I had a conference call last week with some folks who mostly do B2B and one of the attendees mentioned that she just put up her business’s LinkedIn group 4 months ago and is already getting upwards of 200 new signups a week, so that seems like a great avenue; one I’m looking forward to try as well.

I completely agree that there is an important place for professional help in building effective websites. I say this partially because that is one of the main services I get paid for!

Some small businesses only need a simple presence, and can do it themselves. Others don’t have the time or the inclination to try to go it alone.

A further thought on keywords. Sometimes, it takes a bit of extra thought. My client’s site on hunting is a great site, but seldom used the words “hunting” or “Africa” just because it was completely implied. So I’ve taken some care to mention those words when it fits naturally in the subject. Your advice to talk about what your customers are interested is spot on.

I’ve found several clients that started with an in-house or family-member designed site, that ultimately decided it was time to present a better image. That’s where you and I come in, Martin. We help them present a better image to the world, when they are ready.

Seriously, though, I think the do-it-yourself tools have been great. The more that goes up online the more useful the Internet becomes. I’m surprised the tools aren’t better, though I haven’t checked in with Google pages and the rest for awhile.

The most important things to have up on a website is your contact information, of course. After that I always recommend pictures or something else that will give potential customers an idea of what you’re like. I like your Shady Hill Farm friends for that reason. The white text on lime for the left navigation doesn’t work at all and gives visitors a clue that this isn’t professionally done but the picture and the story telling make me want to go anyway (I’m already a sucker for farm B&B’s!).

I second your recommendation to get your own domain. The biggest advantage is that you can easily move the site to some new system a few years down the road if you grow or something else becomes available. As useful as Google Pages and MS Live are, I always thing there’s got to be a better way to do it.

And blogs can be a great way to get lots of different, keyword-rich content up there. I recently converted a rarely updated “News” section of a site over to a blog (just cutting and pasting the existing items) and put three excerpts on the main site’s homepage. That alone increased the site’s “keyword relevancy” score (as measured by domaintools.com) by about twenty percent. I wouldn’t even worry about keywords. If you talk about what customers are interested in on the blog, then people interested in that will start finding your site. I used to work as the customer service person in a small bookstore with about 50% internet sales and would find myself fielding the same questions every few months. I started copying my email answers into my personal blog and it generated tons of interest. This was no extra work, it was just remembering that an email I was writing was a conversation others might be interested in.

DIY sites that are kept up to date, quirkily revealing and fun are much more interesting (even when they put white text over lime green!) that tasteful high priced sites.

But I do want to remind everyone that small design houses can also be a vital part of the local small business eco-system. The owner of a small design shop I started working at recently seems to know everyone in town, goes cheerfully to every charity event, and recently signed up to sponsor a little league team! A simple professionally-designed site costs a lot less than remodeling a bathroom, say, or any one of a hundred of other normal business expenses. A lot of self-built sites (or worse, nephew-home-from-college-built sites) have major problems that keep them from being visible to Google or make it hard for visitors to get to the information you want them to see. Sometimes a professional touch can make a difference.

Still loving your blog, it’s become one of my daily reads even now when my computer’s died and I’m on a slow backup!
Martin @ martinkelley.com