In order to grow and succeed as a business, local entrepreneurs are encouraged to utilize the power of local search engines as one of their marketing tools. Major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing gather business information from a multitude of sources. Yellow pages, social review sites, and aggregation houses are third party databases that give search engines the information that they need to construct a comprehensive and useful business listing for consumers to utilize.

Creating an online business listing should be one of the very first tasks local entrepreneurs should consider if their goal is to reach out and sell products and services to their target audience. Traditional listing methods such as enlisting your business in yellow pages are now obsolete as people within local communities automatically go online and check out for businesses through local search engines.

Creating and claiming your business listing is an effective way to receive a large number of clients and increase revenues at the same time. Aside from these primary objectives, other benefits that a business may potentially derive from a local online listing are as follows:

• Accurate information will enable you to predominate within your local community
• Establish helpful information about your business to help customers make the right purchasing decisions
• Significantly increase the visibility of your company during local search queries
• Prevent the incidence of hijacking of business information, reviews, and positive feedbacks

Although search engines such as Google assist in providing local businesses an online space to facilitate growth, it is the responsibility of their respective owners to update and verify crucial information. It is not uncommon that search engines may place inaccurate information under your business name. Taking full control over your business listing online will prove to be very helpful on the long haul. However for those who have limited know-how on local search optimization, handing the business listing and claiming tasks to experts like us will not only save you time, but increase your authority in the local search space as well!

Prior to verifying your data online, you need to assess the current standing and information that your business may have on local search pages. By determining the amount of information from major search engines, you will have the ability to assess the amount of work and optimization that need to be done right away.

Identifying your local online ranking and listing score will further motivate you to have your listing verified as soon as possible. As a business owner, your immediate goal is to have search engines index your business accordingly. In this way, customers with intentions of buying your products and hiring your services will be more than what you expected.

Step by Step Process of Claiming your Business Listing

A quick local search will readily tell you if your business is verified or not. In order to have the power to manage and control your business information online, all you need to do is follow these steps:

• Create your business listing at all major search engines that feature local search queries.
• Local Business Centers of search engines will enable you to create, modify, and update the information online. If you already have an existing account, all you need to do is fill out the blank spaces with accurate information.
• A comprehensive business profile enables search engines to associate your business accurately with information from third party data sources as well. Here are the information that you need to provide when filling out the online form:
  • Business name
  • Physical address of your shop or commercial establishment
  • Phone number
  • An optimized, keyword-rich description about the nature of your business
  • Other information that all consumers find useful and important are as follows:
  • Hours of operation
  • Payment options accepted
  • Types of products and service that are offered
  • Recognitions such as certifications, awards, etc.
  • Image of storefront and amenities that can found at your business establishment.

Once these important data is fed into search engine local business centers, you will then need to verify your identity through sms or through snail mail. Once the verification is complete, you will now have the ability to manage and control your business listing online.

Editing and Updating your Local Business Listing

As business owners, you are responsible to periodically check your local business listing. If the information generated by a search engine’s map listing is inaccurate or inadequate, you have the ability of claiming it and optimizing it further. In addition, you may also want to check third party sources and assess the information that they have about your business or company. Once all the information is accurate, you may now update your business listing if there were changes or you would like to add new information on top of what you already have in various search engine databases.

One important note that business owners need to remember is to never create a duplicate business listings during the verification period. If you have duplicate or multiple listings, the best thing to do is update all of them with your basic business information. The search engines will automatically update your listing and merge the information for your business into one relevant business listing instead.

The process of claiming your business listing is well worth doing as it will undeniably improve the visibility of your business when potential clients perform their local search query!

It is all too often that we see many individuals, and sometimes even companies, fall prey to advertising claims and marketing pitches of free website builder providers.  For most of these subscribers, pricing or cost has become the primary consideration without placing ample value of specific repercussions of using these types of services.  

There is also a growing belief that free builders are ideal for personal websites and small businesses.  However, by examining known drawbacks of these types of services will expose that this is merely a misconception.

Lack of Credibility

What does a free and barebones website say to your new customers when they arrive?  Does it build trust and credibility?  What about when they visit your competitor, who is sporting a clean and robust website.  Are they coming back to your site?

There are several flags that clue in today's internet-wise visitor that your website isn't of the trusted variety. Non-relevant third party ads, stock clip art, messy domain names, etc.

Lack of Creative Features

Some people believe that if you are merely building a website for the sake of having one, using free website builder services would suffice.  What people fail to consider is that having a website that lacks creative features is no better than having no website at all.  One of the main reasons people visit websites is because of the inherent features they present.

Take into consideration the rise of popular social networking websites, they allow users to chat, share experiences, upload images, and even do business online, all within the same website.  Majority of free builders do not provide the necessary features to incorporate message boards, chat rooms, online gaming, and merchant services among others.  

If your intention is to put up a website without these features, then you would be better off having it available only from your computer since not much interest will be generated for your website.

Limited Potentials for Artistry and Design

Although it is true that many free website builder services flaunt their huge collection of images and designs that are supposedly ideal for various types of websites from personal to professional use, they inherent present limited possibilities in terms of artistry and design.  The reason is that despite possibly carefully crafted templates; all free websites force subscribers to host numerous ads that can be irritating and at times dangerous.

The advertisements appear on the platform of the website builder as a means of allowing them to stay in business.  The reason is that these free website services market tremendous amounts of advertising spaces to various types of businesses.  This means that if you are creating a website for kids, there is a possibility that some ads with adult contents can be incorporated.  

You can just imagine how these ads can ruin not only the design, but the image of the website as well in terms of professionalism.  What is worse is that subscribers have no way of avoiding these ads with free website services.

Design Tools and Support Options

There is no denying that when it comes to the world of the Internet, the more tools and support options available, the better.  This is because the more tools provided can translate to greater website power and allows your website to attain distinction from others.  For majority of free website builder services, they present only standard tools and support options, which result in limited outputs.

For new designers, these limited tools and support options may seem extreme already; however, there are tons of possibilities that will never be made available to them precisely because the services are provided for free.  Designers will never be able to use design functions like broken links, page descriptions, and list of keywords among others.  

This essentially translates to limited control over the functionality of the website.  Moreover, the URL is normally hard to remember because it is extremely long and with a number of hyphens.  Customized email addresses are also not available.

Lack of Website Features

On top of all the other missing features, one of the biggest "lack of features" is on your actual website.  You may indeed get a few free tools to add to your website like a calendar or calculator, but the powerful features are just not there.  These are the features that make having a website so worthwhile.  The type of features that can assist your clients 24/7 andvfeatures that funnel in new customers.

Hosting Issues

Aside from design and functionality, another important consideration when it comes to website building is hosting.  Great quality websites need an equally reliable and fast web hosting service to back it up.  Many people do not recognize the fact that efficient bandwidth can cause a lot of money, something that free website services do not invest in.

For majority of free website builder services, the websites are dumped into extremely loaded servers which result in unreliable presence as well as unexpected shutdowns.  Essentially, a down website is useless regardless whether it is for personal, professional, or business use.  Technical difficulties in terms of reliable servers and hosting services can result in a damaged reputation in the online community.

Not as Advertised

Majority of free website services state that their goal is to remove the potential hassles and time required associated with traditional websites.  However, the reality is that some of the free website services are not as easy as drag and drop and can be complicated to a certain extent.  For many novice designers, getting the website from the design stage to the online community can be very challenging primarily because of the lack of organization of feature sets.

Moreover, many free website builder services are not really completely free.  For most of these website services, only the first 30 days is free and after that a nominal fee will be required from the website owner.  If you fail to pay for the monthly fees, the website will be closed down.  This is very unfortunate if you have invested time in building the website and have already established regular visitors.  

Furthermore, most of the free website services present limited storage space making it difficult to expand the functionalities of the website unless you pay for an upgraded service.

No Guarantees

It is extremely important to recognize the fact that you get what you pay for.  This means that since you are getting free service, you have no right to demand 100% website presence from the provider.  Therefore, the possibility of waking up one day and finding your website inaccessible is not entirely far-fetched.  If you are using the free website service for business, the results can be devastating for you.

Another thing that is vital to remember is that free website builder services do not guarantee Search Engine Optimization or SEO.  This means that their templates are not SEO friendly, which will possibly result in your website being listed at the very last page of every search.  Majority of search engines ignore websites from free services which means that they get very little exposure to the Internet community.  In terms of online presence, your website will be very negligible.

All of these reasons defeat the purpose of maintaining an online presence because they will only result in loss of credibility, slower websites, and possibly more headaches in maintenance.  If you truly want to have a worthwhile presence on the Internet, then free website builder services are not the best solutions for you.

Small businesses and companies that are starting up may be short on cash, but affordable web design can help get their names seen on the web. If you know where to look, web design can be both cheap and effective for promoting your business, providing a cost-effective way to advertise your business on the World Wide Web. The Internet is also where the majority of people in the world go to search for stores and businesses, as it turns out.

Going cheap with affordable web design can cost you in more ways than one, however. Just because some web design firms are cheap does not mean they will give you a quality website; this makes knowing what to look out for in web design services very important. Knowing what makes a good yet affordable web design service can both help you save valuable income, as well as getting your company name out on the Internet.

Affordable, Yet Good Quality

Affordable can easily equate to bad or unacceptable quality, and for good reason; a cheap product can end up costing you more than money. That does not mean there aren't any cheap and affordable deals on web design out there; after all, it can depend on where and how you look. Affordable web design firms do not search for themselves.

Looking for these affordable, yet good quality web design firms can be a challenge within itself, however. Certain criteria may need to be met if you work for a business, and when you are the one tasked to search for affordable web design firms. If you are searching for web design services for a business you run, keeping a lookout of the few aspects below will guarantee that you only obtain good yet affordable web design:

• Web Hosting and Domains – Getting your website hosted in a reliable place with minimal downtime should be the first thing on your list. Some web hosting services can even offer prsonalized domain names for customers, should they desire such. If you prefer to minimize expenses for affordable web design, then blog sites like WordPress and Blogspot may suit your needs better.
• Web Designing – With a hosting service in play, designing the web site proper should be next on your agenda. This is where much of the cost of affordable web design goes into; you can either hire a skilled web designer to create your website from scratch, or use preset templates, if they are available. These preset templates are especially common for blog-based sites, and may be offered by web hosting services with web page maintenance tool kits.
• Arrangement of Content – The design process does not simply entail constructing a pretty-looking website, but also the conceptualization of the content that will be uploaded into it. Arranging all of the content on a web page properly will make for a streamlined and intuitive browsing experience for visitors, enticing them to visit more often.
• Website Accessories – Affordable web design can sometimes allow for useful gadgets and plug-ins to be available. Some packages may include support for Flash, Java, Joomla, and other interactive forms of website interaction. This might be a deal-breaker for some online entrepreneurs looking to create an e-commerce site, as being able to interface directly with a product can entice customers easily.
• Search Engine Optimization – Sometimes, affordable web design package deals may even include SEO options. Search engine optimization can help your site get indexed on popular search engines like Google and Bing, but be aware that cheap packages may include a half-baked SEO feature.
• Integration with Social Media – Social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter are tools that even large multinational corporations use. A small business seeking affordable web design may benefit from packages that include integration with social networking sites.

The Price Is Right

It is very easy to find affordable web design firms on the web, but picking among many of them can be a rather troublesome task. The first thing you should do is get a list of reputable web design firms that are affordable, and make inquiries about their offered packages. Then, you can compare the final prices to each other based on a few aspects.

• Many of the aspects mentioned in the previous section can be compared from one company to another; some may offer cheaper prices than others. Web design firms may include a total package that is cheaper than having the features added on later.
• The fees charged to customers can also work in different ways. Whether hourly, daily, weekly, monthly or annually, this information should also be ciphered from your prospective web design firms. Web hosting typically works on an interval basis, though.
• Features alone do not make for a quality yet affordable web design job; the people who work to make your web site may either be very good at what they do, or extremely incompetent.
• If you are able to find reliable user feedback about a particular web design company, then factor that into your decision.
• Word-of-mouth can be a valuable tool to help you decide on an affordable web design company. If you know somebody else who utilized the services of a web design company you are looking at, then get his or her detailed feedback about their experience.

When all is said and done, you will have to decide on an affordable web design company or method that works best for your needs.

Here is the short presentation I gave on the Widget Logic plugin at Wordcamp Richmond(Nov 12, 2011). Great event, was a pleasure to be a part.