One of my biggest challenges as a business owner is a lack of time.  Sure, I would like to get everything done, but that is not a reality.  In fact, I would almost certainly say that there is never enough time - we just have to make the best of what little we have.

When it comes to my website empire, my challenge is the number of sites I have to create.  I mostly have all the content outsourced, but I still do the web designing myself.  A good example of time eating tasks would be the JavaScript menu I created for one of my sites - it took way too long.

So, when I came to a site promising quick and easy web design software I was hooked.  I could use anything to reduce my workload, and the software promised just that.

I purchased it and I am trying it out, and so far I am pleased.  It has made life a lot easier, so much so that I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of using something like this sooner.  Anyway, it has sure sped up my website creation - and for that I am thankful.

My boyfriend has started his own company making jewelry. He is really good at it and we thought that we should get it on the Internet, allowing it to be seen by more people. As neither one of us are very computer literate, we decided to consult a friend as to how to get started in this process.

He told us that we would need to buy a domain name before we could do anything else and he gave us a list if sites to visit that offered cheapest domain names. He then suggested that we hire someone to help us build a site that would be easy to navigate.

We decided to go for it and asked ourselves what is in a name? We came up with a name that would tell people exactly what it was that we were offering and then got someone to work with us on building the page.

After upgrading from my old, pre-2000 mobile phone, I thought that it was time for me to try out some of its’ new features.  Sure, having a color screen was a big step forward in itself, but I thought that I should really put the phone to the test.

So, what I did was see if I could find some wap sites that would work with it.  If you are unfamiliar with that term, a wap site is a site that is designed to display properly on a mobile phone.  Many of the most common sites like Google and eBay have a version designed so that it displays properly on a cell phone.

While browsing around on my phone, I came across a mobile community that I joined that would allow me to have my own mobile site to share with my friends.  From what I have seen, I think that this will be a great way for me to use some of my wasted time on the bus to work to connect with the rest of the world.  All I can say is that it is pretty slick!

The other day, my web hosting was down and it caused me a great deal of grief. I make a living off of the Internet and if the hosting is not working than I am not making any money. I contacted the company to inquire about when it would be up and running again and, as I was not able to talk to a person, I left a message.

Three days later, I had still not heard anything and the hosting was still down. I tried to call again and then I finally decided that I would move all of my web pages to a new hosting account. I decided to go with asp.net web hosting, and so far it has been very good.

In fact, it has been better than it ever was with the old company and I am really happy with the switch. I actually got to talk to a real person and I was told that if I had any questions that they could help me at any time of the day. It is a switch that I should have made a long time ago, but I guess I had to learn the hard way.

I have a few friends that live in Calgary, Alberta.  I don’t know if you have ever visited that city, but it is worth the trip.  Not only is it a beautiful city, but it is really close to the mountains - something that I can’t ignore.

Since I love the city so much, I have a number of friends that live there.  I was just talking to my friend David that was looking for a Calgary web design company to help him setup a site for his paving business.  I guess he was having some difficulties going through the phone book, and was having little luck finding one.

I suggested that he could look online and perhaps better success.  I know that when I did a search on his topic, I found a number of good results - so he is going to give it a try.

After our conversation, I really wonder how much longer we are going to use phone books - they are so much harder to use than a simple search online.

Over the past six months, I have started to offer an e-business consulting service.  I have just a few clients and I have helped them with many aspects of setting up their e-businesses.  Everything from setting up their site, customizing it to their needs, and providing ongoing maintenance.

I picked up one customer that sold golf clubs online and they were using an e-commerce storefront that I had never had experience with before.  They were having a slight problem, so they asked if I could help.

I found that the software was one of the best storefront software packages available online and that the customer had chosen them because of the aspdotnetstorefront hosting that was designed specifically for the script.

It only took about ten minutes for me to figure out what the problem was and fix it.  I think that I will recommend the software package to all of my clients - I have never seen one that was so easy to use as this one is.

When I was new to the Internet and owning websites, I realized that I had a lot to learn.  I have never been one to assume that I know everything, and when I entered into this business venture, I knew that I would have a lot to learn.

Reading through many webmaster forums, I learned that I would have to master the art of search engine optimization if I was to ever get any traffic or make money from my website.  I read a few books on the subject, but quite honestly, I didn’t understand what I was reading.

It wasn’t until I talked to a SEO consulting service that things started to add up.  I explained what I was trying to do and they were happy to answer my questions and help me get up onto my marketing feet.

I was a quick learner, and it wasn’t long before I had traffic running into my website.

When I was going to start a website for my business, I didn’t want to go was something that looked second rate.  I wanted our website to stand up to my competition and let people know that we were the best of the best.

I looked in town to see if I could find a website design firm that would be able to help us give that impression, but none of the firms in town offered good quality design at a reasonable price.  In fact, I would say that most of their portfolios that they show on their websites show poor quality examples and make me not want to do business with them.

While asking one of my joint venture partners what they thought, they suggested to me that I go with a New York Web design firm that they have had a lot of success with.  I took his recommendation and had them design the website for my business and it is the nicest site in my industry.  In the future, we will be sending many projects to them as their work is second to none.

Now that I am a bit older, I find that I want to further my education, but I just cannot miss work to do it.  I need to pay my bills and unfortunately, they don’t usually pay you to go to school.

So I have been trying to find a accredited college online that offers studies in the fields that I am interested in.  I skipped over the few sites that just sold you a degree - I just wanted a legitimate degree that I earned, not purchased.

I was able to find a college that offered business degrees online and online associate degrees.  Looking through the course offerings, it looked very promising and I have requested more information about their college.

I can’t wait to have the opportunity to learn something new for a change instead of just facing the monotony of work.  It will be so nice this time too as I will be able to study on my own schedule that can work around my life.

As our business has grown, so has the popularity of our website.  If you look at the trend over the past six months, our website has moved up in the rankings on many of the search engines on its own.  Though that is great, I would like to think that our website could be number one.

With that in mind, we’ve been making an effort to increase our web ranking by actively marketing our site.  We’ve done many things such as directory submissions, article of publishing, and social bookmarking in an attempt to gain more back links to our website.

So far, it looks like our work has been paying off as the site continues to move up in the rankings in many different keyword phrases related to our business.  Though we are not there yet, I know if we continue to actively market our site we will get there in the next six months or so.  I am very interested to see what the effect on our sales will be when we do reach the number one position.  I guess, I will just have to wait and see.