Let's say you have a website. You probably feel pretty good about it. You have a presence. People can find you. You're out there. Sure, these are all good things; the only problem is everyone has a website. A website is the bare minimum.

A website is only just enough.

As a small business owner, as an entrepreneur as an upstart you must standout. You are the underdog. Underdogs don't out hustle the more established folks by doing just enough. And if you only have a website, you are only doing just enough.

Want to build your business and exceed your goals?

Do more than just enough.

Hold on, let's get down to it. If you consider how advanced the internet has become in just the last 5 years, if you only have a company website you aren't doing just enough.

You're doing less than enough.

You're doing enough to exist, but not enough to excel.

You're doing enough to be counted, but not enough to go over the top.

I'm sorry. I really like you. I wish you the best, but the truth is you're behind the curve.

You can change it, but to do that, first you need to change how you see the web and the possibilities. You've got to decide if you're serious about your business? Is your business concept a winner or a loser? Can it work? Is it working? What to do about it? More of the same isn't the answer. Making your website more pretty isn't going to cut it. You need to diversify.

I may be blunt, but I'm not exaggerating. Like John McCain says, "Time for some straight talk".

A business website should be only one piece of your web presence. You should also have a presence on every social networking website out there. You should have articles related to your business all across the information superhighway. You should belong to all the major (and some not so major) business networking sites. You should have a video on YouTube, a Face book, a MySpace and a Squidoo page. You should be everywhere other business owners congregate, share ideas, exchange referrals and talk shop.

You must be there.

No excuses.

No exceptions.

Sure, it takes time to set up marketing mechanisms across the many websites that are available, but it's time well invested because your company website isn't the end all to be all of generating buzz and finding leads on the internet, your website is just the beginning.

Make a commitment to your business and cease and desist looking at those social networking sites as options. They aren't options, they are necessities.

If you need more reasons to justify putting your resources into more than a company website, just take a look at Barack Obama's surge. Obama-mania owes much of its energy and support to the social networking sites that it uses. Get involved and secure some of that same viral power for your business. 99% of it is free and 100% of it is good business.

Welcome to the first day of your new way of looking at promoting your business on the net.

Go get started yesterday.

If you are considering building your own website and do not know anything about building or designing websites the fast way to learn is getting involved with a tutorial of some kind. Learn from somebody that already knows how things are done and just follow their examples as you start building your website. There are two way to go, you can find a e-book Dreamweaver course or a Video course where Dreamweaver is explained.

Both ways will work it all up to you to find the best way that will help you get started the fastest, I have included a few mistakes that you want to avoid when building your first website with dreamweaver.

1) Splash pages

Splash pages are the first pages you see when you arrive at a website, normally with a big image or something like this. These pages does not make much sense when building your site as you always have to keep in mind how does navigation works for my visitors and how does search engines like Google see my page. So if you can avoid it do not make a splash page as your index.htm page.

2) Banner advertisements

If you want to make money with your website, then AdSense will make the most sense for your users, banner ads takes up a lot of space and history tells us that people do no click on them. So don't waist your space on banner ads.

3) Clear navigation

Navigation on your website is very important for your customers but even more important for your search engine ranking. By making easy 1-click navigation is a must on all pages. If your customers do not know how to navigate your site people will not see what you want them to see. So forget flash and drop down menus

4) Clear indication of where the user is

When visitors are deeply engrossed in browsing your site, you will want to make sure they know which part of the site they are in at that moment. That way, they will be able to browse relevant information or navigate to any section of the site easily. Don't confuse your visitors because confusion means "abandon ship"!

5) Avoid using audio on your site

People will leave your site if they get loud audio from your site and they have to jump to turn down their speakers so avoid audio on your site.

So use the Dreamweaver tutorial to learn website building and saves alot of money by doing it yourself. Even if you don't know HTML or anything about building your own website you can learn it really fast by using an online tutorial.

Sites that require users to log in to access certain information and/or purchase products add an additional layer of potential complication to the usability process. To avoid potential visitor confusion and the possibility for errors, it is important that any login process requires little or no thought on the part of the site visitor.

Once logged in, you must be sure that visitors are able to find the information they want and expect to find. My Account pages need to provide visitors with access and ability to view and change personal information, as necessary.

Login Access

Access to any login page (or the login form itself) should be available consistently across all pages of the site. Be sure the form or link is obvious and easily differentiated from other areas of the web page.

Security

If the information behind your login contains sensitive data, you need to use the appropriate security protocols, assuring visitors that that you take their information's security seriously.

Registration

If visitors are not already registered a link to a new user registration form should be present. It's also smart to have a global link to "register" for any new visitors to the site.

Account benefits

Non registered visitors should be treated to benefits of account registration. This information should be located on the same page as the new user registration form.

Lost password

All login forms should contain an option to reclaim passwords and/or username should they have been forgotten. This information must also be passed securely.

Remember me

You can provide additional convenience (though less security) by giving visitors the option of checking a "remember me" box which will allow them to stay logged in indefinitely.

Privacy

Provide a link to your sites privacy information/policy near the login form submit button or email field. This gives your visitors confidence that you will treat their information with respect.

Status

The visitor's "logged in" status should be displayed at all times with a ready access to logout at their convenience. When additional security is necessary it's a good idea to automatically log them out after a set period of inactivity.

Change info

Once logged in, visitors should have access to change their user information, including usernames, passwords, contact info, payment details, etc.

Change confirmation

Once the visitor has submitted their information to be changed, provide a confirmation screen that shows the old and new info. This prevents errors and helps insure information remains accurate.

Financial details

Provide links to relevant financial information such as transaction history, invoices, balances, payment methods, etc. Provide printable version of this information.

Up-sell opportunities

Visitors that are logged in provide you an interested, captive audience. Consider discreetly utilizing up-sell opportunities - without being overbearing.

Subscribed services

Provide visitors access to the information/services to which they are subscribed. Also provide additional subscription options, if applicable.

Information management

Allow users to change the way they receive information, providing alternate methods such as snail mail, HTML or text based emails or to turning off communication entirely.

When visitors create an account with you they are making a commitment to you to enjoy the services or information that you provide. It's important not to let the usability process break down after visitors are committed. In fact, it's even more important to treat registered visitors respectfully and appropriately, ensuring they have access to the information they need. This develops long-term relationships and keeps them coming back.