I meet with a lot of people ready to jump into to a website business with some good, and some not so good ideas.  If you have a “killer” website idea and are ready to act, consider 7 lessons I’ve learned from first hand experience with small online startups.

Thoroughly know your website’s subject.
You have to have the chops. Be the best in what your building your site around. If you’re not the expert, find out how you can get the experts info on your site. Content is king and the king has to rule your domain.

Plan your marketing platform.
Do you have a twitter, facebook and youtube account? Today’s marketing is driven by the social media space. Your platform is the key to connect to your audience.

Test your assumptions.
What are you assuming about your idea or the marketplace that compels you to move forward? Is it possible your market is smaller than you think or don’t value what you want to provide as much as you’re hoping? Don’t build on online business from an assumption. Build one out of passion. In the end if you don’t kill it, you’re at least doing what you love and will make a living from it.

Check your expectations.
Think you’re going to have this site built and instantly make bank? Are you hiring a web agency and think you won’t have to do any heavy lifting? Expect to work…hard. Hustle is the only way you’ll build your brand and your business. Developing a site with a web agency requires a ton of time and attention on your part.

Whatever your business is, customer service is your only business.
There’s no substitute for making every one of your customers feel special.

Iterate and update your site quickly…or die.
Version one of your site won’t be perfect. Are you always making it better? Listen to your customers. Fix problems. Focus on usability instead of just being novel.

Throw away your 5 year business plan.
I strongly believe in goals, but longterm business plans won’t work for your new web business. Be reactionary to your new customers wants and needs. Change will come quickly.

BONUS: Understand the process of building a website.
You have to understand the problem, plan the solution and execute. Your web agency is your partner, but they don’t know your business. Have your business structure in place, exploit your advantages and be ready to compete.

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Many of our clients ask us about “meta tags” when we perform fundamental search engine optimization techniques. Our reply? Don’t waste your time. Here’s the story of the death of the meta tag keywords attribute.

First a little history on the meta tag keywords attribute or what is popularly know as “meta tags”.

According to Wikipedia, the meta tag keywords attribute “was popularized in 1995 by search engines such as Infoseek and AltaVista.” Use of the meta tag keyword attribute quickly exploded until in late 1997, search engines realized the majority of information in meta tags like the keywords attribute was unreliable. This lead to dropping the support of the meta tag keywords attribute in 1998.

From 1998 till now, search engines have continued to drop support for the meta tag keywords attribute altogether. Google and Bing never supported it. Yahoo! drove the nail in the coffin by announcing at SMX East they stopped supporting the meta tag keywords attribute months ago.  We’re safe to call the meta tag keywords attribute dead in the water.

In fact, on page optimization, where you craft titles, descriptions, keywords and copy to be optimized for a specific topic has slowly dropped in importance. Take a look at the seoMoz 2009 search engine ranking factors survey and collectively only one on page optimization tactic, “Keyword Use Anywhere in the Title Tag”,  made the top five most important factors. What was number one? “Keyword Focused Anchor Text from External Links.”

What do you want to know about search engine optimization?

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I subscribe to the belief that any purchase decision is based on emotions. When you analyze all the different emotions that drives a purchase, the common denominator is to make your life better. This is a great place to start for your website content strategy.

What aspects of your product or service improves the lives of your customers? How can you increase these benefits?

If there’s only one message your website user should instantly understand, make it why your product or service is going to make their life better. Communicate that in the average 9 second time span you have their attention on your website homepage, and you’ll have a great chance at triggering an emotion that drives them further into your site.

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Last week Google redesigned the local business results ten pack, well formerly ten pack. Now it’s a seven pack, but we’ll get into those implications in a bit.

The local business results are the map plus business listings that appear when you search for a product or service local businesses provide. Google figures, since you’re not going to travel to the ends of the earth for carpet cleaning or a dentist, they’ll show you local results along with or often above their national or global search results.

The old local business results ten pack was information rich, but user experience challenged. Take a look below at a screenshot of the former local business results design.

The information on the old local business results is packed together tightly.

The new local business results feel like a breath of fresh air for the weary searcher. You’ll see there’s still a ABC ordering system, though the new results have a map locator icon next to each listing. This makes scanning the listings so much easier. The white space between each listing helps you focus on each one individually. The map sized has increased as well, further separating each listing icon on the map for an easier sense of location.

New local business results.

As you can see the changes also made the entire pack taller. Google compensated by eliminating three of the listings—from ten to seven. Our jump from ninth to fifth on the list when searching for “web design” in Orlando helped us stay in the new pack, though if you’re not in the top seven, you’re no longer on page one. Local search optimization is that much more critical now that this change increased competition for the top seven spots.

Got it, now what?

Is your company or employer in the local search engines? How has it affected you?

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This is another official update to the original “Shift Happens” video. This completely new Fall 2009 version includes facts and stats focusing on the changing media landscape.

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Enjoy!

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Is social media a fad? Or is it the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution? Welcome to the World of Socialnomics.

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CNS Healthcare is on a mission to advance safe and effective pharmaceuticals to improve the quality of healthcare world-wide. And now with the fresh new face of their website launched, we expect CNS to reenter the healthcare industry with strength and confidence. CNS partnered with Rise to redesign and rebrand in an effort to match their advancements in the industry with their online presence.

The Rise Team has given CNS a new and exciting vibrant look, pertinent and dynamic content, significant layout updates and interactivity to improve the visitor experience and promote usability.

The site includes a new feature called the “Symptom Checker” that allows visitors to pinpoint their symptom to determine what medical condition they may be suffering as well as the ability to receive updated news and information about clinical trials pertaining to that condition.

An enhanced user experience has been designed for those with interest in participating in a clinical trial or people seeking education on various mental and medical conditions. The site was designed to help visitors more easily navigate the process of getting started in a clinical trial with step-by-step assistance and promote retention while reducing the possibility of confusion.

“The new site is a reflection of our growth and continued improvement. It’s representative of our pace-setting approach to patient recruitment. Our vision is to be the best clinical trial company in America and our mission is to advance safe and effective pharmaceuticals in order to improve the quality of healthcare world-wide” stated Scott West, CNS Healthcare President and CEO. “The site ties in with our strategic long-term goals and was an important next step in the corporate rebranding that we initiated in January ‘09″, said Carrie Lockwood, CNS Healthcare Director of Marketing.

Be sure to check-in to CNS Healthcare and keep looking to Rise to prescribe the perfect cure for more “websick” websites!

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SpineNet will serve as a convenient and reliable arena for professionals and patients to inform, educate and network with others on important topics in spinal maladies.

Stay tuned as Rise gets closer to launching the new face of SpineNet.

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Innovators in woodworking at Micro Jig have teamed up with Rise to offer hobbyists and professionals an easy-does-it portal to purchase hits such as the GRR-Ripper and the MJ Splitter. Each of Micro Jig’s products showcase cutting-edge technology, making your projects easier and more enjoyable. And with the Rise Team in their tool belts they’re sure to help more handy men and women confront their woodworking worries and solve the unsolvable. Micro Jig’s unique approach and revolutionary design is sure to make a difference in the woodworking community, and Rise is happy to be along side them at the work bench.

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No hot tub a no-go? No problem! A beach house without a dog house a deal breaker? Got you covered! No matter what your stipulations are… Vacation Rental Station has it under control and at your fingertips.

Keep checking in for details as we draw closer to launch. The all new Vacation Rental Station promises all of the amenities a 4-star website delivers.

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