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 published in LED Digest 2237: Building a Business Moderator Comment >> Mark Whitman's post, in issue 2234, certainly spurred a whirlwind discussion. As Mark himself indicated recently, that was part of the intent. The list was going through a bit of a lull, and needed some enlivening. The originally post makes several points, including the following (summarized): small business people are better at running biz issues than creating Web sites; do-it-yourself sites are barely sufficient at best and useless at worst; and many affiliate sites are nothing more than trash. Here's Eva Rosenberg's response: From: Eva Rosenberg Subject: Small Biz Sites As to your statement about small businesses not being able to create sites that are useful and hit high in the search engines - that's utter nonsense. The search engines, even Google, still respond well to good quality content. And small businesses have access to an assortment of packages to enable them to build their own sites. Frankly, I've gotten fed up with professional web designers. I've spent 10s of thousands of dollars on the 'pro's, who've only delayed the development of my sites, never delivered on their promises, always insisted on using their own re-designs of my time-tested and highly recognized logos, and simply didn't do the job. And never, ever created a site that required members to log in to access the wealth of the archived material. So I lost hundreds of thousands of subscribers because they never needed to sign in, or sign up, to get the newsletters or the articles. (Note: Traffic ranges from 50,000 - 200,000 page views per month) I took my sites back a few months ago. Picked up the MemberStar.com service and started moving the 20,000 plus pages of TaxMama.com to a new, temporary home at TaxTwist.com . (It will revert to TaxMama.com when the move is complete and all pages are reformatted.) Even without my having designed a proper masthead, just using one from an existing site I already had, the new site, TaxTwist.com, immediately hit the top of the search engines for key terms relating to one of my core products - the annual IRS licensing exam. It's searched for under a variety of names, and most of those searches point to the special section on TaxTwist.com devoted to news about the exam. As I say, good content attracts hits. In most of the other searches, where my site does not hit the top, several of the sites that do hit the first two pages link to, or recommend, my course. And not because I have a pretty, well-designed page. But because of the solidity of the content and the course. So, please, get off your high horse and open your mind. Even lowly businesses, with the packaged design tools available to them, can create sites that suit them and their client base without having to battle prima donna designers. And with the help of webhosts with 24/7 service, we can even get help, when we mess things up on the site. I must tell you, my experiences, being on my own this year, have been very, very refreshing. And the folks whose software I am using have been extremely responsive about modifications to the code or quick revisions to things. Far better than any web designer I've had - with no time wasted placating emotional tantrums. (Of course, if I could find someone who's good, has the time, will do what _I_ need and not what their ego insists upon, and is affordable, I am definitely open to hiring a competent webmaster so I could devote my time "do what they do best, run their business".) If I may add one thing, though? The easiest time I ever had with a site online, was when I was moderating the I-HelpDesk under the umbrella of John and Adam Audette. They took care of everything. All I had to do was sort through the posts and respond to people. That, my friends, was heaven! Comments (0)
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