It’s not often I’ll post up here someone else’s 10 Steps list, but this one on preparing your site for Christmas is well worth your attention. If you own an e-commerce site and want to take advantage of the looming festive period you should make sure your site is ready. The list covers everything from spring cleaning to making your site sticky.

You only have to read some of the headlines in the papers to see how much money the analysts expect to be spent online this Christmas. The Times reports that Forrester Research predicts

UK surfers are predicted to spend £13.6 billion in the run-up to Christmas, a 40% rise on last year

If you want to see some reports from last year , head to IT Week. It reports that over £7.5 billion pounds (roughly $15 billion dollars) was spent in the run up to Christmas last year!

Anyway without wanting to steal the ideas of Mario Thomas (from a UK digital agency called Chapter Eight) get yourself over there and read the article.
Get your website ready now, before it’s too late.

I was delighted this morning to come across a traffic generation video on YouTube that was different to all the rest i.e. some ‘guru’ banging on about SEO techniques that everyone already knows about. Admittedly it was an advert for a product, but it was something totally new to me and with the impressive figures included in the sales video, I couldn’t help but to give it a go.

So, courtesy of SitePal I’ve added a host to my blog - you’ve probably already heard him talking in a classic ‘English accent’. He’s fully customisable and I tried to get him looking like me - see my avatar at the top right of the blog. I’m hoping he will help to bring in some traffic or some comments, but I’m really keen also to hear from anyone else who has tried SitePal before. Is there any value in it for bloggers, or even bigger businesses?

This literally took a couple of minutes to setup, once I’d registered of course.

I only have a 15 day free trial after which time my character host will stop working - that is unless I sign up for the monthly subscription, which I may if he proves useful. I can’t help loving this product and I’ve had some fun setting it up. Do you think if I ask nicely SitePal will let me keep him for free…?

As you may know if you read my blog regularly, I’ve just got married to my lovely wife. (Thanks to those who sent your congratulations by the way).

One of the wedding presents we received from a friend of the family who has a small wedding videography business, was for him to film our big day. I haven’t seen the video yet, but I’m sure it will be great.

To say thanks I wanted to recommend his company to some friends and hopefully send some business his way. To my astonishment, he doesn’t have a website or even an email address for me to pass on. I didn’t realise that was even possible in this day and age? I was staggered.

Shortly after this discovery I received an email from Startups.co.uk.

In the email was a link to an article about the surprising number of micro businesses without an online presence at all - “a survey of micro businesses – those with one to ten employees – found that two thirds still operate without an internet connection, email or website.”How can this be I hear you say! After all, if you’re reading this blog it’s likely you’re quite tech savvy, probably have at least one website, numerous email addresses and more than likely a blog yourself. You probably achieved all of this for next to no cost as well, it truly is amazing what you can do for relatively little money these days.

However, if you’re just starting out on your internet adventure. Where should you start? How can you achieve something special with very little budget?

First of all, I suggest you read my earlier post ‘Websites for the very small‘. I reference a plan of action from marketing guru Seth Godin that teaches you to generate an online presence using blogs and squidoo. I’m a big fan of blogging for small businesses as you can achieve a lot without much technical know how - although the time required to run a good blog is actually quite an overhead. I wonder how many small companies have this time available?

It would also be worthwhile checking out Gobala Krishnan’s Easy WordPress Adsense System. This will walk you through setting up a WordPress blog in really simple steps and, if you want, it will also show you how to make some money with Google Adsense adverts - although this is not for everyone.

If you’re looking for a more established and standard online presence, have a look at Mr Site.

For as little as £35 (approx $70 USD) you can get a domain name, a year’s hosting and a highly customisable website template. I’ve used this product a few times and can highly recommend checking them out - there are literally hundreds of testimonials and great sites built using these guys.

Failing the blog or Mr Site option, you can look at hiring a professional web design company. But you better have deep pockets, because your looking at thousands of dollars here, rather than hundreds. The choice of web designers is truly astonishing and there are lots of pitfalls to run into when choosing a web designer - look out for a guide coming soon.

But the message overall is if you’ve got a business, get online. It’s easier and cheaper now than it’s ever been. As a small business you simply cannot afford not to have a website in this day and age. It’s like having a shop without a shop window.

I think I will repay our videographer friend with a website of his very own.

If you read my last post you’ll know I had a great experience with my web host recently, helping me out of a technical mud bath I was drowning in. I got a comment from Mark over at Mark Unemployed who’s heard of some horror stories with iPower. I also got a couple mails sharing my joy with EUKHost.

But how do you know whether you’ve got a good host or not when you sign-up? In reality, it’s very difficult to know, but the old adage you get what you pay for seems to make sense. If you pay peanuts you’ll certainly get monkeys.

So I want to try something out here. If you would like to name and shame a hosting company that’s wronged you, feel free to add a comment here, or send me an email and I’ll post it up. The only requirement is that you can substantiate your grumbles, otherwise it’s just plain old slander.

Alternatively, if you want to wax lyrical about your host, as I did about EUKHost, then again add a comment or send me an email. Any claims of greatness need to be proven though. As a bonus to the host and to you, I’ll happily add in any affiliate links as well.

So, go on, name and shame, or wax lyrical. Do something for the blogosphere and internet marketing community! Act now or forever hold your peace.