So you’ve been told that one of the ways to encourage visitors to visit your site is to post comments on other people’s blogs, but you’re not sure how to go about it.

Here are some tips to make sure that you’re neither too timid nor too aggressive.

Start by Introducing Yourself

The main point is to establish who you are and why your opinions are valuable. One or two sentences should be sufficient. After that, people are going to want to see what you actually have to say.

Respond to What Has Been Written

If …

One of the ways you can market your site yourself is by adding backlinks to your site. Backlinks are incoming links to a website or web page. In the search engine optimization (SEO) world, the number of backlinks is one indication of the popularity or importance of that website or page.

How do you do this?

1. Industry sites/directories
Visit industry sites that list businesses. Click around to find out how you can get your website included in their directories. Some may be free and some may have a subscription cost.

2. Associations/accreditations
Find out if any of the associations or organizations you receive accreditation from have an online directory on their websites. Most …

Unfortunately it’s very common to hear from a website owner that his website is not bringing in business only to find out that the site’s traffic and performance is not even being tracked.

How do you know how your website is doing if you don’t put the right tracking mechanisms in place?

Many people know about tracking traffic by using Google Analytics. It is a free service and easy to install. Google analytics does tell you a lot about your visitors, traffic sources, and content… but there’s more than you can do.

For example, have a unique email address on your website that …

At MB/I we have a questionnaire we ask our clients to fill out for Flash/multimedia projects. It helps to plan and to collect all of the information needed to put together a proposal. here are are questions we ask.

Part 1: Business Background

Part 2: Project Goals

For a website to become a true marketing tool it must have a strategy behind it. To start designing or programming before having an agreed upon strategy usually ends up increasing the budget significantly, delaying the site’s launch, and making the development process frustrating and inefficient.

A true web developer… not a designer, not a programmer… but a developer who understands both business and the web will provide the guidance needed to develop such strategy.

A strategy should cover:

• Business research
• Market/industry research
• Competition research
• Website goals
• Tracking mechanisms
• Detailed scope specifications
• Site map
• Budget broken down by phases
• Time to launch
• Cash flow requirements plan
• Maintenance & marketing plan

The larger the business, …

The first thing that needs to be done is research. You should use Google or WordTracker to find out which key phrases people are searching for that relate to your business. Make a list of those and write about them. Since blog postings are short (200-400 words), you can write several postings for a single topic.

So you have your list… but how do you get inspired? Per these key phrases, think of:

It sounds like the small business world is starting to realize there’s a new decision to be made: to blog or not to blog. On the one hand, we hear about young bloggers making money writing about their passion; on the other hand, we hear about people blogging for months and not getting a single comment… other than spam.

So, should you or shouldn’t you? It depends.

Yes, a blog can create wonderful traffic for your website and can help you sell your products/services. The blogosphere has become indeed very powerful. But you have to do it right and it takes time: …

The term “site map” has multiple meanings when it comes to websites.

First, there is the site map we create when we start planning a website. This map is a visual representation of all of the pages on the site and of their organization. It typically looks like an organizational chart, with the home page at the top, the main site sections underneath, and the individual pages right under each section. Here’s a sample:

This map helps both clients and web developers to see the whole picture and to understand the hierarchy of …

In order to start the design process, your web developer will need to receive a few materials before getting started. I’m talking about actual files and internal documents… not the business discussion that should have already happened.

What do you need to prepare?

1. Your logo. If you already have a professionally designed logo, you will need to provide it as a vector-based file. This is typically an Adobe Illustrator file. A jpeg or gif won’t work because they have already been compressed and can’t be re-sized. They might also have a background color that conflicts with the new web design.

2. Your …