Owning a website design company for almost 9 years has taught me a lot of things about people, business and life in general but one common thing I see day after day are people with grave misconceptions about getting a website and that website being successful.

Creating a website and putting it online then stopping there is like buying a shiny new corvette and not ever putting gas in it. It’s great if you just want a pretty car in your garage or driveway so you can look at it but like a sports car a website is a vehicle that is meant to be used to its full potential.

I will go out on a limb and say that over 80% of would be website owners think that they will put up a site and people are going to flock to it overnight and they will become wealthy. Let me stress, THIS IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.

Picking the right design company, the right colors, the great logo, the right layout are all very important for your website but the most important thing is your website marketing. You can have the best website in the world and if nobody ever visits your site you have wasted your money. On the flip side you can take a mediocre website, market the whiz out of it and be pretty successful.

Marketing a website takes time and money; don’t let anyone lie to you. I wish I had a magic bullet but if I did I would not be writing this article, I would be on the patio of my 10,000 sq ft beach house right now eating breakfast that my executive chef prepared for me. (By the way I’m not doing that)

You need to think long and hard about how you will market your website once it’s live, will you learn to market it or will you have someone do it for you? Do you have the time to do it your self? Do you have money in your budget to have someone take care of your marketing?

I don’t want to discourage anyone to not put up a website, I just want you to have a clear picture that your website is only the vehicle; the marketing is the fuel to run that vehicle.

Twitter is one of the most powerful tools to hit the internet in years and it can be one of the best tools you can use for social networking. Like a lot of programs Twitter will let the average user go in and change the settings in order to make their Twitter profile look different.

You can change the colors of different elements of the page and you can select from several background images they offer. Twitter also allows you to upload your own background image and really make your profile custom.

Taking advantage of using a custom background in Twitter is crucial in my opinion; it will not only set you apart but will let you give more information about yourself. Custom backgrounds also let others know that you are serious and will help you build confidence in your would be followers.

There are a few things to keep in mind when setting up your custom background or having someone set it up for you. You are only allowed to upload a background image that is smaller than 800K for your twitter background but that is plenty big enough to do what you need to do.

You also want to make sure you have your background the right size so that your information will not be behind the center section of text where the tweets show up. If you stay with 1600 X 1300 pixels you should be pretty safe. You want to be careful to not get too much info too low on your background or it will be cut off on certain monitors like laptops.

I started off using the simple backgrounds that Twitter provides when you set up an account and had a few followers, after I added my custom background it gave my Twitter profile more personality and I did see an increase. I’m not saying a custom background will get you a ton of followers by itself, you still need to tweet valuable info but it will help for sure!

We have decided to release our eCommerce shopping cart software for the low price of $199 (this covers the license and install) and $54.95 per month. This is the same software we use for our high end eCommerce clients.

The software has a built in editor that will let you change the layout, logo and colors of the website and if you want more we can create a custom skin for you for a few more bucks.

We realize a lot of people want to sell online but can’t spend a few thousand dollars for a complete custom eCommerce website so this is a good way for you to get started. The great thing is you will get all the great features of our eCommerce software and at any time in the future we can add a custom design and assist you with marketing.

The eCommerce website software comes with a full user manual so you will never get stuck. It shows you how to add your categories, products, set up payment options, shipping and much more.

You can go here and read more about what we are offering.