image for your company.

2) Pick a good company name
It sounds simple, but it can be one of the hardest tasks you face. You want a name that reflects the services or products you offer, but you also want to be catchy. That's tough. A good trademark attorney will help you with this process, and this leads to a very valuable point: Trademark your company name! This is a painful (and sometimes costly) process, but a good idea because it keeps another company for taking you to court over your name and it keeps other companies from stealing glory from you by resembling your business. If you own a small bait & tackle shop on the edge of a lake in the middle of no where, trademarking your business may not be so important, but we're not all so.... err.... lucky.

There are two primary ways to trademark your business:

1. Text only
2. Stylized graphic logo

These are both necessary to protect your name and your logo. Your text trademark will be evaluated to make sure it doesn't resemble or sound like any other registered trademarks. Especially other companies that are similer to yours in what services or products they offer. The stylized trademark takes into account your font, colors and any other graphical elements in your logo. You can't change these things after you apply without resubmitting another application, so make sure you get it right the first time! It'll cost you around $325 to trademark each method. A trademark attorney will help you search for a clear name and logo and file the paperwork for you, although he'll charge you waaaay more than $325 each. You can search for trademarks online at the US Patent and Trademark website here. Then you can submit your application here. NOTE: It can take up to a YEAR to find out if your trademark was approved and you have to pay your filing fee regardless if you get the trademark or not.

At this point you will probably need to get a federal tax ID for your business, or EIN. You also need to file with your local secretary of state to register your business name. You may also be required to get a business license/permit. Here is a good website for people in NC. You'll need to figure out if you want to do business as a sole proprietor, LLC, S-Corp, etc. too. Your accountant can help you with that and you can file online or get an attorney to help you. Then you can get a bank account as a DBA or "Doing Business As" if you are a sole proprietor or get a bank account in the name of your corporation if you incorporate. Usually you need to do business for about 2 years before a bank will let you open a company bank account. DBAs are immediately available to you though. Also note that if you incorporate later, you'll need to get another tax ID and your bank account will have to be closed and reopened with the new ID. Fun!

3) Get your Logo and Branding Done
This step goes hand-in-hand with the second step. Find a graphic design company that does logos, corporate identity and branding and get a logo created that you really like and you feel represents your business well. They should work with your attorney to make sure your logo doesn't conflict with another logo that is already trademarked. This is the building point for all your marketing materials. To have a consistent corporate identity, you want to get your logo on everything you put out there: business cards, letterhead, website, etc. Why is corporate identity important? Why can't you just put out generic marketing materials? Well, you can, but studies show that people need to see (or hear about) your company up to seven times before company recognition occurs. Having consistent branding helps to build credibility and help people remember you. Think "The golden arches" or the Nike "Swoosh."

4) Market your Business
Whether you find a marketing agency or do this yourself, you need to figure out how you are going to promote your new business. Believe it or not, just getting some business cards and a website most likely won't bring a mass exodus of customers to knock down your door. You have to get the word out. There are many ways to do this, such as press releases, phonebook ads, online ads, TV and radio, ads, etc. A marketing company can help you determine where your money is best spent to get the most return on your investment. Your marketing agency will work with your designer to develop good marketing materials like postcards, flyers, brochures, etc. They can also help you figure out where postcards need to be sent and where you can send email promotions to get the best response. Note: Marketing companies, despite what they tell you, are not always the best equipped to design your marketing materials. Some marketing companies have good internal design teams or contract out with good design agencies, but often you can run into pretty unimpressive stuff if you don't get a designer involved.

There are also many other things you can do to get the word out like joining your local Chamber of Commerce, attend trade shows, etc. Networking in this way can prove to be very valuable and it's pretty inexpensive.

5) Run Your Business Well
Well, duh! If you don't do a good job of running your business, all of the above will be for naught. Sure, you'll make a few mistakes along the way, but don't let that keep you from forging ahead. Make sure you get a good attourney to take care of any legal concerns, get some insurance for your company - and you may want to look into disability and health insurance while you're at it. Your accountant can help advise you on setting up a retirement account too. Better safe than sorry!

One of the keys to running any business successfully is to provide friendly and prompt customer service. So establishing a way to handle that up front is important. Impersonal phone systems, busy signals and answering machine messages are usually going to send a cold message to your customers. People are starved for good customer service these days and most people don't mind spending a little extra money to know that they are being taken care of well.

Daniel Trimpey
President of Technigrafa, LLC
Print design, web design and web hosting in Raleigh, NC
919.374.3014
toll-free: 1.877.GRAFA.NC