Everyone that owns a website needs SEO these days.

This should be your overall theme when you are preparing yourself for a meeting with a local business owner that is in dire need of a website. But not only in the need of a website, but also in dire need of getting that web site to be visible to the people of that area that are using City/Service or City/Product keyword phrases as there search queries. Having a web site isn’t enough these days. You need a web site that is either going to land at the top of the SERPs or a web site that is created with an amazing landing page for when people click on the AdWords ads that you have set up for your pay per click ad campaign.

When you are at a meeting with a local business owner, whether it be the owner of an Arlington air conditioning company, or a winery in Northern Michigan, you want to make sure you stick to these following points throughout the whole meeting.

You want to be as forth coming as possible. Do not try to hide any of the SEO tactics you use to get to the top of the SERPs. There is no point to. Local business owners don’t have enough time to take part in Do-It-Yourself SEO, and even if what you are saying to them seems like it’s easy enough to understand, it all starts sounding like rocket science jargon once you start mentioning things like link building.

Try to be as simple as possible. They aren’t going to understand you when you start saying words like “algorithm.” To them, that just sounds like a made up word. Start with phrases like: “Well SEO is just a point system Google uses to determine which web sites should be at the top of the search engine results pages (don’t say “SERPs”)” and “Whoever has the most information on the web gets to be at the top.”

Be prepared for things to get a little shaky, but be able to bounce back. Is the company currently in the works with someone else that is handling there web development or SEO? If so, don’t be taken back if they get on the phone right then and there and start asking questions. This is just another reason that you should be up front because you never know the local business owners background with SEO.

Be very honest about your process and what you are charging for every aspect of your business. Break down all aspects of the process of getting the stie developed to getting it to the top of the SERPs and everything in between. What do you charge for graphics? What do you charge for a custom CMS (content management system)? What do you charge for your initial web design or custom template? Are you going to be writing the content? Will there be monthly SEO fees? Most importantly, don’t try to charge three thousand dollars for a simple WordPress theme. Yes, there are many people that get away with this in the Internet marketing field, but that doesn’t mean that you should join the Scam Club.

Each local business situation is completely different and unique. Make sure you talk about ROI and what these owners can expect for their investment. Most importantly, do not guarantee number one rankings to anybody. This is simply a false statement and not even the best SEO’s on the planet can guarantee a feat like this no matter what the niche. Google makes more than 400 algorithm changes a year, and each and every day there is a webmaster out there that is surprised by the change that is made that day. Don’t go ahead and make the same foolish mistake. Besides, that right there is SEO 101 that you do not know what you are talking about.

This article was written by Jet Russell of www.inetzeal.com  Jet helps to run an SEO Company and helps to provide an Article Writing Service along the way. In his spare time he likes to write articles about SEO, SEM, and everything else that has to do with Internet marketing

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My Comment Commitment: If you leave an approved comment on any of my posts, I will visit your blog and “share it” in some way whether on StumbleUpon, Twitter or Facebook depending on if I can find a nice fit.

Purchase a Domain Name

You will need a domain name for your blog. If you already have a domain name, you can move to step two. If you do not have a domain name you need to register one.

Open a new window and go to Bust a Name and do a search for a domain name you would like to use. Once you have found one, follow the checkout process to register the domain name.

GoDaddy will make lots of appealing offers, however,you do not need any of the other products or services. You DO NOT want to set up your hosting with GoDaddy. They are by far the best for domain names but I have my own preferences for hosting.

Once your domain name order has been processed you will get a confirmation email from GoDaddy.

Setting Up Your Host

This step will guide you through setting up your web hosting account.

1. You can select one of our recommended hosts here. You will want to go with the most basic plan starting out which is around $7.95 a month.
2. Click Order Hosting Now
3. On the next page you will be asked if you want to Register New Domain or will use My Existing Domain and update My Nameservers only. You will want to select I will use My Existing Domain and update My Nameservers only.
4. Click Next
5. Click calculate totals
6. You will then be shown a page that shows your order. Click Continue and Enter in your billing info and process with your checkout.

When you are done you will get an email from your selected host confirming your order, along with your login info and dns server info/name servers. Generally you will have your welcome email within 15 minutes.

Step One and Step Two Must Be Completed Before Going To The Next Step.

Updating Your Nameservers on GoDaddy

Once you have got your hosting welcome email, locate the name server information and proceed as follows:

Go to http://www.godaddy.com

1. Login to your account
2. Located the bar at the top of the page with links. Click on Domains and then select My Domains.
3. This will take you to your domain control panel. Select the domain you just registered by checking the box and then click on nameservers at the top.
4. Click the Custom nameservers options.
5. Clear out the nameservers in the two slots and enter in the nameservers you received in your hosting welcome email.
6. Once you’ve entered both nameservers, click the OK button.

Your domain name will now be pointed to your new hosting account and will be visible within 24 hours. Sometimes you will see the change in a few hours, but do allow at least 24 hours for the domain to update to the new server.

Setting Up Your Blog

Now for the part you’ve been waiting for. Open a new browser and go to yourdomainname.com/cpanel replace yourdomainname.com with the new domain name you registered on GoDaddy.

Example:

• if your domain is milliondollarblog.com enter in milliondollarblog.com/cpanel

You will be prompted to enter in your user name and password. If you do not remember what user name you selected, refer to your hosting welcome email.

Once you are able to login you will several rows of icons. Locate the blue smiley that says fantastico (look toward the right near the bottom) and click on it.

On the new page there is a column on the left – find the link under Blogs that says WordPress.

Click On WordPress

You will see some info and a blue link that says New Installation click it.

You will now be asked a series of questions as follows:

• Install on domain- Select your domain name
• Install in directory- Leave Blank
• Administrator-username- Select a username you want to use to login to your blog (I use admin)
• Password- Select the password you want to use to login to your blog
• Admin nickname- The name you want people to see (I use my first name)
• Admin e-mail- Your contact email (the one you use most)
• Site Name- Name of the blog (what you want the blog to be known as)
• Description- Short description of the blog (sort of a tagline or slogan)

After your enter in all of the details click on Install WordPress

In the following screen click Finish Installation

You want to retain a copy of the next page that will contain the admin login page and login information for future reference.

Congratulations! You are the proud owner of a domain and a WordPress blog!

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My Comment Commitment: If you leave an approved comment on any of my posts, I will visit your blog and “share it” in some way whether on StumbleUpon, Twitter or Facebook depending on if I can find a nice fit.

Originally posted 2009-08-14 16:50:52.

I have spent the larger part of my morning trying to figure out why access to my pages and posts through my dashboard is broken. I’m able to write to my blog with Windows Live Writer – you were probably wondering about that, weren’t you?

No, I haven’t lost it.

When I click on pages or posts I am served an error message:

You do not have sufficient permissions to access this page.

The only thing I’ve been able to figure out is it has something to do with my updating to the latest WordPress version. I’m guessing it had to do with a plugin not working with the newest version – so I disabled and deleted the most recent plugins. That didn’t fix it.

Next, I tried to install an older version of WordPress to adjust back to a time when my blog wasn’t broken. That didn’t work.

The only option I’m left with now is paying Hostgator $15 to restore a backup version of my blog that is less than a week old.

When you see that notification at the top of your blog that calls for an upgrade – don’t be so quick to click. Do a quick check to see if there are any reported bugs with the newer version – perhaps glitches that cause problems with some of the more popular plugins.

Have you had problems with upgrading WordPress? Do share – you know what they say… Misery does love company!

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My Comment Commitment: If you leave an approved comment on any of my posts, I will visit your blog and “share it” in some way whether on StumbleUpon, Twitter or Facebook depending on if I can find a nice fit.