Young Emerging Leaders

I get what both of you, Shane and Kelly are saying, but, if I may, I'd like to add $.02 here....

I've learned since I started my event planning service and since I constructed my own website, that the only way to show up on internet searches is to get visits.

- Shane, don't jump on me, but the only way I was able to get my head around the concept was to cut it in to bite sized pieces....here goes:

Google - a search engine- is fueld by information gathered on the internet.  If the information does not exist on the internet, Google has nothing to offer the searcher.

The vendor that has a website should not expect to get visits by clicking the "launch" button on his server.  He has to load information in to the interent.  How?  Well the more stuff...ANY STUFF, that contains your business name....negative or otherwise, can and eventually will be gathered by Google. 

The point (for the vendor) is to get people into his site and/or store.  He gets this traffic by joining free sites, search engines, posting blogs, message boards and even joining marketing assistance engines that Google, Yahoo and others offer. 

I've been a member of "Party Pop" for 6 months now.  Party Pop is an event planning search engine.  One can search by city, state, vendor, occassion and more.  It is, by far, one of the tackiest search engines I've run across, but a LOT of people use it...because it has the information people need. 

The difference between Yellowpages.com and a local website is that with YP (yellowpages) you get one free listing that just has name and phone number with address.  What if your business is web based?  YP has an answer but it will cost ya!  It's not cheap.  There are different levels, one is that the website is mentioned and another if the link is live (meaning one can click on it to be taken directly to the site).

If a business pays for this service, through YP, the business is not guarenteed traffic because YP can only provide listings at that level...not information saturation.  However, for a fee.....

Getting the picture, like I did?  They all make their money some how, huh?

A free site, poorly designed or not, will generate information saturation for both Fort Smith and the businesses that call her home!