Credibility is King

The Social Web is huge these days and it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that a free and easy way to maintain an online presence is via a Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc. Yes, free and easy is correct (discounting the time you will spend and frustrations you will encounter managing your social networking profiles), but how often has a successful business person cited "free and easy," as the keys to their success. By typing in "why you need a Website," you can find dozens of articles listing all the reasons, but when you can undoubtedly do most on any number of social networking sites, why pay for one? CREDIBILITY.

Anybody can establish a presence via social networking, but consumers don't want to buy from anybody. They want to buy from someone they trust. The fact that you invest time and money into a professional site says to a consumer that you are serious about your business, more so than the Web site have not's, and that immediately gives you an advantage. From there, it is a matter of creating a site that is engaging, easy to navigate, and ranks well in search engines.