There are many buisness owners, and individuals out there that need someone "to build me a website." The problem is that many people do not understand what exactly it is that they are getting into. Some people think that $5000 is way too much to get a site built for them. And then they do not understand that you must pay monthly fees for hosting, domains, and possible SSL and other costs. Let alone the costs of paying someone to update and fix things on the site as needed.

The thing with websites is that you really do get what you pay for in most instances. Cutting corners on your website is a very bad idea. And unless you are prepared to spend upwards of $5,000 to $10,000 for a basic site then you need to put this endeavor off. If you want something more robust with a CMS or an e-commerce site then expect to pay anywhere from $10,000 on up.

The things to remember are that it is a large endeavor that will require a good amount of capital to be done right. Because if you don't do it right the first time then you will just end up spending even more to fix things down the road. And you want a good, strong, site in place before you start to spend money on marketing and driving traffic to the site.

Google announced this week that they are now offering a new web browser called Google Chrome. Of course there have been many questions about the security of this browser and whether or not Google will be collecting your data. We have all been assured that this will not happen. Google's Matt Cutts put it a good way in saying that Google's main motivation for creating a new, hopefully, better browser is to enhance the browsing experience for all people. The more browsing people are doing, the more it benefits Google. So in making things better for all of the users out there, they are making things better for themselves.

Unfortunately they do not support Mac just yet but that is in the works. I am also sure that there will be many plugins and add ons that will be available soon too, ala Firefox. The Chrome team is working feverishly to develop the platform. But for now I am sticking to Firefox because I depend too much on the many plugins that they have.

Being a professional SEO consultant I often see posts about, or get asked directly, "what is more important as an organic ranking factor, on page optimization, link building, site structure, etc.?" I have been asking myself this question in my head for a long time. I have to say that I am now 100% sure of what is the #1 SEO ranking factor and I can prove it!

Ever heard of a Google bomb? Well it is what happens when a large amount of sites point links at another site with the same anchor text. The site ranks, even if the site has nothing to do with the anchor text/keyword that it is ranking for! So it is proven that if you point enough links at a site with the same anchor text, the site will rank for that term even if it is not optimized for it. Hell, the site could be completely in Flash with no readable content and it would still rank!

The same cannot be said of any of the other ranking factors. Thus I am now 100% convinced that linking is THE most important ranking factor hands down. I have already seen this in real life with client sites but it is the whole Google bomb factor that for me scientifically proves my point.

If any of you monitor the keyword rankings for your site(s) you may have noticed that in the past month of so that Google has been wildly changing their rankings. It is so crazy that you can even hit refresh and see your site increase or decrease in rankings! Now I understand that the SERPS are dynamic and can and will change. And I have been through many an update in the past. But no one has EVER seen anything like this.

Updates to the index used to come 1-3 times per year, major ones that is. There are always fluctuations but there were typically only a few major updates each year in the past. Now, it seems like each day is a major update. I am not sure if Google has been performing some kind of ongoing testing with Universal Search or what? Perhaps it is that Google is incorporating some Adwords tactics like CTR? Or maybe they are monitoring traffic to sites using Google analytics or the Google toolbar? Another theory is that they could be performing some sort of multivariate testing on different SERPS to see which ones perform the best for the user. Or that they are using bounce rate.

Whatever it is, its giving me a headache. And I can't imagine that the typical user would appreciate it either as many people expect to see certain sites when they do a search.

Many people out there do not understand or even know that web development and web design are two completely different skill sets. To the lay-person a "webmaster" is the person that will design and build out their website(s). But in reality not all webmaters, or web developers, are good at design. In fact good designers are hardly ever great developers.

A good developer will understand site architecture and some light programming. They will know how to access hosting, use cpanel, etc. They will know how to create valid CSS and XHTML. Good developers will know how to work with databases too.

But a good designer will have a mastery of design software like photoshop, fireworks, etc. A good designer will that certain elements need to be in a homepage, like a call to action. Designers will understand what types of colors go together and what types of moods they can elicit. A great designer will know how to design a site so that it not only looks good but will be search engine friendly as well.

Now I am not saying that there are not competent designers and developers out there because there are. But they are few and far between. What I am saying is that in general designers and developers should be two different people. In web companies, or agencies, there is someone that creates designs and someone else that builds it out. So next time you set out to build a site please try to understand that if you want quality work done then you are most likely going to need to hire someone (or an agency) to create your design and another person to build it out to spec.