The biggest complaint about LinkedIn I hear is that people don’t know how to use it. Facebook makes sense. MySpace makes sense. But for some reason there’s a disconnect when it comes to LinkedIn.

For a while, too, I couldn’t see that much value in LinkedIn. The interface was a bit clunky and there didn’t seem to be much you could do with your network.

However, after using LinkedIn aggressively these past months, I know it’s a valuable tool that anyone in business should be using. So here I present my five reasons why you should be on LinkedIn.

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Last month, Cavendo held a Business After Hours event with the Prince William County – Greater Manassas Chamber of Commerce. The event was awesome to say the least. Great food, great door prizes, and best of all, great attendees.

For those who missed out, we snapped a few photos. Check them out here!

In my world of web creation, there are two broad and simple categories of people: those who can strategically match a web presence to their organizational goals and those who want a web site for the sake of having one.

There are some unique and obvious differences in these two groups. And of course, being "broad" and "simple", these groups do not represent every situation. I use them as general guidelines in judging projects.

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It’s 2009. A new year. And with each new year, people generally set goals and expectations for the months to come.

What about your web site?

What goals and expectations have you set for your web site that you would like to see happen for 2009?

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Over the past month, in our four-part homepage re-design series, we’ve talked about the need to fight the urge to clutter your homepage with every tidbit about your organization. We also went over how to analyze your audience and competitors in order to craft a sound strategy for designing your homepage.

But you’re not finished.

Once the homepage is built, you’ve just begun. Success on the web depends on a cycle of testing, measuring and fine-tuning. You’ll likely never get your homepage perfect which is why this is a continual process.

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Some would argue that it’s important you understand your competition before your audience. I think it depends on the level of understanding you need. In many cases, you must first fully understand your audience before you can even begin to understand what your competitors are doing right (and wrong).

And so it’s with that sentiment in mind that we open up the third part in our homepage re-design series – understanding your competitors.

Having a solid comprehension of your primary competitors’ movements, philosophies, strategies and tactics, audiences, and offerings is essential at the most basic level of marketing. You can’t beat what you don’t know.

By knowing the competition – especially on the web – you open yourself up to two important avenues: imitation or creative distinction.

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To re-cap the first part of our homepage re-design series, the key to a strong homepage is clarity, conciseness and consistency. A good homepage clearly outlines what your organization is all about, where users can go (and where they want to go) and why users should even be at your web site.

Internet users are creatures of short attention spans. You have only a few seconds to grab, hold and increase the interest of your user. It seems like an impossible feat to accomplish, but it is doable if you understand your audience.

Getting inside the heads of your audience – whether they’re young or old, rich or poor, smart or dumb – is nothing new. Good marketing dictates this.
However, for the web, only a handful of organizations actually do this research.

Why is that?

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Welcome to part one of our soon-to-be four-part series on crafting the ideal homepage for your organization’s web site. Let’s jump right in!

The homepage is the most important page on your web site. It directs users to other pages and tells the story behind your organization, and it must do this as succinctly and clearly as possible.

What is the urge?

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After a couple months of long weekends and late nights, Cavendo’s new web site is now finally live. The new site isn’t really "2.0" per say, but it sounds a lot better than 1.0 and we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves by going straight for 3.0!

Comments or feedback are, as always, very much appreciated!

Small businesses everywhere are clambering to get on the SEO express. However, many are missing the boat when it comes to expectations. People want instant results. They want to be number one for impossible keywords in an unrealistic amount of time.

Part of the blame goes to unethical SEO agencies who feed these insane beliefs, but a majority of it goes to uneducated small business owners.

SEO requires immense patience, dedication and ingenuity. Anything short of that will bring upon failure. Learn from your mistakes, get yourself familiarized with SEO tactics and try again.