A website is supposed to be your online storefront, a place where people can come find you at any given time, right? No. Well that’s not entirely wrong. The problem is when you take on the “everyone else has one so I need one too” type of mindset when building your website. If you view your website as merely a space online, much like an online storefront, then you devalue your worth and defeat the purpose of even having an Internet presence to begin with.

Your website is an extension of you, your brand and most importantly, your reputation. Your website can be more influential in closing a sale than anything you could ever tell a potential customer or client. Why? Nonverbal communication is more impactful and effective than verbal communication. We see it all the time with body language. The Internet is no different. It’s like a whole other form of “body language” and if not treated properly, can negate anything you say to others.

For example, let’s say you attend a networking event. You meet someone who you want to do business with. You talk for hours at the event and you feel pretty confident that you’ve sold yourself. You have a winning personality and you’re pretty approachable. Who wouldn’t want to do business with you? You hand over your business card and your prospect says he’ll email you tomorrow to set up a formal meeting.

The next day you wait and wait. Nothing. You follow up with your prospect and they are aloof or they say they are not interested. You feel like you’ve been suckered. Obviously it has to be the prospect’s fault. They weren’t really interested in doing business with you. For fun, they figured they would waste 2 hours of their precious time talking with someone who they never had intentions of working with. As the ambitious go-getter that you are, you brush it off and move on.

So what happened?

There should be a marketing rehab center for entrepreneurs who are in denial that there is something wrong with their marketing. The first clinic would cover a group session on “My website sucks.” Most people don’t want to admit their website is bad. They either spent too much money on someone who oversold their skills or they spent little to no money doing it themselves. If you’re putting yourself out there and wondering why no one is biting, you might want to look at your website FIRST and FOREMOST.

All that schmoozing you did at the professional networking event with the one promising prospect goes down the drain with a poorly put together website. A bad website conveys:

• I’m not taking this seriously
• I dont value myself enough to invest in my brand’s image

If you’re not showing that you’re serious about your own image, how will a prospect feel about trusting you with theirs? And, AHEM, this holds ESPECIALLY true to those who are in the digital industry such as Internet marketers, graphic/web designers, copywriters, etc. I was recently on someone’s website and they offered SEO as a service. Their website took forever to load and they did not use their title tags properly, not to mention the ENTIRE website was done in Flash. WTF?!

Remember, when you’re starting your business or if you’ve been in the game for a while, you are competing with alot of others who going after the same customers or clients as you. They may be more tech-savvy and have access to resources that you’ve never even heard of. What is your edge? It’s not rocket science.

You’re different simply by being you. Don’t devalue what you have to offer, in terms of your talent and personality. Just don’t overlook details. Don’t invest in that new suit or buy cool stationary if you’re website looks like s**t. It’s hard enough positioning your brand in an already competitive market, why make it harder for yourself?

FYI (Resources to help you out)

• Quality logos (www.logosauce.com)
• Domain name and web hosting (www.webhostingforsmallbusinesses.net)
• Blog (www.wordpress.org)
• Freelance web designer (www.elance.com)
• Website Services and Products (www.nichebrandmarketing.com)
• Printed marketing collateral (www.printplace.com)
• Directory submissions at (www.directorymaximizer.com)
• Free email and business productivity tools (www.gmail.com) and (www.google.com/docs)
• Contact management application (www.highrisehq.com)
• Project management application at (www.basecamphq.com)
• Business profile at (www.linkedin.com) and (www.flugpo.com)

And these are just a small handful of what’s out there.

So what are you waiting for?

So what is Blog Marketing?

I will define it as the following:

promoting a blog through traditional and online efforts including but not limited to postcards, email newsletters, Myspace profiles, MyBlogLog communities, linkbaiting, directory submissions, etc.

I decided to make this my first article because this is my first “real” blog and I wanted to capture the process of getting this baby up and running. I have a point to prove to myself and I’ll share it with the world once I’ve reached it.

POINT: I CAN DO THIS.

Sounds like a simple point, yet it has always been my Achilles heel. My insecurities inhibit me from realizing my potential. And so this blog serves as public proof that success online is indeed possible, especially if I can do it. Marketing my blog will take the form of many different phases and milestones. Not too many drastic and over-the-top goals, but very manageable and realistic expectations, which is crucial for any marketing efforts you take for your blog.

Establish online presence. This is the very first goal to creating a blog. You have to read what’s out there first and see what’s going on. Even the greatest of ideas have been done before you. A reality check into seeing who’s doing it and how is critical. This is not meant to burst your optimistic bubble. It’s to give you a sense of how to craft your voice. I’m not saying that you can’t do it if someone else is talking about it online. Just remember, what makes your voice different from theirs.

Once you’ve got a sense for who you want to be online and how you want to harness that voice, think of a clever name. Something that’s catchy and simple. I knew I wanted to blog for a while and had made several half-ass attempts at doing so. It wasn’t until I came up with the name “Ambition Is The New Black” that I felt like I could do it and do it well. This kind of confidence is underrated. When you are completely sure of your voice it will call to you every single waking moment. It might take weeks or months. That’s fine. Don’t put something up just to put something up. You’ll more than likely end up doing it for a month and then neglect it.

Now that you’ve got your clever name, check online to see if it’s in use.

SIDE NOTE: DON’T EVER GET ATTACHED TO A NAME!!

I’ve seen too many people get so emotionally attached to their name that it cripples them from moving forward. They get a domain name with .net or .biz and then get upset when I say WTF is wrong with you? If you can’t get .com change the name. Seriously, CHANGE THE NAME. Why? Because people online are not that bright. Sorry to break it to you so early on. They’re not. Web savvy people who blog and do alot online are SOMEWHAT the exception to the rule. But even then the first thing we do is check “[insert blog name].com” to see what you’re about. If the .com is taken by someone else, why go through all the effort of optimizing the keywords for your blog (including your name) and not own the domain most people will go to when looking for you?

So you don’t think I’m talking out of my a$$, I remember a few years ago when a client had a .net. She would network and meet all sorts of people. She gave them her business cards and when she followed up with emails, many told her that her website was under construction. Surprised, she quickly asked me if something was wrong. Her website was up and running just fine. She offered her website in her email signatures and that was when she found out. Most of the people who she had met encountered the same problem because they Google’d her name and the .com came up. Not one to say “I told you so” she quickly changed her domain to include .com on all her business cards.

Once you’ve got the domain name and hosting, it’s time for the fun part, design! Woo hoo. This is the part I absolutely love. Why? Because I love to procrastinate and what better phase to play the perfectionist hat than during design time. It’s awesome. It lets you be months behind schedule because something just doesn’t seem “right” and after you spend 36 hours designing the “perfect” blog, you now all of a sudden don’t like the color blue. You’re actually repulsed by it. That’s ok. Let’s start again from scratch.

Design is overrated, and that’s saying alot coming from me. No one really cares that much about the details to your site.

• Is it functional?
• Is it user-friendly?
• Do you have relevant content on it?

Then that’s all you need. Seriously, don’t go overboard and don’t let it become so overwhelming that you can’t scale up or down later. It’s a good rule of thumb to let others give you feedback on it but I stopped doing that a while ago. Everyone has an opinion about something. Listen to your inner voice. Not the one you bribed to tell you what you want to hear. Listen to the honest one, the one you roll your eyes to when you ask her/him something. If you’re rolling your eyes or sucking your teeth as you read this, then you know EXACTLY who I’m talking about!

So does this mean you completely neglect the design phase? Absolutely not. The thing to remember here is balance. Spend time on it but don’t spend too much time. You have to take some time to think about what vibe you want to give off. I use Wordpress because it’s totally awesome. There’s a ton of templates, free and paid, that you can use to convey any message you want to put out there. Take a day to check them out. They might even inspire you!

You register a domain name by registering with a domain name services registrar. The domain name industry is regulated and overseen by ICANN, which is an organization responsible for providing standards and procedures for certifying companies as domain name registrars.

Domain name registration has grown over the years. Network Solutions was the first domain name registrar to ever provide such a service. That was over ten years ago but today there are many accredited registrars. Only a domain name registrar is permitted to access and modify the master database domains that are on InterNIC servers. The fee is determined by the registrar as far as getting a domain name and some registers have special domain name packages.

Do You Really Need a Domain Name?

You use a domain name to create an identity on the World Wide Web and domain names can also be used for branding purposes, such as Wal-Mart, K-Mart, etc. In picking a domain name, the title shouldn’t stray far from what your company is all about. This will allow you to market your web-site as a subsidiary of your business and put your domain name on business cards and advertisements.

Once you select a domain name, you must register it with a domain name registrar. This is a task you can do easily. Many ISPs offer a complete package that includes hosting and the registering of the domain name for you. Fees probably will include a one time set-up fee for all of the backend technical work that needs to be accomplished. Then pay your service provider a monthly, semi-annual or annual fee for Web site hosting services.

Many domain registrar services have competent online tools to help you get your domain name and hosting site up and running.

But to tell you the truth, you can essentially get information on low cost SEO anywhere in the Internet. But only several really show you how to work out an affordable search engine optimization endeavor. And those few that really inform include this article.

• Link exchanges

One cheap SEO method that can get you best results is through link exchanges or linking to and from other web sites. Depending on the websites that you would like to exchange links with, this tool could even cost you nothing at all. Contact the author or owner of the web site you want to have a link exchange with. You will be surprised with the eventual spiking up of your page ranking using this means of getting your website optimized.

• Write or acquire keyword rich articles

Writing truly informative and keyword-rich articles is one surefire way to make your Internet business more visible than ever. It’s either you write your own articles or you get them from article directories that allow you to post these articles on your website as long as you keep the resource box or the author’s byline in tact. Just don’t stuff your articles with keywords that even idiots would get bore of reading them. The readability and freshness of your articles will still be the basis of whether your writers will keep on coming back to your website or not.

• Catchy Domain Name

What better will make your target visitors remember your website but with a very easy-to-recall domain name. Something sweet and short will prove to be very invaluable. Registering your domain name is not for free. But creativity is.

• Organize your site navigation

Providing easy steps in navigating your site is one way to make your visitors become at ease with your site. This, in turn, will improve the flow of traffic to your website.

Low cost SEO is always evolving like any other approach in information technology. There are many methods that can very well land you on the top ten rankings of Google or on any other search engines. Some may cost a lot but there are methods that can give you the same results at a low price or you can even do on your own such as those mentioned above.

Obtain a domain name that will help you in your marketing niche and strategy. Like I stated before, you can use your business name as your URL. If your business name is already taken by someone else then get a URL name close to what you are doing. Purchasing a business name domain name isn’t the only way to go, and when a keyword domain name could do just fine.

If you plan on using the .net extension, you may want to wait on deciding your name until after you have found an available domain name that is suitable to your type of business. If you follow the steps below, you should be okay in identifying your name brand to the internet community.

Structure Your Brand Name – Put your domain name on your letterhead, business card, printed materials; put it on your phone recording, the side of your car; don’t forget to include it with your email.

Keep it Short & Memorable – Don’t get a URL that uses all 26 letters of the alphabet.

Secure a .com URL - I strongly recommend purchasing a .com domain name as opposed to a .net, .info, .biz or anything else. If your chosen domain name is not available in a .com, keep looking until you find one that isn’t taken. There is nothing wrong with the other extensions but when you have a .com extension, it sounds like you’ve been on the net a long time.

Remember, your domain name is an extension of your business and your brand of product or service.