Business and the ‘net

It’s always busy in the first quarter of the year and this year is no exception. Besides all the personal stuff going on, IndigoDragon Enterprises has been chugging along nicely as well.

I’m in the last leg of the Baseline Solutions corporate identity gig with only labels and mugs to layout left to do. The business cards turned out beautifully. I got them done at Imagers.com, who I highly recommend. In addition, this print house is here in Atlanta, which means really fast turnaround times. SWEET!

Crescent Moon is opening the second store next week and I just finished the revamp of the website for that. The site is getting a LOT of traffic, most likely from applicants using the online application. I’m happy that it’s a busy site. I like it when my stuff is seen!! Oh, which reminds me, I need to put my little ad in there! LOL

Now that things are starting to slow down, I need to revamp my own site (indigodragon.net) and update the portfolio, etc. I also plan to do some google ads to see how that works. I may do some google ads here at misangela.com in the future as well. Why not? Everybody else does!! LOL

I need to go back to the sites I’ve done and make sure to add my info in the headers. I always forget to do that! I’m pleased with my designs – brochureware as they are.

I’ve heard many web gurus sniff pretentiously about “brochureware” websites that are simply static brochures with basic info, but I disagree. I really believe that having a decent looking website for your business, no matter WHAT business you’re in, is a very important part of marketing yourself.

Just look at the stats for online retail, fer chrissakes:

“The top 2003 holiday categories in terms of sales volume were Computer Hardware, Electronics, and Entertainment. However, the Food & Wine (up 58 percent), Gifts & Flowers (up 56 percent), and Apparel (up 38 percent) categories saw the strongest growth over that period.” — BizRate 01/2004, from shop.org

Shop.org (which is now https://nrf.com/)has every stat you’d ever want about online usage. Great site. But anyway, my point is that having an online presence is important now and becoming more important with every passing season. As the old saw goes, “if you build it, they will come”. I think that’s true – particularly online. If you want to plan for the future of business, then you should obtain your top level domain (mybusiness.com) immediately and even if you do nothing else, put up ONE PAGE that gives your business info and make sure you have the proper META tags to get indexed. You can get web hosting for as little as $4/mo and you can buy your domain name for less than $10 per year at a myriad of sites.

I mean, isn’t it worth $70 a year to have yourself online in preparation for the future? I think so.

I’ll betcha a sixpack of Sweetwater 420 on the growing importance of the internet to business in the very near future. I’ll let you know how my Google ads work out.