Alright gang, here’s the deal. . . The FTC is cracking down once again on websites that don’t have their legal ducks in a row. The solution is easier than you think! Reputable business owners like you, could get pinned by the FTC for missing key documents such as a privacy policy for websites.

You may not be aware of it, but your website may not have all the legal documentation it needs.

What happens if the FTC picks you? Well, not much more than shutting down your website, closing your merchant account, and freezing your bank accounts. If that isn’t going to impact your business, don’t bother reading on.

In all seriousness, the wrong legal documents attached to your website could cost you your business. When the internet was young, it used to be sort of a free for all, but now you need a proper privacy policy for websites and other documents.

It’s easy to protect yourself without paying an attorney thousands of dollars to draft the right documents.

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WATCH THIS SHORT VIDEO NOW TO FIND OUT IF YOU’RE PROTECTED
Click Here to watch.
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You know I”m not one to strike fear into the hearts of business owners, but before I watched this video I had no clue that I was probably in violation. Well, the video gave me the solution and will give you the solution as well.

DISCOVER THE FACTS NOW… Watch now.

Well, I’ve been playing around with some offer-you-can’t-refuse headlines this week and this one has been really sticking with me. My hands took over my body, typed out this offer and clicked the “Publish” button. The headline is awesome. Shoot! Who wouldn’t want a half price website? And who wouldn’t like good shot at getting it FREE? I would. Here’s the story…

I have web design company called Integrity Online Marketing. We are in Hawaii (and love it here) and we have clients here locally as well as in New York, Arizona, Connecticut, all over the place. We build awesome websites, do SEO, etc. Well, we recently rolled out an option for our budget strapped clients that’ll get them up and running with a professional website for $493.95.

Well, I’m HACKING IT IN HALF THROUGH THIS FRIDAY DECEMBER 16TH for the NEXT 7 PEOPLE  that want it.

It’s awesome. You can check out the package itself at www.integrityonlinemarketing.com. It’s called the “Core Website Package.” We brought together 185 professional web designs that you can choose from. You give us your logo, content, and any special images, and BLAM! we get ‘em online in about 2 weeks. But not this time…JUST ONE WEEK!

That’s right, this week I’m putting the pedal to the metal and guaranteeing your website up and running in ONE WEEK after we receive your text, logo, and any special images you’d like used, or it’s FREE. This is NOT advertised on the website or anywhere else. It’s exclusively for you as a follower of my blog and newsletter.

I know your next question…can my friend get the deal? Fine. Yes. BUT, they have to join my newsletter list. I’m serious. I’m going to check if they’re on there.

YOU HAVE TO EMAIL ME PERSONALLY TO GET THIS. I haven’t even told my staff about it.

Shoot me an email at nate@nateburgoyne.com with “HOOK ME UP NATE” in the subject line. In the email let me know what design you want, attach your logo, website text, and any special images you’d like used. If not, we’ll use professional stock photography.

So, for just $246.97 ( It’s $493.95 for everyone else.) your website will be rolling in a week. Our Core Website packages include hosting, backups, and monitoring for $47.23/month thereafter. No contract. Cancel any time. No strings attached.

Be one of the first 7 to shoot me an email and I’ll hook you up. I can feel the sweat beading up on my forehead before I click the “Publish” button on my blog. Well (hold breath) here it goes.  ***click***

The truth is, a first page listing on Google might not change your business one bit. “Woah! Nate! What are you talking about? Getting people on page one is part of your business, right?”

Yes, it is. However, many businesses aren’t ready to be on page one of Google for a number of reasons. Why? First of all, how many websites show up on the first page of Google or any other search engine? About 10. What makes you think that just because you’re on the first page, they are going to click on your company? When you search for something on the internet do you open every single one of the of the top 10 results for what you were searching for? No, of course not. You scan the results for the one that looks most relevant to you.

If you are in the top 10 results did you know you can control what text shows up in the search results to represent your business? You can, by editing the “Title” and “Description” meta tags of your website. What if you put a call to action in your title or description? Would that increase the number of people that click through to YOUR website? You bet your biffy it would.

For more great tips and discussion about “Are you ready for page 1 of Google?”, listen to www.internetpowerradio.com tomorrow, Friday, at 10am Hawaii, 1 pm Pacific. You can listen to the show streaming online or by calling in on your phone. See you then.

They have this virtual dressing room where you can dress up a model in a combination of shirts, sweaters, skirts, and shoes that the website has to offer. It’s awesome and done extremely well.

What’s the lesson to be learned? Interactivity and innovation. Is your website giving your visitors what they really want? For example, do French Connection website visitors want to read on and on about how cool and awesome the clothes are, or do they want to see what they look like on someone and make a buying decision?

I think you know the answer.

As the new year comes around, I challenge you to re-think the message of your website and do something innovative.

Everything!

The truth is both you and I would be hard pressed to find a small business owner or entrepreneur with a gut feeling that they really need to step up their online marketing either through website redesign, social media, email marketing, or one of the hundreds of other ways to market a business online. In fact, that person might be you.

So, what’s the hangup? Why don’t you get started?

The Question: What is keeping you from busting into the world of effectively marketing your business online?

The Answer: You don’t know what you want for breakfast?

That’s right, you don’t know what you want for breakfast.

Have you ever woken up in the morning, hungry, walked over to the cupboard, opened it up, stared at a box of cereal, closed the cupboard, and mumbled to yourself, “There’s nothing to eat for breakfast. I’ll wait for lunch,” then went to work hungry convinced what’s there isn’t worth it?

You were just staring at a box of cereal weren’t you? But what was the cereal? Super Duty Bran Flakes

So, why didn’t you eat the Super Duty Bran Flakes? You bought it didn’t you? You put it in your shopping cart and paid for it didn’t you?

In fact, didn’t you stand there staring at the cereals saying to yourself, “Yummy Fruity Pebbles? Super Duty Bran Flakes. Yummy Fruity Pebbles? Super Duty Bran Flakes. Yummy sweet sugary indulgent breakfast bliss? Dry raspy healthy bran breakfast hell?”

The problem was, you didn’t decide and commit to that decision. So you just picked the one on sale and now, a day later, you’re frustrated with yesterday’s attempt to buy cereal. So, that box of Super Duty Bran Flakes sits on the shelf long past its expiration date gathering cob webs in the back of the cupboard.

The same holds true for online marketing.

A business owner knows he or she needs to get a website and start marketing online. Unsure of whether the website should be lively and exciting or clean and simple, the business owner either blindly picks one or “plays it safe” with a boring generic website with the hopes that it will appeal to all audiences.

Well, that generic middle-of-the-road website doesn’t appeal to anyone, and what you’re left with is a website that sits on a virtual cupboard shelf gathering cobwebs while the business owner convinces himself that online marketing doesn’t work and isn’t worth it.

What’s the solution?

DEFINE YOUR TARGET MARKET AND TAKE ACTION!

When you were buying cereal, you didn’t commit and take action what you really wanted, so you just took what was on sale.

When you were starting to market online, you didn’t commit and take action to attract the customers you really wanted, so your generic website and marketing continues to pull in generic non-committed customers.

In the grocery store, had you committed fully to either Fruity Pebbles or Super Duty Bran Flakes, you would have open up the cupboard for breakfast knowing exactly what was in there, and ate a great breakfast.

In your online marketing, had you committed fully to build your website and develop your online marketing plan to attract your most valuable customers, you would open up your email every day knowing exactly what kind of business leads you are going to find in there, and have a great list of pre-qualified leads.

So what’s it going to be? Fruity Pebbles or Super Duty Bran Flakes?

It’s time to commit and give new focus to your online marketing efforts.

1) The graphics files that make up your website are too large. Web graphics are different than print graphics. If you use graphics meant for print on a website, it’s going to take forever for those graphics to load on someone’s screen.

2) There’s too much extra code behind the scenes of your website.

3) Your hosting account is slow. Your hosting account is like the gas for your website. If you have a junk hosting account, the site’s going to always run slow no matter what.

What’s the fix?

A) Have a web professional like myself or someone else have a look at your website for a free quick assessment.

B) Try switching to a new hosting account. I won’t name names but some are notoriously slow. Want a fast one? Here’s a company I recommend: Unlimited Domain Hosting Only $9.95 a Month

While it’s a piece of cake to register domain names and build a D0-It-Yourself website for cheap that you will quickly realize must be replaced by a professional site if you have any hopes of generating business with it, it’s a royal pain when you’re ready to cross that bridge.

Rather than bore you with all the technicalities or the system, it would be like handing a bag of  ’86 Toyota Tercel car parts to a master mechanic and asking him or her to build a Porsche.

What do I wholeheartedly recommend? Scan the sidebar to the right of this post for the answer.

Violations are not determined by the size of your company. And, when they contact you it’s not for a citation or for negotiations, it’s because you’ve already been tagged for the violation.

What’s the fine? I know of 3 businesses that were fined one for $25,000, another for $85,000, and a third for $100,000. And the last one was simply for not obtaining verifiable parental consent prior to collecting personal information from children.

What’s the solution? I personally use and recommend Len Thurmond’s Auto Web Law.

It’s a simple piece of software that you download and use right away. You simply choose the form you want, fill in the blanks and click “Get Document”.  Instantly, you have document you need for your website. Then you just cut and paste the text when you need it.

Here’s a screen shot of how it works:

For a closer look at Auto Web Law, click here.  They have 2 options:

1) Auto Web Law Pro – Has almost 70 documents. This is not a blanket legal forms software. This is for website owners and is being constantly updated as new laws regarding the internet come into effect.  (THIS IS THE ESSENTIAL PACKAGE)

2) Auto Web Law Pro + IPPP Intellectual Property Protection Plan – Includes legal forms to notify those who are stealing content from your website or digital books.  (THIS IS FOR ULTIMATE PROTECTION)

Both include Privacy Policies and Terms of Use forms.
Again this is exactly what I personally use to legally protect my websites.
If you don’t have it, get it.
Visit the Auto Web Law website HERE.

So, the thought quickly permeates the entrepreneur and small business world that websites cost SO much money. Well, if your website isn’t making you sales, it could actually be costing you much more than you even paid to get it built in the first place. The real question is, “How much money is your website costing you?”

Let’s look at  a fictitious scenario that may be all too real for some of you. You may never look at your own website the same way again. Read at your own risk.

Kip the Carpet Cleaner – Kip owns a new small carpet cleaning business. In fact, he bought the best carpet cleaning equipment there was to offer. At first he operated off of word of mouth referrals and did a darn good job. However, after he had cleaned all of his friends and family’s carpets, his well of business leads was almost dried up. So, he decided to look into getting website. His brother-in-law once built a little website for his son’s karate team, and said he’d do it for him cheap. Cheap is what Kip wanted. After all a good businessman gets things cheap right? So, he pays his brother-in-law a couple hundred bucks, and gets his website . . . 4 months later. While he was waiting for his site, Kip had to get a part-time job at the grocery store to make ends meet. Hey, that’s okay, we have to do what we can while we’re building our businesses, right? When he finally got the site, it was nothing special, and looked like those free ones you get with some hosting plans. In fact, it might have been just that, but Kip couldn’t tell, but he paid for it. Well, when Kip got his website, nothing changed. The site was boring, it wasn’t search engine optimized so nobody ever found his business online, and those who he gave his business card to, with his web address on it, went to his website and quickly left, not impressed by his online business-front. Kip kept working at the grocery store and still has some nice carpet cleaning machines out in his shed.

Randy the Rug Magician – Randy also started a carpet cleaning business. Although his equipment wasn’t best money could buy, it was good enough for the average carpet, and he would respectfully decline jobs that he knew he couldn’t handle. Randy had decided to invest his money into a marketing plan that included a professional website that cost him 4x what Kip paid for his. Randy’s plan was to focus on marketing so that he could get a steady stream of customers that would help him pay for the top of the line equipment he desired. So, while Kip was waiting on his brother-in-law to do his website for 4 months, Randy got his professional website in 2 weeks, and started marketing it online immediately. His website was professional, search engine optimized, and built to convert visitors into customers. In fact, when you went online to Google.com and searched for “AnyTownUsa carpet cleaning”, his website came up on the first page of the results. When potential customers went browsing for the right company, Randy’s professional website told his clients that he really knew his stuff and would do a great job. The result, Randy had steady flow of business from his investment in a quality website that was search engine optimized and built to convert visitors into buyers. He quickly was able to upgrade his carpet cleaning machines, and then franchised his operation to neighboring towns.

What does, Kip’s website cost him? Well, it cost him his business.
What does Randy’s website cost him? Absolutely nothing. It’s a money-making lead-generating asset.

What is your website costing you?

Ready to make a change? I can help. Visit my company website here.

For those of you who have been attending my workshops on a regular basis, you know that I often recommend a specific company by the name of GoDaddy for registering hosting and domains. Well, things have changed for me and I have new hosting and domain favorites,  and what are they?

For domains, I recommend NameCheap.

For hosting, I recommend HostGator.

Now, I’ve played with both in the past but over the last 2 weeks I’ve experienced the quick power of both. Why the switch you ask?

Well, don’t get me wrong, GoDaddy is a good company. In my opinion, their customer service for the newbie is unsurpassed. However, here’s what put me over the edge and has me converted to NameCheap and Hostgator:

As some of you may know, my wife has a stand up paddle lessons school. Well, every month we organize a big cleanup where we invite anyone who wants to come, to paddle up the river and gather as much trash as we can from the riverbank and bushes, then bring it back down the river and throw it all away.

The event has been growing in popularity, and yesterday in the local paper, an article was printed announcing the next cleanup, which is this Saturday. The problem was, the article directed people to go to www.anahulucleanup.com for more information. I DIDN’T EVEN OWN THE DOMAIN NAME YET!

A few weeks ago, I registered some domain names with NameCheap and used Hostgator for the hosting, and I had a website live in about 10 minutes from domain registration to uploading the site. I was definitely impressed. Well, in a rush I decided to register the domain with NameCheap, then use my GoDaddy account for hosting. The domain registration and configuration went off without a hitch. Then, I went to GoDaddy to link the domain name to the hosting account hoping it would all come together quickly.

I submitted the request to GoDaddy, and quickly whipped up a crude website just to get something online. Everything was ready to launch and I was still waiting on GoDaddy! I waited at least an hour for it all to go through, and it never happened.

Fed up with waiting,  I canceled the request with GoDaddy, went into my HostGator account to add the domain to my hosting account, and shazzam! The site was live in about 2 minutes! Perfect. And, I was converted.

What does that all mean? If you don’t have the patience to wait on your domain or hosting account changes, like me, I recommend NameCheap to register your domains, and Hostgator for hosting. It’s quick, easy, and changes seem to happen instantly.

Hey, if you’re planning a product launch, you don’t want to be waiting on your hosting account or domain registrar make your site live. You need it now! You don’t have time to wait on www.GoDaddy.com to update all the necessary settings for your website.  Go with my new recommendations and you may save yourself a headache. Now I know why GoDaddy has to have good customer service.

On a side note, I also don’t agree with GoDaddy’s marketing plan and would have started moving my business elsewhere for just that. I found my new favorites just in time!