I can remember back to when I started my first website and I was so proud of myself.  I had bought a program that would help me design the site, and I created my masterpiece.  It definitely took some time to get it done and then I put it on the Internet for everyone to see.

But no one saw it.

Well, the truth of the matter was that I did not do any search engine marketing - in fact, I hadn’t the foggiest idea of what that meant.  The way that I thought that it would work is that I would just build my site and people would come to it automatically.

It wasn’t until I talked to a SEO company that I learned that I would have to market my site just like anyone with a business in the real world would.  With this knowledge in hand, I began to market my site with some help, and I was able to achieve some real world success.

I thought I would try making my own website instead of paying a company to do it for me.  With my background in computer science, I thought it would be the perfect test of my computer programming and web page design skills.

I’m not doing anything very elaborate, and I will just be setting up a simple fan site for one of my favorite rock bands, Nickelback.  It will basically have information regarding their tours, their albums, and have a forum for fans to discuss everything related to the band.

I have drawn up some mockups of the website and am in the process of creating the graphics and coding the layout of the final design.  So far, it is looking really good, and I think that the final product should be nothing short of amazing.  But, we will have to wait and see as I’m sure I’ll come across some problems along the way.

I have been considering selling some of the woodworking that I do for sale online.  I have been selling it for a couple of years around my home town, but I thought that if I were to open a webstore, I could sell more online.

I am not the most tech-savvy person in the world, but I did realize that I needed some storefront software to get things going.  I contacted my web host to see what they suggested and they told me that they recommended that I use ASP net shopping cart software.

I visited the site that they suggested and it looks like it will be easy to use for me.  I really wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t have to be a programming expert to get it to work, but it looks like everything should work smoothly.

I will still need to get someone to make a template for my site and get everything setup, but it feels good knowing that I am getting closer to my goal of selling my woodworking online.

For many years, our company has been dealing with a Canadian web design group to design all of our websites.  Our reasoning for that, was that with the high value of the American dollar, it was like we were getting a discount on every site that we had designed.

But since the value of the Canadian dollar has increased against the American dollar, we’ve decided to find a US-based web design company to do our work from now on.  Sure, it will cost us more to get our sites designed, but it will still be cheaper than sending our work to Canada.

Out of the many American companies that we looked at, we chose a New York website design team to take care of any new website designs that we would need.  From the work that they have done for us so far, we are very happy with both their professionalism and artistic ability.  Perhaps us changing web design companies was a blessing and not a curse.

I remember back to a day when it was so much simpler. That day is really not that long ago. If you think about it, people have been using the Internet only for the past fifteen years. I certainly remember when we weren’t even really using computers. I am not saying that technological evolution is a bad thing, it just makes the world we live in more complicated.

I was browsing through some website videos and this is what got me to thinking about how quickly our world changes now. It seems like computer technology is evolving form one day to the next. I remember buying a computer a couple of years ago and a few months after I bought it, it was obsolete.

It is kind of scary to me. When I was a child, we dreamed of the day when robots would do all of our work for us, such as cleaning our rooms. We are not quite that far yet, but I would have to say that we are not too far away from it. This is a good thing because my room could use a good cleaning.

I have spent most of the day today promoting my websites.  This can be a daunting task, especially if you are promoting a large network of sites.  Today, I was doing six at one time, and sometimes I feel that it is tough to keep track of everything that I am doing.

What I really wonder about this time I am investing in promoting my sites, is what type of return, in terms of back links, am I really getting?  I mean, if you take a look at free link directory submissions that I have been doing, how many of them will actually be approved.

This is in stark contrast to the six links that I added to a link bid directory.  It was a business directory and I had to pay for the links - but they were approved right away.  There was no question in my mind in terms of whether or not I had wasted my time listing my site there - I knew that because of that site, I would get traffic in the near future.

I am definitely going to keep my eye on how the advertising performs - if it is as effective as I think it will be, I will be using more bidding directories in the future.

One of my favorite things about the Internet is it is an outlet for creativity.  I mean, where else can you share an idea, put up your own virtual poster, and share a part of yourself with the world?  Well, there are not really any other mediums that I can think of that you can connect with as many people as the Internet allows you to do.

I came across a good example of creative writing today.  By accident, I came across a site called End of this World.  Right now, they are having a writing competition in an effort to write a novel.

This is the first time that I have seen this kind of collaborative writing - and what is written so far looks good.  So good in fact, the short story that has rivaled many stories that I have read in books.  It will be truly interesting to see the final product which will be the collaborative work of many authors.  So check it out - you won’t be disappointed.

Amy is a good friend of mine who loves quilting.  She loves it so much, that for the past couple of years, she has been making quilts and selling them to friends and family.  Her success so far has been great to the point where she has reached a tipping point of sorts – she is at the point where she could make a living off of quilting.

She came to me with a website that was all setup and ready to go.  But, she confessed that she had no idea on what to do after she had her site setup.  She had the “if you build it, they will come mentality”, and her business was never going to get off of the ground if she continued with that train of thought.

I offered to help her with her website marketing as I have a lot of experience in that area.  Amy was so happy with the help, but she wanted to learn as well.  What I have done is organized tasks for her to do each week, broken up by day, so that she can market her site effectively.

So far, things have gone great.  She has sold a couple of quilts from her site, and is getting the hang of marketing as well.  She is even talking about setting up other web businesses to sell other products, and we may be going into a joint venture together.  I am so happy for her and her business success (and I am happy that I am a part of it).

A friend of mine was looking for examples of admission essays.  He wants to go to college in the fall, but he really has no idea about what to write about.

He asked me for a hand to find an online essay that could serve as an example for him.  I was very happy to help him out, since I was a little more tech savvy than he was.  I did a quick search for "application essay" and we found a few examples.

But, we had to dig a little deeper to find one that applied to the college of engineering (the college and program he was applying for).  That took a little while longer, but eventually we did find what he was looking for.

Now, all he has to do is write it - but at least he has some samples to look at to give him some ideas.

I am always looking for new ways to promote my website and one way that I have been doing this is by writing a daily article and posting it to my blog. It gives little hints and tips and will eventually give a link to my webpage. I have received good feedback on it and I think it certainly can’t be hurting business.

In fact, I was reading a blog article on Michael Dinich one day and it contained a link to a website that has totally changed my way of thinking and has, in turn changed my life. I am sure that I am not the only one who used that article to click through to the site, so it must be a good marketing tool.

I am a firm believer that your money matters and that it matters what you do with it. This is the very reason that I purchased a blog website in the first place. I am hoping that, by writing the articles, I will eventually earn revenue and get visitors to my website.