It happens all the time in my web business; someone comes to me with 'everything ready'—they have a domain name, hosting, email, content; it's all ready to go. This will be the easiest website you've ever done, they say.

Wrong.

Invariably, they've registered the domain name with a service which is, well, limited. They've chosen user-friendly hosting, which means that it's not geek friendly. They have Yahoo email. They have all their content in a Word document, neatly formatted, with images precisely positioned.

The first step, in this case, is to start over.

The choice of hosting has to come after the choice of development technology. My platform of choice these days is WordPress, which means I need hosting on Linux or some other flavor of UNIX. Not Windows. I also need true FTP access for direct access to the files. Not an online file manager.

Email should be you@yourdomain.com, not yourdomain@yahoo.com. I can't 'move' that email, or work with it in any way, without costing you lots and lots of money.

Microsoft Word is not a web development tool. The beautiful formatting in your document will not transfer to the web automatically. It may transfer, partially, to WordPress, but the cleanup will take longer than starting over.

The images embedded in a Word document may very well be useless. Word is not an image management or editing tool. The images may be too small or at too low a resolution to be usable for your site. At the very least, extracting them from Word is going to cost, because it's a tedious process I don't enjoy.

This only covers web development, but the principle applies to choosing a cell phone, your next computer or printer, your internet service . . . any technology—and the people who'll be working with it on your behalf:

Step One is always, always to ask for professional advice from someone you trust.

We meet each month with a group of professional and aspiring speakers who are one of the most inspiring and bright groups we're part of.

Last night's meeting was "The Great Tip Exchange." Members shared two minutes of their favorite books, web tools, business strategies, and philosophies. Sue took extensive notes and posted them at the NorCal Speaker's social network.

Non-members can read all the info and follow the links, but if you have anything to add feel free to join the group and post your comments.

Next week, I'm hoping to introduce you to a handful of folks from all over the world. I'm excited about the possibilities this group opens and just couldn't wait 'til next week to mention them, even though I'm not quite ready to unveil them yet.

We use technology to automate and be more effective. Now, even the smallest business can use technology to gather people online in a web meeting. More and more businesses are using this technology as gas prices have increased. Your effectiveness and efficiency can be improved using web collaboration tools.

There are several ways to use webinar or webcast technology. You can create a sales presentation and invite someone who calls in to join you online while you walk them through the archived presentation. You can hold a discussion about challenges faced in your industry with several panel members. This can be a meaningful discussion that you host without being a sales pitch. Create a teleseminar and invite clients and prospects to attend by phone. You can also interview an expert this way and have guests get questions answered. These webcasts can be recorded and archived on your website. You can also turn them into an audio CD and use them in your marketing.

There are several online tools you can use:

GoToMeeting/Webinar - For $99/mo unlimited meetings with up to 16 people and unlimited webinars with up to 1000 - comes with audio telebridge as part of the package.

FreeConferenceCalls - Free conference calls and webinar capabilities.
OfficeLive Meeting
WebEx
Skype Video

Have you used any of these tools? Share your opinion of them with us.