Looked into all the laws and rules and regulations … ain’t nothing we can do.  Sue?  Sure, hire a lawyer and by the time anything happens, my stuff will have been delivered.

Ah, my secret weapon, I am an internet entrepreneur.  So while your blog post may languish in obscurity, mine, and those that I put on my websites, rather quickly rise to the top of the search world.  So while I will get my furniture from Jonathon and Irma at All My Sons in Jupiter one day … I will repay them with a rather long and uncomfortable lesson that words can hurt.  So tomorrow when I call and you again tell me that 5-8 days was an estimate and that I should call tomorrow, just know that my review of the situation will shortly and forever follow you.  Enjoy!

StarReviews is one of the larger review website today.  We have over 100 categories, an active blog and the largest collection of as seen on TV video reviews and over the  last year I  have seen a slow, painfully slow, growth in spidered pages, PR and traffic and of course, revenue.  I never had anything to compare this to but when Google ran their  last update and we ended up with a bunch of PR5 and PR6 (page rank) pages throughout the site, an SEO associate of mine reminded me of what we had done when he  congratulated me on the progress.

Wow, StarReviews really is a decent site after all and we have done a great job getting to where we are.   I write this mostly because  I am an ecommerce guy, I like to optimize landing pages in hours … not months but the StarReviews project has given me a better understanding of another side of the internet.

ThePlusShops is the next project and I can  tell you that we  are fully integrating all that was learned from StarReviews into this network of niche  ecommerce  sites.  I  will talk about ThePlusShops later but for now, I guess the message is you really can learn a lesson even if you aren’t doing something you absolutely love doing.

SEO is growing on me.

By  the way, the forums at http://www.webproworld.com have some really smart people posting.   StarReviews may have been my SEO classroom but WPW was definitely my tutor.

I haven’t gone into the new network of websites we are building but I will shortly but for now understand that we are also buying smaller ecommerce websites.  These are mostly older sites, generating a few hundred thousand a year in sales and generally owned by a non-internet experienced owner.  So, deal in place to pay $120K for a website and I send off our contract that has been adjusting by opposing attorneys on numerous occasions so it is relatively fair.  One week later I receive back from the seller a 39 page contract and a 5 page addendum from my original 4 page contract.  No edits to my agreement, but a brand new contract.

I did not review it.  I just didn’t care.  I emailed back and told the guy that his lawyer owes him $120K as I was out.

I buy and sell websites for a living.  This was a simple and small deal.  While $120K is a lot of money, in the overall scheme of business, it really isn’t.

The seller didn’t know better and he let his lawyer run the show.  Now this guy, who had no one else interested in buying his website that he is no longer interested in running, tossed away a deal.

Yea I am pissed and yea I probably could have worked it out but there are too many deals out there.

So the moral of this story … your lawyer works for you and does not know your business.  You tell the lawyer what you want and not the other way around.

I sold pcsecurityshield at the end of dec 2008 and this is the first time I have been motivated since. I am ready to go. pcss took 5 years to get to 8m … don’t expect this one to take that long.

hopefully I can cut down on the mistakes this time

Bring on Brown as he defeats Coakley in what amounts to a total refuting of President Obamas first year in office.  So what next?  Reid and Pelosi are bullies, bullies from small districts that are pushing their crazy agenda that most democrats don’t like and all republicans can’t stand.  With the  Coakley loss the bullies took the  proverbial punch in the chin that always  shuts a bully up.  Now, President Obama has to run this country in a bipartisan  way and bring the republicans back into the political spectrum and into the discussions.  Reid and Pelosi have one more year as leaders only to never be heard from again.

Now, when he was elected, President Obama brought some degree of optimism, even to those of us who did not vote for him.  Like JFK before him (I was not around but I have heard) he was bigger than the party and stepped above partisam politics.  President Obama will now be able to move back to that position without the pressure of tweedle dee and tweedle dumb and move this country in the direction that is best for the country and not democrats or republicans but the whole country.

A Coakley win will ensure the most disasterous bill ever being passed, the economy in a free fall and a certain 1 and done for our president.  A Coakley  loss will put this country and our president back on the road to  greatness and four more years for President Obama.

From what  I can tell, Curt Schilling, ex-Red Sox pitching star, is a true Republican to the bone.  Can  not stand a thing that President Obama stands for or the democratic party and is hoping that the Mass. election goes republican.  That said, last night on Hannity (a Yankee fan), he continually referred to President Obama as President Obama.  Not Obama, not Barack and not a myriad of other  derogatory terms that are available.  Schilling, like  myself, realizes that President  Obama is  his president, even if he didn’t vote for him and we, the US, are better off standing behind our President than throwing him under the bus.

Now maybe Hannity can follow Curt Schillings lead.  You can disagree with someone and still show them, and the office, some respect.

Jets have been hearing that they backed their way into the playoffs and that they don’t belong.  That talk all started after Rex didn’t realize that they weren’t actually eliminated and then they went out and beat the Peyton-less Colts in the much talked about “rest your starters” game.  Jets say they beat the team that they played but the only way for the J E T S JETS JETS JETS to prove to the world and themselves that they belong … is to beat and beat up the Colts with Manning taking all the snaps.  So Sunday is much more than just a Conference Championship game to the Jets, it is a redemption game, their way of saying shut up, we belong to be hear and we are headed to Miami.  I suspect when the playoffs started, the Jets were not high on the list of teams that Peyton and co. wanted to see.

I think the case that I make is certainly worthy of consideration by Peyton and crew that golf next Sunday would be preferable to 3 hours with Gang Green.  Does anyone have Peytons numbers so I can plead my case?

What is your goal?  Let’s skip “make more money” as the goal and lets focus on how the web can help your company.   The key part is “help your company”, I am not referring to someone who is making the web their business (that is a whole new area of discussion).  You are a doctor, physical trainer, house cleaner … all things that people can/do search for online and businesses that a website can be of some assistance.

So, what do you want to provide to customers and potential customers.  Information and an incentive to become a customer, information for current customers and long term, information for people who may become customers in the future.  Step back for a second and recognize the size of the internet and the size of your market.  If you are a fitness trainer, you may handle 30-40 customers a week.  Your potential clients are people that live with a reasonable driving distance and not someone that lives in another state.  So you want to focus your efforts and information on this local group.  Potentially, your website can add a few customers and also lower the attrition rate of your current customer base.  I am mentioning this because here is where this goes south often.  A fitness trainer decides it is a good idea to start selling nutrition supplements or workout clothes on their site.  So now, not only have you opened yourself up to market to the whole internet, you have now opened yourself up to competition from the whole world as opposed to supporting and focusing on your business … fitness training.  Nothing wrong with selling supplements, but that is not the same mentality and same website and same investment that you are going to make in your fitness training website.  Stay focused, there is no great money making idea that you can add on for free at your local business website that is going to make you money, it will just hurt your website and clientele in the long term.  I think I have made my point.

So what do you want to do?  Let say you are a real estate appraisor and you provide commercial appraisals in your state.  So, you have current customers that look to you for information and services and you have potential customers that are using your website as their first impression of you.  So looks are important but we will get to that later. We are going to want to provide detailed descriptions of your services and where you provide them, who you are, relevant news, possibly recommendations, contact information (not only a phone number).  Anything else that you would provide for your business?

This appraisor makes money appraising NOT with Google Adsense.  Do not put advertising on your site.  Do not put the joke of the day or a news feed that is not relevant about your specific industry.  Make your site clean, easy to use and easy for you to update.

We will talk later about hosting and templates but for now decide what you want to put on your site that will help with customers and potential customers.  In all likelihood your site may be small, a handful of pages so lets make those effective pages.

I always felt bad for lawyers and doctors because they can’t meet someone socially that didn’t have a legal issue or ailment. Behind doctors and lawyers have to be webmasters because everyone has a business idea or a business they want to launch.  For all the sites I have built, I have never done if for anyone else, at least for pay.  I have assisted charities and friends build their web businesses but in general, you can’t afford me for your local business.

So, this string of posts categorized Web Advice is basically the book I was too lazy to write but still wanted to get out their for small and local businesses on how to effectively and within financial reason build a website.  Sites do not have to be flashy but they need to effectively support your local business and that should be your main focus.

Looking forward to building a family, building another business and getting back to NY in 2010.