This week has been rather hectic with the business in the process of going to full time (at least as far as I’m concerned). I’ve been doing everything from finding good people (programmers, flash animators, 3D animators, etc.) to bidding on websites and writing out a business plan (thank God for consultants!) and then trying to get sleep in the process. In the midst of all of this I’ve noticed that while our Economy is very tight right now, websites are still booming.

The only problem is that while websites as a general whole are increasing along with technology, the budget of small to medium sized businesses isn’t. So here’s a few tips & tricks to help get a basement business or even a medium sized corporation business the leading edge without spending lots of extra money.

1. Google is your friend! On the main page of Google there’s a small text link called “Business Solutions”. Under Google there are all sorts of free programs to help you track the amount of hits on your website (Google Analytics), accept credit cards (Google checkout), or even earn revenue (Google AdSense). By signing up for some if not all of these gives your website the advantage of having all of the major tools any website needs at your fingertips without a huge spending cost. http://www.google.com/services/

2. Quantcast shows your website’s demographics! Want to learn more about your audience? How they shop, what other sites they visit, whether they are more male or female? Quantcast is another free program that is as easy to install on your website as Google Analytics. Along with basic tracking information, it also allows you to view the age range and statistics of the main group of viewers to your website. A very handy source of information. http://www.quantcast.com/

3. WebCEO is a free SEO Program! Ever wonder how to increase your site’s views on a major Search Engine? This is a simple solution to your problem. WebCEO is a free program that not only helps you pick out keywords that best matches your site and individuals it caters to, but it also shows you the percentage of clicks that you will get from those keywords. Through weekly reports and running the program’s scanner you will learn the ins and outs of SEO with a pretty easy to use software. http://www.webceo.com/

4. ClickTale is a free Program that shows you where visitors are clicking on your website. A very helpful tool to see if people are clicking on images or other spots of the site. Extremely powerful tool for analyzing how “fluid” the site is as well as user friendly. http://www.clicktale.com

5. Double check all of your coding. (This is just a bit of professional advice from me to you!) With all of the new browsers coming out, different codes cause major issues between browsers. Make sure that your programming is 100% correct by using sites such as CSS validators and opening your site in multiple versions of each majorly used browser. Don’t get upset if for some odd reason your site shows up slighty different in a not as well known browser, just focus on the major ones. These will not only make sure that your sites appear correctly, but work correctly as well. http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/