1. Awesomesauce
   This is a term that is gaining traction recently, and it just needs to stop. If you want a better word for ‘awesome’, use thesaurus.com.
   Urban Dictionary Definition for Awesomesauce
2. Rock star
   I’ll admit, I call myself a wanna-be rock star. BUT, I mean it. I have a electric Fender guitar and I dream of rocking. I do not mean I’m a web design rock star, or a marketing rock star, or whatever kind of rock star applies to your industry/niche.
3. Maven
   This one is certainly not new… and has just gained in annoyance. I know for most it’s just another way of labeling oneself a “guru”, but it’s not doing you any favors. And… while we’re on the subject…
4. Guru
   Another oldie, but NOT a goodie. You become a guru automatically when you are a recognized leader in your field — not when you label yourself as such.
5. Queen
   This one makes me laugh when I see it. From a marketing standpoint, it’s truly horrid. Honestly, it makes me think of “bitch”. And another related term….
6. Diva
   Another term that, to me, invokes the feeling of high-maintenance and that B word I dropped on #5 (I thought it might be a little too harsh to say it twice). The Urban Dictionary definition confirms my feelings on this one.
7. Winning
   My mother has this saying… “It was funny the first time, cute the second time, but enough.” That’s how I feel about this. Charlie Sheen made the term “cool” for the typical 15 minutes, but now it’s enough already.
8. Epic – submitted by @LRStrategies of Legal Resource Strategies.
   I couldn’t agree more with this one – another that has just got to go. Epic is generally reserved for poetry, or things of a great size or extent (see definition for epic here). Your webinar, score on Angry Birds, new iPhone 4G… is NOT epic.

I know I must be missing some good ones — please leave a comment and if your suggestion is one of those that just has to go, I’ll add it to the list and attribute you.

Now, I can’t promise that I’ll be going day-by-day through this program… I may do two or three days at once, and then nothing for a couple of days… but ultimately I will make it through this program to ensure that I have a focus — which is helping you make the transition and take the necessary steps from launch to lavish.

Getting your site live is just the very first step. It’s the next steps that you take which will determine your website’s success.

Please revisit often to make sure you receive all the valuable information that will be shared here. You can also follow me on twitter or signup to receive blog updates via email (sent once, weekly).

Have something specific you have a question on? Please contact me and I’ll cover it in an upcoming blog post.

Here’s how to set them up:

1. Go to http://www.google.com/alerts and sign in with your Google account. If you don’t already have a Google account, please go ahead and sign up for one.
2. After logging in, please click on the button, “create new alert”. If you already have alerts created, you will see these listed before this button.
3. At the top, in the area that looks like a search field, add your keyword or phrase. You will want to use phrases that are highly relevant to your business. For example, if you offer wedding photography services in the Boston area, Boston Wedding Photographer might be a good phrase, or you could go even more general with Photographer in Boston.
4. On Type, select ‘Everything”. We’re mainly interested in only News, Blogs, and Discussions, but by selecting Everything we can just set up the alert once and receive one email for the search terms.
5. For How Often, select ‘Once a Day’. It’s important for you to review the results while they are still fresh and recent.
6. For Volume, select ‘All Results’. You never know what Google might find for you, so it’s certainly better to simply disregard irrelevant results.
7. Select the email address you would like the results sent to under Deliver To. You will want to make sure this is an email account you regularly check. (If you want to have the emails sent to a different address than what is available in the drop down select, either forward your gmail address, or add another email to your Google account.
8. Click ‘Create Alert’.
9. Repeat for a variety of search terms.

And that’s it! But, now that you have these alerts coming to your email, what are you supposed to do with them? That part is easy, too! You will want to scan these results daily, looking for forum discussions, blog posts, and news articles — and then you participate in the discussions. When adding your comment, make sure you’re also adding your URL in the appropriate area to get that backlink to your site.

Adding this to your daily regimen will help to continually create backlinks to your site, increase your website traffic (those intrigued in what you have to say will want to visit your site to learn more), and help you be discovered by your target markets.

Note of Caution: Make sure you’re adding value or insight to the conversations you’re participating in. Spammy comments will not only make you look bad, but they will most likely be deleted.

Enter the star of the show, the Google Keyword Tool.

So, I have a thing for Vin Diesel — let’s say I’m creating a site that will feature sexy pictures of Vin Diesel. I open up the Google Keyword Tool, and want to see the results for “sexy pictures of Vin Diesel”. So I enter this in the ‘Word or phrase’ section, and hit the search button.

The Google Keyword Tool then does its thing, and pops up the details of the term we entered, which is shown at the top of the list in bold, along with other suggestions based on that term. The important column to look at is the number of Global Monthly Searches. Now, 73 isn’t all that great to base an entire website on and this also does not factor in the competition that already exists for this term (this tool is not a reliable way to determine competition). But, at least I’m not alone with my love for Vin Diesel. Now, the first suggestion from the tool is the term “vin diesel pictures” which gets 2,900 searches a month. That’s a big difference.

There are times where the term will have no global monthly searches at all, which brings me back to SEO guy, as this was the case there.  Here’s an example of what you would see:

This is only a very basic overview of how to make sure the term you are optimizing your site for is actually used and to keep yourself from getting scammed from the so-called professionals like SEO guy. Full-blown keyword research is much more involved with hundreds of keywords and also includes research on the competition levels.

Now don’t get me wrong, there are sites that can cash in using AdSense — whether it be a blog, a news site, or what have you — but for the love of your business, don’t put Google AdSense on your business site. There are probably a kazillion reasons why this is a really bad idea, but here are the biggies:

1. Using Google AdSense sends visitors away from your site. I should repeat that or add an erie echo for dramatic effect, but I think you get the idea that this is huge. As a business owner, sending visitors away from your site should never, eeeeeeeeeeeeever be something you want to do. Yes, you will get ~$1 for the click, but is it worth it to lose a potential sale or client? And, it’s not just that one client you lose either; you’re losing much more when you factor in referral opportunities.
2. Using AdSense on your small business website dilutes your message. It’s already hard enough to get your message across to your target market, why make it harder on yourself when you’re bombarding them with other, quite likely unrelated or competing, offerings?
3. You’re not going to make any money. For all that you’re already losing by having Google AdSense on your website, you’re losing even more, because you’re not going to make any real income from it. Hopefully when someone comes across your site, they are seeking an answer to their problems and that answer should be your business — not an ad. Your click-through rates are not going to match those of the high traffic blogs and informational sites.
4. Using AdSense on your site looks downright unprofessional. When I see a business owner using the service to put ads on their site, it’s a credibility crusher and a turn off.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t embed the original video I wanted to use, but here it is for your viewing pleasure: Bill Engvall’s Here’s Your Sign.

Small Biz Web Whiz was created as a “sister” company to my virtual assistant company, A Virtual Edge. It got to the point that I thought the A Virtual Edge was trying to do too much, so I branched out. Now all our web design work will be done by Small Biz Web Whiz, with A Virtual Edge strictly promoting administrative and marketing support. A content revamp will be in the works shortly for AVE.

Please take a look around the new site, check out our recently updated portfolio and leave a comment and let me know what you think! And of course, I hope you’ll help me spread the word to anyone who might need a new website, or a revamp of their current site.

Stay tuned to our blog for more ramblings from me… and for important and useful info, too!