What business owners need to know about starting a new website in 2012

How much competition is online? Can people really find my website?

Everyone thinks websites are some magical door to riches. Don't get me wrong, they can be, but not as a rule. Todays Internet is far different than the one from 1999 when all these gold rush style rumors started.

Back in the day, yea, way back 10 years or so when the Internet was just a baby it was possible to start a website, get listing in the searches in a few days and start selling products. It really was that easy. And so it should have been because nobody knew how to set up a website and there was little competition for the growing user base.

I put up a website in 1997 for website hosting and in 2 months had 100 clients and growing. Just after a few months I has making 5 times as much at home part time as I was with my full time job. It is no wonder that everyone thinks they can open a $20 website and quit their job.

By 2004 when we opened bumblebeeworks.com I was working 16 - 18 hour days 7 days a week and had more programming and web experience than just about everyone. We spent $100,000.00 on advertising and promotions on radio, TV, magazines and the Internet and after 1 year we had 100 customers.

So what changed between 1997 and 2004?

EVERYTHING! Everything about how people use the Internet, how they think and how many people were now competing for the same customers.

In 1997 there were only a few people that even knew how to publish a website. There were no sites selling domains, hosts had little or no exposure and websites were mostly a mystery.

By 2004 anyone with a computer and that is almost everyone was calling themselves a webmaster. There were more webmasters than websites and anyone could sign up at godaddy.com, web.com and a host of other sites for low cost simple domain registration and website construction.

So when we launched bumblebeeworks we were looking to make it easier and cheaper for businesses to build websites. The problem was, so was everyone else.

If you did not get a jump start in the 90's then getting started later was not easy and most people that tried failed.

In 2004 I wrote an article about how the search engines work and explained that google was indexing 4 billion pages and that anyone finding your page was like winning the lottery. 1 person searching 4 billion pages, not great odds at all. But still when factoring in content and such people do get search engine traffic.

In fact the 4 billion pages was a great feat for any company to database that volume of content. Something that was never believed to be possible with the technology that existed.

However by 2006 google had upped their database to 8 billion pages! In 2 years the competition had doubled. And by 2008 google was indexing 25 Billion pages. By 2010 they exceeded 150 billion and at that time stopped advertising how many pages they listed because their competitors claimed to be listing even more pages. Yes, even google had stiff competition.

So in 6 years we went from 4 billion to 200 billion pages. You don't have to be Albert Einstein to realize those numbers do not help anyone trying to sell in that market.

Today google has more than 6.5 Billion pages indexed just for facebook.com alone. That is one website with 50% more pages that the entire Internet had 8 years previously.

I have to tell you people, this thing is getting real big, real fast.

As I sit here and write this one page that will be added to the Internet I can't help but think that there are likely a million more people doing the same thing and the Internet will grow by a million pages in just a few minutes.

The days of setting up a website and getting business overnight are long gone.

So put those rumors of getting rich to bed. It is not going to happen over night. The Internet is just too big and your ability to conquer it not enough to beat the billions and billions of other pages doing the same thing.

That is not to say you should not have a website or that a website will not make you money, it just wont happen without hard work and dedication. You will have to use all the same tools you had before to advertise and promote your business and ultimately get them using your website.

In todays tech dependent world businesses need a website as much if not more than having a telephone. Without a website people don't even see you as a legitimate business. People judge business based on what they find online, so you need to make sure they find you and what you have to say.

So what do you need to know to compete in todays market and get your fair share of traffic?

Obviously the first and foremost has nothing to do with the website. You need customers and branding. If your business is "squigglebot" you want people to find you when they search for you.

If your website is "craftsandmoreandmore.com" but people know you as "squigglebot" then you need to make sure the text "squigglebot" is in your pages. Not identifying your name or brand in your website is a huge problem for business owners. In fact the automated copyright message at the bottom of the page is often the only reason some websites are even found because it is the only place with the name of the website written on a page.

Now that people are searching for you you need to make sure you stay listed in the search engines. You notice I said, STAY listed and not get listed. It is just as important to do regular updates and make changes so your listing does not slowly descend to oblivion.

To prevent the demise from the SERPs it is important that you update content at least on the home page as frequently as possible. Once a week is highly recomended and at least one a month is minimum. It may seem like a lot of work, but yes, a website is work and to keep it functional you need to work on it.

The site itself will not stop working but the searches do look fr updates. If you have not done any then they wait longer between crawls and start lowering your relevancy since nothing is happening on your pages they consider it outdated with so many other sites doing regular daily updates.

The next important part is having ample text on the pages. Having pages with at least 500 words or written text will help secure your place in the searches. Since they only index text and they have billions and billions of pages to choose from it is important that you give them something better than your competitor.

Now you need to know that having 100 pages is better than having 5 pages. Not because you have more to sell but because your site will be seen as more important than someone with less pages.

You will also need back links or links from outside sites to your website. You can do with with simple signatures in forums or getting friends to link from their sites. This will let the searches know that you are not the only person interested in your website and that it is important for them to keep you listed.

Lastly and most importantly you need to have the right text on your pages. Forget the meta tags or tricks, just make sure you have the exact words that you want people to search for typed in your pages. Make sure you use words or phrases in complete sentences and not just typed into the page.

If you add pages regularly and make updates and keep building the pages with quality content you will most certainly be listed in the searches and get a fair share of web traffic.

Keep in mind that the age of a website is a critical factor in where you get listed. So with time your listings will rise if you keep the site active and make updates. The searches see an older site as more reliable and more relevant than  new sites that have not proved they will be open next year.

This really is a case of you get back what you put in. If you work hard, add pages and update your site on a regular basis you will far exceed anyone that builds a site and waits for something to happen.

You have to use your website as a tool to reach your existing customers, integrate the website into your marketing and make the website a real part of your business. If you do that, the rest will come in time.

If you slap up a few pages a buy now button and a contact email, then you will likely be looking to close the website soon because it will not do anything for you or your business.

You don't need to be an expert webmaster to compete on todays Internet or have a successful website. But you do need to be an expert in business and know how to grow a business to grow a website. The rules are the same as growing any brick and mortar business. Hard work, updates and provide what your customers need. If you have the best product you likely make the most money. If you have the best website you will likely get the most traffic.

Don't over think it, it takes time and patience like any other aspect of business. If you don't have th time or desire to work the website then don't bother. There are plenty of competitors that will be happy to get your share of the web traffic.