What is goal of site? Many companies have ineffective websites because there were no predefined goals in place when site was made. What do you want site to do? Sometimes goal is easy to define. If your site sells items online, you most likely want your visitors to make a purchase. For many other companies that sell services (or high end products that can't reasonably be sold online), goal is to have visitor initiate a contact so that sales staff can attempt to convert them into a customer. The important point is that your website should be more than a static billboard that proclaims that your company is open for business- it should be designed to help achieve predefined goals (and unless site is strictly informational, this usually means encouraging visitor to take a desired action). Simply "having a website" does nothing to help your business or your customers.

I guess I take for granted reasons why I belong to several industry specific organizations. But, to those that are new to any industry, joining an organization made up of your competitors is a valid concern.

Some organizations have members that are from a variety of walks of life (i.e. small business organizations, etc.) while others are more specified and include only members from a specific industry (i.e. VA organizations).

I think consensus among members of any organization is that benefits of being involved with others in your industry are numerous.

So, why should you join industry specific organizations? Here are some of best reasons:

1.Networking. This is one of main reasons for joining any organization and is actually part in parcel with all other reasons I will list here.

Networking with anyone and everyone is essential to growth of any business, especially networking with those in your industry.

Some industries are still fairly young and by networking with your peers you can all work together to increase exposure of your specific industry, thus increasing visibility of each individual member’s businesses.

2.The opportunity to work with fellow members. With increased exposure of various industries, many veteran members may be finding their workloads are getting to a point where they have to outsource some of their projects. If they don’t know about you they won’t even have chance to consider sending you some of their overflow.