Hello everyone! This is Nick writing to you. I just wanted to say thanks to everyone that took time out of their day to attend the Local eConnected event on Tuesday, February 5th, presented by EDC of Kandiyohi County and City of Willmar. I was very excited to be able to participate in this event along with other local web designers and share information with you about our profession. I hope that you were able to learn a lot and take a lot of useful knowledge back to your business. I am hoping to expand what I talked about at the website seminar from last Tuesday in my blog over the next week, so please feel free to check back for any further information that will be useful to your web endeavors.

Hi, Chris here.  I'd like to thank everyone who attended the e-Commerce seminar on Tuesday, February 12th.  During that morning of dizzying information, one important point I made at the conference is that you do not need to be an expert on e-commerce to make your website business-enabled.  You simply need to get together with a trusted partner who can bring together the resources you need.  We hope you'll make us that trusted partner.

Please call us today with your questions and to talk about your goals.

For more information on the "Local e-Connected" initiative, please visit http://www.kandiyohi.com.

What I am about to tell you is very important so read carefully. There is usually no reason for any website to have the words, "Coming Soon," "Please check back soon!" or "Under Construction," on their website. I can think of one exception. If you are adding an online store to your website then you could probably get away with it, but you better be able to back up your promise.

I'm a dork and I like to actually check back with websites that have, "Please check back soon," on their websites. A year or so later I still check back and there is nothing new there! It makes me upset. It's much like being a store that has a sign in the window telling customers to check back in a day, week, or month. You decide to stop back later only to find the same sign in the window with the same locked doors. Do you really think that visitors, your customers, are going to keep coming back day after day only to find that you're not being of any assistance?

Not only are those words rude when not backed up with their promise, they're worthless. By telling someone to come back later it isn't helping them at that exact moment in time. A website is supposed to be a 24/7 service to those who are visiting.

My advice to you, never let a website designer put those words on your website. You either have the content ready or your site isn't ready to launch. It's as simple as that. If you don't have photos for your photo gallery yet, then don't have a gallery page until you have some photos. If you don't have a price list for your products, hold out until you do.

If you really want visitors to "check back soon," make sure there's something worth coming back to.