A couple more weeks and the holiday season will be here.  Is your website holiday ready?   Being holiday ready can involve the front-end and/or the back-end of your website.  For example, the front-end would involve what your customers see when they visit your site: images, content, etc.  The back-end of your website would involve increased support for the extra workload, more bandwidth, etc.

Similar to how stores prepare for the holidays, a website that wants to have the holiday look and feel can incorporate holiday images and colors on the website.  You can use a holiday image on your homepage with a note – “Happy Holidays”.  Another way to incorporate the holiday look and feel is to create a “holiday page” that may have (if applicable) sales for the holidays, shipping instructions, and so forth.  Moreover, if you have a blog, you can blog about your holiday party and include pictures.

Furthermore, if you do not want to change the front-end of your website, you can prepare the back-end of your website.  If you anticipate an increase in traffic and sales, you can increase your staff before the holiday rush.  Also, if traffic increases, you may want to increase bandwidth to avoid any downtime or extra bandwidth charges.

Another option some businesses use is to create a separate website just for the holiday season so that it does not affect their current website.  This separate website could be used for marketing purposes, sales/coupons, tracking customer traffic, etc.  Usually this website is temporary.  As a result, to get a temporary site up quickly without costing a fortune and still look professional – why not try a website builder.  With a website builder, you can quickly and easily build a professional website for the holidays.

Why should a small business have a website?
There are a number of reasons to have a website.  A website can provide information about your business such as products/services, contact information, etc.  A website can make your company look more professional with the right content and images.  Also, a website is usually the first place a person visits before doing business or shopping.

Depending on the type of business you have you can design your own website or you hire a web designer to create the site for you.  Its a question we are often asked …which is better?  If you have a need to have a “online presence” a place to showcase your services, reviews from customers, offer coupons and a  page so interested people can contact you…then you can easily and effectively do this with a business website builder.  Not all website builders are alike and its imperative to find one that offers the technology you need.

What to look for in a website builder product:

Support: Does the product offer support or are you left on your own for troubleshooting?

Program updates: Does the product implement updates to the software to better improve usability?

SEO: Are you able to effectively implement Search Engine Optimization on your website?

Now on the other hand if you have a “e-commerce” type of website – where you offer hundreds of products wtih many details – it may be best to contact a web specialist so they can streamline this for you and make it easier for you to update your inventory (which includes using a database and can be quite cumbersome to manage this yourself. )  Its all about how quickly you can update your pages – and sometimes it is best to contact a professional.

So the first step is outlining what it is you need your website to do for you – from there you can begin to make a informed decision.

Need the perfect picture for your website?  Then take a look at at the thousands of free high quality images we have for your to use -  FREE – inside our website builder.  The easy “image search” option allows you to effortlessly locate the perfect image no matter what your site is about:

Share your photos with ease.

Displaying images on your website is very simple! After using our easy to use image uploader, you can organize your photos into collections and display galleries, complete with a lightbox. We support any image format and size so you don’t have to spend hours formatting your pictures before you upload. Already have all your images on Flickr? No problem, just enter your username and we will connect your Flickr photo collections to your website!

We would like to showcase Protectivepainting.com. Protective Paintings Inc. is a painting company that offers a full range of painting services from indoors to outdoors, small to large and residential to commercial in the Tampa Bay area. Check out their site:

The site used RapidWeb’s website builder to build a simple and professional website. The site incorporated a YouTube video on the homepage that talks about their services. Also, the site has effectively used a photo album that shows sample works. The site used cool colors as the theme of their site with different shades of blue.

This site is a good example of using a website builder to quickly and easily build a website about their company. It is easy to find information about their company and the services they provide. Speaking of that, does your house or business need a new paint job?

When you go into a hair salon, what is one of the top things that is on your mind (aside from service) – Is this hair salon clean? That is the same thinking when visiting a website – Is the website clean and professional. As a result, we would like to feature Serendipityhairsalon.com that effectively uses RapidWeb’s online website builder to create a clean and professional looking website. Check it out here:

Serendipity Hair Salon provides a number of hair services in the Oakland and entire Bay Area. Their specialties are weaves and extensions with a focus on healthy hair care and innovative styling techniques. They recently had a customer from American Idol – visit their site to see who it is.

Speaking of their site, they built a website that features a customer testimony using a YouTube video on the sidebar. Also, they have some sample customer images on the homepage with links to more videos and images. Basically, if you want to look good – check out their website and their hair salon when in the Bay Area.

Building a website online is easy when using a powerful website creator such as RapidWeb..try it today!

Take a deep breath and relax. It’s been a busy day, week, month maybe even year. Holistic Healthy Day Spa is dedicated to your total well-being by providing the following services: massages, facials, body wraps, and so forth. The full list of services and more information can be found by checking out their website here:

Holistichealthdayspa.com used RapidWeb’s website builder to build a website with a brown color theme. Using brown brings a natural and warm feeling, which is ideal when visiting a site that provides services to help you relax and rejuvenate. Also, they have applied an easy-to-follow horizontal menu bar that point to the current page. On the side bar, they have listed links to their services. As a result, it is easy and quick to find what they provide with a link to the prices.

Just visiting their site, viewing the homepage image and colors – you will feel more relaxed. They have done a wonderful job in picking the right images and the right colors. Now, for some reason I feel like drinking some green tea. Speaking of tea, they have a link for tea parties as well.

After getting your business up and running, it’s important that your business extends online. Here is a checklist for getting your business online:

• Domain Name registration
• Hosting
• Web Design
• Web Content
  • Product/Services
  • Contact Us Page
  • Company /About Us Information
  • Blog

• Email Setup
• Marketing
  • SEO – Search Engine Optimization
  • SEM – Search Engine Marketing
• Go Live

Keep in mind that it’s important to make sure everything is accurate and up to date: images, colors, spelling, contact information, etc.  Once your site is live, continue to market your site similar to how you would market your business because the more traffic and exposure you have – the higher the chance of success.