Last February, I received a call from a man in Wisconsin asking about my writing services. He was particularly interested in having me rewrite the copy on his Web site. I was very surprised and wondering how in the heck he got my name. Then he mentioned something about my being my Internet hosting service's "customer of the month." I was very pleasantly surprised. After I spoke with him, I logged onto my email and there was an e-newsletter from my host server. And, yes, I was the "customer of the month," and my Web site was the featured site for the month.

Of course, I quickly hastened to my site and checked the traffic. I was up to over 300 visits to my home page for the morning, and the day was to end with 796 visits! I don't believe I'll ever see numbers like that again. I also received several other calls from people interested in my services.

It wasn't a complete surprise that my site was featured. Last year, I had filled out a "success story" response form on the company's site. I was later interviewed and told that I would be used as a case study. But the case study never materialized so I had forgotten about it. Thus I was very pleased when my site landed in their e-newsletter as the featured site.

My host is one of many companies where you can register domain names and get your business online. They will build a site for you; or, if you are cheap like me, you can build your own.

When I began my business a few years ago, I waited a whole year for my brother who owns an ad agency in L.A. to professionally build my Web site for free. Now he's kind of successful, and he didn't get that way by doing a lot of free work for relatives. At the time, my server was doing a lot of radio advertising claiming you could "build your Web site in 20 minutes." One day after nagging my brother once more, he became exasperated and said, "Why don't you just build your own."

So I did. I called the company and they provided templates and lots of help. I chose an animated template with a layout ideal for showcasing a portfolio. There was a bit of a learning curve. I had to play around and call for help a few times. It took me longer than 20 minutes; yet, technically, the commercial was accurate: you could really get a home page up with your contact info in 20 minutes. I believe I spent about 20 hours to get my Web site to the point where I was willing to "publish" it.

One of the advantages I have found about building your own Web site is that you don't have to rely on an outside Web Master to update it. Sometimes those fellows are swamped and it can take awhile. If I want to put a new project in my online portfolio, I can do it in a few minutes. Or if I want to add something new to my list of services, I can quickly type it in and it's done.

I found a huge difference in how I was perceived in the business community once I had a Web presence. Suddenly, I was taken seriously. These days when someone asks, "What's your Web address?" you should have it ready. And it should never be "under construction." Visitors find that very irritating. It's really not that hard to get a presentable Web site up.

As I mentioned earlier, there are numerous places where you can go to build a Web site. Just Google "do it yourself Web site" and you will get numerous options.

It is very inexpensive. My site costs me less than $100 a year for 20 pages. Some places are even cheaper. Compared to the thousands of dollars one can pay a Web designer, it's a sweet deal.

That's not to say that I don't believe in professionally designed Web sites. I still want one with more bells and whistles. I'm just waiting on my brother.

(Since initially writing this piece, my server has made the process even better. It's more professional, a lot more pages available ... and more bells and whistles.)

You put up a website to attract clients for your professional service business. Maybe you even put up a sales letter - a solo web page designed to promote an information product, tangible product, or seminar.

And so far...nothing! No takers. No sign-ups for your ezine. What's going on?

(1) Get solid evidence that people want your product -- and will buy it online.

Even on eBay and craigslist, some products go unsold. Some markets don't buy online, download ebooks or listen to mp3 files: they shop in brick and mortar stores, buy books at Borders and listen to CDs.

(2) Make sure you have targeted traffic coming to your site.

If you have no traffic...well, there's your answer. But not all traffic is equally valuable. Your keywords, positioning or referral site may be attracting visitors who are outside your target market.

(3) Encourage each visitor to begin building a relationship with you.

Often visitors won't buy on a first visit. So you need to invite them to sign up for an ezine, an ecourse, or even a downloadable manual. Some people read my ezine for over a year before they buy from me.

(4) Showcase unique, meaningful benefits for your target market.

Many professionals focus on how they deliver the service instead of how clients feel about their new lives. And you need to tell readers why you're unique - why nobody else can make the same offer.

(5) Make it easy for your visitors to say yes.

Believe it or not, when visiting other people's sites, I often have to hunt around for an order form when I'm eager, even desperate, to get my hands on a product. Ask visitors to buy...and consider adding some bright red arrows to point them in the right direction.

(6) Create a sense of urgency.

Ideally, your product or service reaches readers by connecting to their pain and their toughest challenges. But you also need to suggest reasons for buying today - not next week, not later.

(7) Test...and test some more. For example:

Test 2 or 3 versions of your headline. Sometimes a news-oriented headline actually works better than a sales-oriented headline or vice versa.

Test backgrounds. I once tripled sign-ups to my ezine by changing the background color.

Test the small stuff. Once I compared two google adwords ads. I changed the spelling of one word in the headline - from midlife to mid-life. The hyphenated version attracted 40% more clickthroughs. Go figure.

Bottom Line: Even when experts create your marketing message, you need to keep evaluating the effectiveness of your marketing materials, especially your website. The Internet gurus share one passion: testing and revising. They're constantly enhancing their sites and their messages. And the rest of us need to do the same.

Good content is a key factor that determines the success of any website. It is therefore very important that a website should host good and appropriate content in it's pages. There are various factors such as uniqueness, freshness and keyword usage that determine the effectiveness and appropriateness of web content.

Uniqueness of content ensures that the content is found only in your website. This should be specifically tailor-made for your website. Take your own time to prepare this in a most appealing manner. The time and effort you are putting in developing the content will give you good returns in the long run.

A fresh content tries to deal with a subject in a more interesting way. It helps to retain your visitors in your site and prompts them to spend more time there. The more time a visitor spent in your site, the more are the chances to generate a sale from your website.

Keywords are very important as far as any content development process is concerned. Search engines find more value in keywords. This is the major difference web content have with printed content. When you are writing for a website you are not only targeting visitors but also the Search Engines. Keywords lure the search engines to the web pages your website contains. The main challenge in good development is to make sure that you are not loosing quality and purpose of the content while developing your content with keywords. Identifying the keywords for your site should be done carefully. Research on potential keywords for your site with some keyword analysis tools is helpful. Traffic data analysis is also helpful in determining the selection of keywords for your Web Pages.

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