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1. Decide the role your website will play in supporting your sales and marketing process. Do you want the site to be used by prospects just to learn more about your product or service or do you want the site to generate leads and even process sales?
2. Map out the pages you need and any “functionality”, such as forms you want visitors to fill out, “contact us” email forms, video or audio elements.
3. Write your content for each page, include a page name, page title and a brief description of the page for SEO (search engine optimization). When you are writing your copy for each page think of how you can incorporate keywords or phrases that people might be searching for related to the page topic and your company. This will help you increase the ranking and visibility of your site.
4. Decide who will host your site. You can use www.redspotdomains.com to set up a basic hosting package and register your site. Or you may want to use a service that has complete content management built in so you can make changes and get analytics from your site.
5. Register your domain name. Choose one that is as simple and obviously connected to your company or product as possible. In order to get your website online you need a domain name and hosting. 
These are two separate items but it makes things easier if you register your domain and hosting at the same place.
6. Always make sure you register and pay for your domain name yourself. DO NOT allow a web designer or marketing company to register it for you.  If they do, they legally own the domain name. Register your domain for as long as you can (you can choose annual or multi-year registrations).  Search engines look upon long term registrants favorably. Register as many extensions (.com, .net, .uk, etc.) as you feel you may need for the long term as well. You may want to expand your company and may need to own these domains, so no one else registers them.
7. Hire a web designer or developer or marketing company to help you build the site. Web design is a field where you can pay as little as $20 per hour or $100s per hour. You need to match your budget with your design needs. Depending on your business, product or service, and the type of business or consumer you are selling to, design is often not as important as content (the information and options for response) that you have on your site.
8. We advise clients to work first, and hardest, on the content of your site, rather than spend thousands on expensive design. Ask the designer you select what they will charge you to make updates to the site. Also consider a simple Content Management System so you or your marketing team can make basic updates and add pages yourself.
9. Have your site built and have a demo site put online for you to test. Go through and make sure all your links and forms are functioning correctly before you “go live”.
10. Once your site is live, make sure all your staff, suppliers, partners and clients are aware of it. Do a promotion and send them links to instantly get connected. Start working on how to generate more traffic, so you will be moved up in the rankings on search engines (Google®, Yahoo®, etc).

In past blogs I’ve compared Corporations to Dinosaurs.

One reason is the “Reptilian Brain Stem” – where we get our fundamental survival instinct – the so-called “Fight Flight” response.

The DNA of even the best intentioned corporations, such as Apple and Google, determines it’s nature.  The purpose of corporate structure is to remove the personal risk to the creators and investors by creating a new entity, under the control of the creators, which acts to secure profits.   Even with the most noble of intentions, once this new entity reaches maturity, and the intentions of noble founders recede into the background, it uses its gargantuan power to dominate and control any market it can, for the profit purpose for which it was created.  Frankenstein style.

Most people don’t see Apple and Google that way.  Apple is cool, hip, stylish, trendy.  It’s customers identify with it, and are willing to pay premium prices.  At the opposite end we have Google.  So nerdy it’s cool, lavishing free stuff on all as it slowly worms it’s way into a position of absolute dominance relative to all information on the planet.  And information is power.

They’ve also had a cozy inbred relationship, even sharing Board seats – until recently.  Here’s an article that shows the Reptilian Nature inherent in their previously symbiotic relationship beginning to emerge.

GoHuman.com’s DNA is different.  I hope you’ll dig deeper to learn why!  We hope you’ll join us in deploying a better evolutionary model.  We hope you’ll use us to change the way your world works.

Why GoHuman.com?  Reason #12 is that we’re more Human!

Reason #1; Reason #2; Reason #3; Reason #4; Reason #5; Reason #6; Reason #7; Reason #8; Reason #9; Reason #10; Reason #11;

An important concept in Web marketing is search engine optimization (SEO). Basically this is the art/science of putting the right words in your GoHuman posting title and main posting area so that people searching for those words on Google will find you more easily and frequently.

This topic gets complex fast, but here are some simple rules you can use when you’re posting on GoHuman to help:

1. Use words that describe your profession in the title and posting. For example, if you’re a plumber use the word, “plumber.”
2. Use your city name, or if you’re in a particular neighborhood use that as well. For example, “Master plumber in Chicago available for repair or new construction.”
3. Be sure to list all your specialties in your posting as a company description. People may be searching for something specific and if you don’t put that specialty in your posting you will not be found for that specialty. For example, “ACME Plumbing specializes in fixing clogged drains, sewers, new construction/installation….”

If you’re interested in learning more about SEO, here’s a good place to start.

In October I wrote an entry (“Google no evil”) about Google’s 10¹⁰⁰ initiative. I praised Google for trying to change the world by gathering the ideas, and committing $10 Million funding. I also wondered if Google would prefer those ideas which would bring them profit; perhaps not those which could change the world.

You can check progress on their Project 10¹⁰⁰ website. Or, I can just summarize it here … “Not a lot. In fact, nothing.”

Oh well, good intentions and all that! It’s just a shame that some of the 150,000 plus ideas which might now be helping change the world have been gathering virtual dust on Google’s cybershelves. Might I suggest that Google could at least have released those ideas they know they aren’t going to promote, so that others can? Maybe they have somewhere, but I haven’t seen it – so if any readers have, please let me know. There are plenty of others eager to be changing the world with those ideas right now.

But that’s enough sniping at Google, they meant well after all, didn’t they?

Let’s move on to the current moral high ground they have established, with their threat to shut down operations in China if they can’t reach agreement with the Chinese authorities regarding hacking of personal details, which could be as soon as next month.

We here at GoHuman firmly believe that civil liberties and human rights are worth standing up for – as followers of this blog will know! We’re all for reducing government (as well as corporate) power to the level where the government serves the people (and the corporation serves the customers). So, despite any reservations, my first instinct is to praise Google for this stance.

Let’s not forget others who are joining in: Yahoo and the United States Government are now involved.

And, in my personal hall of shame in this regard: Although Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was part of the problem in these specific crimes, Microsoft has made no statement against the Chinese activities – even though backlash against Internet Explorer has come from the highest levels. The German Government is ceasing the use of IE and has issued warnings against its use.

So, just like my previous blog about Google – I’ll raise a glass to their action, and try not to question their motives!

If you’ve read this far, you should join us at GoHuman. Sign up and start posting your services or requirements today! It only takes a few minutes, costs you nothing, and puts you on the track to finding reputable customers and service-providers in your community. You can take it further if you like, and even end up with you being a part-owner of GoHuman!

All this speculation about Google buying Yelp for half a billion dollars starts to sound suspiciously like some of the other high finance deals that led to the current economic crisis. But at the end of the day, these are two corporations beholden to shareholders and investors with wealth aggregated at the top and controlled from the top. Worse still, that wealth is still leaving your community.

Where’s the little guy in all this? The independent local professional or small business who just needs to get more customers in the door, no matter who happens to own the search traffic or content at that particular moment.

Google was supposed to be in the business of objectively aggregating the world’s information, not owning it. Buying Yelp ensures a degree of control over the content that is created. And remember who’s creating all that content? You and me.

Yelp was a directory created to give consumers a democratic voice in recommending brick and mortar businesses. I believe their motives were pure, but they leaned so far in favor of the consumer as to alienate businesses who now tell extortion-like tales. The review system is limited and features such as business responses and custom business info are afterthoughts at best.

There is a better way.

What if the website that contained all the customer feedback alllowed businesses to express themselves and interact in a more natural, independent way?

Better yet, what if the people who contribute to the website community end up owning it?

GoHuman.com represents something completely different — 1000’s of sustainable localized business communities connected through the Web yet protected from the rampant evaporation of local wealth. We’re building a unique collaborative economic structure that directly rewards those who contribute to its growth. It’s a revolutionary concept that takes a bit of faith to absorb, but we truly believe it will transform local communities from the inside out, equalizing the gap between the big guys and the little guys.

You’ll have noticed the GoHuman byline above: “change the way your world works.”

Well, the folks at GoHuman.com aren’t your only friends who have that dream – witness Google’s 10th birthday initiative 10^100.

It began in September 2008, asking the public to submit world-changing ideas, from which Google would select and invest $10,000,000 into the most promising.

I’m quick to give a big “thumbs-up” to this, because with Google’s money, public image and presence they’re in a fantastic position to bring in some great ideas out of the 150,000 which have been submitted so far! Hey, who wouldn’t want better methods of clearing landmines, or more effective ways of making our taxes work? So, expect some great things out of Google!

But the skeptic in me keeps reminding me that Google, as a publicly traded company, has an over-riding legal responsibility to constantly deliver the greatest profit for its shareholders!

So what happens to the vast majority of those 150,000 ideas which have profit-making potential? Have the rights been signed over to Google?

One assumes the people contributing these ideas do want to help the world, so they don’t mind if they personally don’t make anything out of it. Or, perhaps they are hoping Google will recognize their genius and take them onboard. But are there any guarantees?

And what about the ideas which would bring great good to the world – but not great profit to Google? What if an idea would be of huge benefit to the world, but also reduce Google’s profit, increase a competitors’ profits, or reduce Google’s market power?

Isn’t Google, like any large corporation, despite having lofty sounding ideals and the greatest of goodwill, trapped by the capitalist system?

I expect, and I’m ready to applaud some real world-changing improvements out of the 10^100 initiative, and I hope I’m wrong in my fear that the best will never see the light of day.

Gmail users were left without email for an hour on Tuesday, which some might say doesn’t bode well for Google’s bid to sell enterprise-level cloud computing services. But instead of fumbling and obfuscating, Google simply let everyone know what happened.

It only gets harder to be this transparent and honest the bigger you get. At least that’s what most companies would have you believe. But Google proves that people respond better to companies who go the extra mile to make it right than those who don’t. This is a philosophy we embrace and nurture within GoHuman.com, so I applaud Google’s efforts to maintain their culture.

I have no great love for the pile of business cards on my desk, but I don’t agree that Google is currently the answer for replacing them. A Google search might lead you to someone’s LinkedIn profile, or Google Profile if they’ve bothered to set it up (as everyone should). But replacing a concise, well-conceived piece of paper with specific information about a person with a hodgepodge of links to any number of Web sites seems a little short-sighted.

GoHuman.com offers businesses and individuals the ability not only to post uniquely branded information about their services, but also to network with people and find services in their community. Most importantly, it offers a sophisticated reputation model to gauge the quality of services provided. This is still something no search engine can tell you — how good is the person it helped you find? And what is the ultimate value of collapsing everyone under the same umbrella of branding, which leads to a lack of distinction?