This article was originally published by Gregg Murray for Elance.com.

The number of website strategies you need to implement for an effective online presence is a real head-spinner. I found it much easier to navigate once I created a list of the most important website strategies. Focus on these one or two at a time. As you do, you’ll find the process of creating or recreating your web presence much less stressful.

1. Simplicity
From the design of your website to the amount of content on the page, keeping things simple is one of the best things you can do to make life easier on yourself. A website with a clean design, simple navigation and ease of use is what will provide the safest solution to your web building dilemma. Not only will you save time, you’re also likely to save money. Even more importantly, your visitors will thank you.

Use my “Uncle Leo” test method to find out if your website is user-friendly enough to use. This is where you find the least technically-savvy person you know (I use Uncle Leo), have them go to your website, and ask them to find a specific piece of information or to take a certain action. If Uncle Leo can do it, then you know you’re on the right track. And that means you’ve done your job well. Here are a few more tips on keeping your website simple.

2. The Sales Funnel
Your website exists to help you build your business. By seeing your website as a potential sales funnel instead of just a flashy online brochure, you’ll generate more web leads and more opportunities for new business. The sales funnel process begins with driving potential customers to your site, keeping them there with a professional look and compelling content, inviting visitors to join your email list (throughout your site), and finally – following up with them to build trust, authority, and a bond. Once you have the sales funnel process incorporated into your website, you’ll find more potential customers reaching out to do business with you. Learn more about using your website as a sales funnel here.

3. Words That Connect
One of the most frequent mistakes I see solo-preneurs and entrepreneurs make is creating web copy that doesn’t connect with real people. This happens most often with us business and marketing folks over 40. We have a habit of taking our old media thoughts on copywriting and applying it to new media. In other words, we are more likely to keep things a bit stiff and stuffy instead of writing our web copy in a conversational tone. The Internet is the ultimate personal medium, and it’s important to keep the copy we feature on our website a bit more casual and conversational. If you can pull this off, your website visitors will feel more connected with you, and thus… BINGO… do more business with you. Here are some pointers on creating website copy that connects with your audience.

4. Make SEO Easy
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the key to being found online. Problem is, there’s information overload. People write books (really, really long books) getting into all the minutia of getting ranked higher in Google, Bing, and Yahoo!. The good news is that the 80/20 rule plays out big time with SEO strategies, and that means there are just a few things you need to do to achieve higher search rankings. This includes making sure your keywords are incorporated in your page title and your page description and are scattered at a 3-5% ratio throughout your web page. And if you’re targeting locally, always incorporate your city or town name as one of your primary keywords. Finally, take every opportunity to have your website linked to from other websites (and the bigger the better). Do just these items and your search ranking will make a huge leap. Need some pointers on SEO? Check out this free SEO lesson.

5. A Touch of Email Marketing
Emailing your clients and prospects is a dance of moderation. Send your peeps more email then they expect and they’ll leave you. Don’t email often enough and they’ll forget about you. So, what’s the right mix? For most entrepreneurs, once to twice a month is usually the sweet spot. Just remember that the key is to always provide helpful information up front in your emails and keep the pitch as secondary. If you do want to send a specific pitch to your email list, never do it twice in a row. A little bit of moderation will go a long way. Learn more about maximizing your email marketing.

6. Get Social
Without exception, I can’t think of a single business that won’t benefit from incorporating social media into their website strategy. The big three are Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Facebook is perfect for most small businesses, especially when you’re wanting to reach a local audience. Twitter is excellent for connecting with those that spend more time than most online. And LinkedIn is a great connection tool for any business professional. Pick one. You’ll love it… It’s easy, and it’s free. Get more out of your social media with this guide.

7. Blogs Required
You gotta’ have a blog built into your website. A blog allows you to easily create single page posts about events, specials, tips, and company information to your website visitors. Not only do you get the benefit of keeping your website content fresh, you are also creating new content that search engines are on the lookout for. It’s a big win-win. A blog post every week is great for entrepreneurs, but once every two weeks or even once a month will still serve you well. Learn more about business blogging here.

8. Google Tools
If you don’t have a Google account, get one, it’s free. Yes, you’ll have to get a Google email address, but you don’t have to use it, except as your login name to get the other free Google goodies. Once you have a Google account, you can access some super important free tools that will help increase your website traffic. My faves include Google Places, Google Analytics, and Google Webmaster Tools. Even if you don’t know how to use these tools yet, go get your free Google account now, so you’ll be able to incorporate them soon.

9. Staying Connected
The biggest problem those of us have that already have a solid website is staying connected with our website visitors and those that are on our email list. The best advice I can give you is to always stay connected enough so that you’re not forgotten. That comes back to creating new and engaging blog post content several times a month and distributing great email content several times a month as well. I can’t tell you how often I’ve received a new and repeat business because I always find a way to stay in touch with my clients and prospects every 2-3 weeks. And with the quick access of Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin, you can stay in touch with your social networking audience in no time as well.

10. Managing the Madness
Once the website is done, the email marketing is rolling, the blog is being updated, and the social media is in place, you have to manage the beast. Don’t beat yourself up. The secret to managing your website and online presence is “chunking.” That means instead of going to your website several times a week to do little things that can wait, keep a list and do it all at once as needed. My list every week usually has 3-5 things I may want to update. When I do them all at once, it saves my time and gives me more peace of mind… and those are two things no website owner wants to be without.

About the Author:
Gregg Murray is an award-winning website consultant, online marketing manager, and certified SEO. He is the author of Website Blueprint: The Beginners Guide for Small Business Owners and director of Website Elementary, an online home-study course for newbies. For more free website help, download Gregg’s Small Business Website Checklist.

Access the complete Creating a Business Website series.

Keeping fresh content on your website is very important for your positioning with Google and the other search engines. You see, search engines love fresh content. Google, Yahoo! and Bing consider a website that doesn’t change for long periods of time as less important than others, and in the process you can lose some of your search engine credibility and positioning.

But, when you consistently add new content to your website, the search engine gods are more likely to reward you with higher search rankings. OK, it may not be that deep, but it works.

So then, what’s the best way to keep your website fresh with new material? Your best choice is to add the type of information we discussed for your email marketing messages. These included helpful tips, company news, promotion/sales information, etc…

And the great part is that it’s a win-win for you. By adding this new information to your website every couple of weeks, you’re going to not only receive Google/search engine benefits, but you’ll also have great content for your monthly or bi-monthly eblasts.

You can consider calling this page on your website something like, “News.” But, do you want to know the secret of what this page really is? It is a blog! That’s right, for a small business person, having a “blog” as part of your website pays really big benefits. Now, if I had initially asked you to add a “blog,” instead of a “News” page to your website, I may have lost you. After all, may small business owners don’t think of a blog as a pure online business tool. But, it can be. Big time!

In less than five minutes you can login to your blog’s online control panel, type in a paragraph about your new fall promotion, new extended summer hours, helpful tip or new staff member, and Google will see your site as fresh and more relevant. Not only that, but as you’re adding this new content to your site, you’re automatically creating new web pages (the blog’s software does it for you) with a lot of great keywords related to your business. That means even more opportunities to be found during search inquiries.

Also, with the Aweber email marketing service I mentioned earlier, your blog posts can be sent automatically to your email list. How sweet is that?

This is Part 7 of Creating a Business Website. View the rest of this series:
Part 1 | Keep it Simple
Part 2 | Don’t Go Alone
Part 3 | Think Like Them
Part 4 | Get Clicked!
Part 5 | Build Relationships
Part 6 | Promote Your Website
Part 7 | Keep it Fresh

Access the complete Creating a Business Website series.

Six up-and-coming online marketing experts were recently interviews for a series of audio blog posts at Website Blueprint. The interviews covered over 50 questions most frequently asked by small business owners and entrepreneurs. It’s now available free (on this very page) as the Website Blueprint Online Marketing Audio Series. Take a listen to the interviews below.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) 101
Craig Fifield of www.craigfifield.com discusses simple way to get your website to appear higher in Google.

Local SEO 101
Jon Rognerud of www.chaosmap.com discusses ways to be appear in Google’s local search results.

Email Marketing 101
Justin Premick of www.aweber.com discusses how to get started with email marketing.

Social Media 101
Laura Roeder of www.lauraroeder.com discusses which social media networks may be the best match for your business.

Business Blogging 101
Wendy Maynard of www.mavendiary.com discusses why a blog is so important for small businesses web sites.

Online & SEO Copywriting 101
Erika Napoletano of www.redheadwriting.com discusses how website wording can persuade visitors (and Google).

Interviews were conducted by award-winning website consultant, Gregg Murray. Gregg Murray is a website strategy blogger for AllBusiness.com, a website marketing contributor to The State Journal, and author of Website Blueprint: The Beginners Guide for Small Business Owners.

The importance of having a blog for your small business website has become soooooooo crucial. Check out Why Small Business Owners Need a Blog.

If you don’t yet have a website, you cannot pass go or collect your $200 until you understand you gotta’ have a website and a blog. If you have a website, but don’t have a blog, I’m going to do whatever I have to (don’t make me come to your office) for you to have your site rebuilt on a blogging platform (or at least incorporate one into your current website). You’ll thank me later!

Wendy Maynard of www.mavendiary.com is a fellow Internet marketing strategist, social media consultant, and blogger. She also does speaking gigs and online copywriting. Since Wendy does such a great job of blogging herself, I wanted to have a conversation with her about blogging for business. She has some great advice and you can hear it all in the interview we recently did together.

Hover your mouse over the image below to see play/pause/volume controls.

During our conversation, here are some of the questions Wendy and I discussed:

• Why is a blog important to small business owners?
• Is a blog part of a website or separate from a website?
• What is WordPress and why does it work well for small business owners?
• What is the process of blogging?
• How often should a small business owner blog?
• How can you schedule your blog posts?
• What should a small business owner blog about?
• How much should businesses blog about themselves versus giving advice?
• Should small business owners accept comments to their blog posts?
• Are there any techniques to generate more comments from blog readers?
• How can a blog post be shared automatically into other online marketing platforms?
• How do you get started if you don’t have a blog, but want one?
• Where can people find templates and themes for their blog and/or website?
• Is having a blog the most important thing a business can do for their online marketing?

Gregg Murray, the Website Blueprint Architect has been named the newest contributor to www.allbusiness.com.

AllBusiness.com is one of the premier business sites on the Web. The site was founded in 1999, and has received critical acclaim from The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Business 2.0, Fortune, and other publications as one of the best business sites on the Web.

AllBusiness.com provides entrepreneurs, small and growing businesses, consultants and business professionals everything they need to start, manage and grow their companies.

AllBusiness.com provides more than 20 million pieces of business content, including how-to articles and videos, company profiles, blogs and podcasts.

Gregg will be sure to share links to all of his AllBusiness.com posts and articles here at Website Blueprint.