Website Urban Legend

Build it and they will come! Although Field of Dreams is a great movie, the tag line doesn't quite work in the world of websites. You can spend thousands of dollars building your website but it doesn't automatically get indexed by Yahoo or Google. There are multiple things you (or your webmaster) need to to do including submitting your website to Yahoo and Google. Keep in mind, it can take a few weeks to months to get indexed in the search engines.

Quick side story: I worked with a gentleman who asked my team to develop a website for him. He was checking in with us every day in anticipation of "launch day". We worked on his site for a week and finally launched his site. About three days went buy and the phone rings.

"Erik, It's been three days and my phone isn't ringing! Why isn't my website working?"

Well, the very simple answer is the website is working but you need to drive traffic to it for it to "work" to the degree that you imagined.

This client believed that building a website, flipping the switch and instantly millions of dollars in sales would be generated. That is not the case. It takes Search Engine Optimization (SEO), some Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and some good old fashioned marketing.

You need to tell the world that your website (and your company) is open for business. The best way to do so is by working with established websites (linking to yours).

With this said, be careful!

Some people charge you a monthly fee but read the fine print. There may be pay-per-click charges - you get charged an additional fee every time someone clicks to your link. This gets costly.

Second, the free listings. Free listings are rarely free. Ask for the full detail in writing!!