If you made it here, you already know your way around the World Wide Web. Now, on a previous post we talked a little about how the Internet changed the way we interact with other people, and with that in mind, when contemplating the idea of having your own site, think about it in terms of having a business card, without having to give them away at every social event you go to or going to the printers when you run out of cards.

In today’s world, having your own site is just like having your own public business card on display 24/7 that says: “This is me, and here is how to contact me”. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Now, the whole point of having your site is for people to find you and know what is it that you do. So let’s start from there. You could have a site that says a lot about who you are, what your interests are and the kind of music you are into, but if you want customers you might want to try a different approach.

Let’s say that you are a consultant so if someone wants to hire you, they need to know what kind of consulting you do, or the services you provide. In other words, that has to be on your site. Also, do you have any special skills? Speak more than one language? That to goes on your web page. You like Karaoke nights at the local pub? You should keep this out.

In other words, define what is it that you want your web page to say about you or your company, then we can move on to the next part the “looks”. You know what that saying “There is no second chance to make a first impression”, well that applies to the Internet as well. Think about it, how many times have you come back to a poorly designed/”ugly” looking website? Exactly!

If you have the right ideas, and know what you want your site to say about you, then there is no point in screwing it all up with the looks so take a look around and see what the competition is doing, and with that we don’t mean, go copy everyone else, but there is a lot you can learn from what other businesses are doing well and what they are not.

Finally, look for someone to give you a hand with the project, it could start with bouncing ideas of a friend, even hiring someone or a company (*cough* such as CodeMyConcept cough) to help you build the website you want and need to succeed in your niche.