How many small businesses are in your area? The average county has thousands of small business. However, only a third of all small businesses have a web site, and only a third of these sites can carry out a sales transaction. What these businesses don't realize is that they can probably profit from a web site. They are in great need of a talented web professional such as yourself to not only bring them to water but also to show them how good it tastes to drink. In other words, let these entrepreneurs see that there are more profits to be made.

First you need to prospect local businesses to find out which ones are potential customers. What kinds of businesses are most likely to need a web site? Selecting best freelance opportunities is a matter of intuition, but I have found from previous experience that following types of businesses are excellent prospective clients:

Restaurants Theaters Night Clubs Grocery Stores Travel Agencies Law Firms Religious Organizations Real Estate Agencies Insurance / Loan Officers Universities and Educational Facilities Local governments / County web sites Customized Item Stores Many others

It is important to focus your energy on where there is likely to be a need for your services. Uncovering a business opportunity often times requires broadening range of your skills and services. Since you are targeting all sorts of different businesses you will often need to learn about different industries in order to be useful. You might find that you want to focus on one industry, for example, only targeting restaurants. You could create online menus, downloadable coupons, reservations, take out orders, and any other innovative ideas to draw in prospect's interest. In fact, imagination and creativity are your keys to success. The number one focus of a successful entrepreneur is PROFIT. Your goal is to find out how you can raise prospective client's profit line ... this takes creativity.

Excellent tools for researching local businesses are :

1. Yellow Pages 2. Chamber of Commerce 3. Better Business Bureau 4. Department of Small Business Development 5. Trade Associations 6. Search Engines 7. Purchased Lists

What information do I need to find out about each prospective client before contacting them? Slow down, you have some work to do first. At minimum, you will need to get phone number, company's name, and address. From this information, you can hopefully gain access to verifiable details about this business. From this information, you should do research on Internet. You will need to find out if business in question has a web site. Use every resource available to access this information. If you can't find a web site then you found yourself a lead.

What happens if company does have a web site? Well, if business in question does have a web site then you have two choices ... either move on or further evaluate site. If you choose latter, this is what you should look for:

1. Is web site visually appealing? 2. Are site's resources being used effectively? 3. Are there means for a sales transaction? 4. Does site have a domain name? 5. Is site listed in search engines? 6. Were meta tags used effectively? 7. Does site load quickly? 8. Is there essential contact information available? 9. Are there broken links or missing images? 10. Do you see a sales strategy that they are missing?

If any of above situations occur, you should consider contacting company to setup a consultation. Remember to always use tact. Never come right out and criticize anyone's site, in most cases if site is awful, owner himself tried to build it. All you need to do is show business owner that he is losing out on extra earnings. There are nice words that you can find to express this instead of derogatory statements.

You should keep all of this gathered information in a database, Rolodex, or on index cards. (I recommend writing down information on large index cards. When you find a prospective client, take their card with you and write down personal information on back of this card. This way, next time you visit client, you can ask him how his sick aunt is feeling.)

Before contacting your newly found lead, you will need to get your thoughts together. Answer following questions of yourself:

1. How can a new or redesigned site increase owner's profits? 2. How much money would I need to charge? 3. Are there similar sites on net that you could show an example of. You should show owner how company XYZ profited from similar steps. 4. What design and graphic choices would you choose? 5. Are there add-ons that aren't necessary, but effective? 6. (If redesign) What changes would need to be made to better site?

There are not many people that enjoy cold calling, so I assume that you might be a little worried about this. Believe me, I hate cold calling as much as you. With use of a script, and a lot of practice, cold calling will seem much less intimidating.

Now you should have all information that you need about client laid out in front of you. Take a look at all of this information and make sure that you can remember it clearly. From this information you should be able to create a script to use when you call business owner. I will outline a sample script that you can in turn use to your advantage. Take a look at following example:

A: Hello, Can I please speak with owner's name?

B: This is he. How can I help you?

A: Is this an okay time for you to speak?

B: Sure, I have nothing going on right now. Who is this? (If he says that he is too busy to talk right now then you should ask what time is an okay time to talk with him).

A: Hello, My name is your name from your company's name.

B: How can I help you today?

Summary: To create a home page that will rank well in search engines and attract new visitors once they arrive takes some advance planning. Knowledge of a few key points can make all difference in success of your site.

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How to Make a Winning Home Page

One of most common questions I get from my clients is, “What should I put on my home page? Where do I begin?” Whether you are starting a new web site or redesigning your existing one, these are important questions to ask. If you don’t get answers right, you might as well not even have a web site.

The Purpose of a Home Page

The home page serves many functions, and they all must work together seamlessly. First of all, it must be designed to rank well in search engines so that people who don’t already know you can find you. Second, it’s an introduction to your business and an invitation to new customers and clients. Third, it must have a clear and intuitive navigation system so that a visitor can immediately know scope of your site and easily move around in it. This topic won’t be covered here, but you can read more about this in my article about Designing Perfect Web Menu (http://www.zmoon.com/articles/menu.html). Fourth, it must load quickly, even for people using a dialup modem for their internet access. And all this must be contained in an attractive package!

To rank well in search engines, you must either play by their rules, or buy your way in. Today we’ll do it free way, but if you want to know more about paid options, see my article on Search Engines: Should You Pay? (http://www.zmoon.com/search.html)

The Two Main Factors that Will Improve Your Ranking

When ranking sites, search engines consider two main factors. How many times does search phrase occur on your page, and how many other quality sites link to your page? The first factor indicates how closely your page matches what searcher is looking for. The second factor indicates overall quality of your site, since other sites won’t send their customers to you unless you offer excellent content. How to cultivate a strong network of sites linking to your site is beyond scope of this article, but will be covered in another edition.

Create Your Keywords List

Step one is to brainstorm a list of words and phrases you think someone would type into a search engine looking for a business like yours. If I had a landscaping business in Cheyenne, for instance, I might create this list: landscaping, tree trimming, lawn care, weed control, rock gardens, ponds, garden design, xeriscaping, flower beds, mulch, consultation, Cheyenne. I would include my city since I only work within 50 miles of home.

Next, I would use free tool at WordTracker (http://www.zmoon.com/cgi-bin/pl.pl?word) to get other words to add to my list, find out how often they were entered into engines in last 60 days, and how many competing sites also have them. I would probably buy a day’s worth of access to their complete service since it adds so much information and costs less than ten bucks.

Place Your Keywords on Page