A quick Google search for "web design", "web designer" or "web development" will return literally thousands of pages. The Internet industry has no shortage of players - both big and small - who are very enthusiastic about offering "website design packages" for your business. "Get a 3 page site for $x!", or "10 pages and a free email account for $x". The prices vary but the approach is the same. You arbitrarily decide how many pages you want and they'll give you a site to match (some even make you design it yourself). This pricing model sounds invitingly simple and certainly works well when buying a pizza, but it's no way to shop for an important business service.

Just a few years ago it wasn't uncommon for a business website to be little more than an online brochure, and these bought-by-the-page website designs are just that. Granted, today's modern web browsers allow for far more graphically rich layouts, but in the end you still have an online brochure. It may succeed at giving prospects some information about your company (assuming they can find your site to begin with), but it won't do much for your bottom line.

Today, Internet technologies are far more advanced and offer virtually unlimited potential for companies of all sizes looking to grow and prosper. Instead of static info-pages, businesses are using the Web to communicate more effectively with their customers, share secure documents and files with vendors, train their employees and of course, sell products and services. Many traditional business functions can now be managed more easily and with greater cost efficiency online, and with lower operating costs comes increased profitability.

Our years of experience in this industry have shown that an effective, profitable, sound Internet Solution is the result of careful planning, informed development, strategic implementation with exisiting systems and ongoing support. There are countless companies in the marketplace that are capable of building you a website, but if you're truly serious about an integrated business solution and online success for your business then you deserve our total-service approach. Our Internet Solutions Success Plan is a proven development plan that has produced hundreds of successful Internet Solutions for businesses of all types and sizes since 1994.

Did your website developer build your web site using a proven strategy?

The new browser wars are on. More than a decade after Microsoft killed off Netscape with Internet Explorer, competition in the browser market has never been stronger. Just last week, Mozilla released Firefox 3.5, which has now been downloaded nearly 14 million times. Earlier in June, Apple released Safari 4. In March, Microsoft introduced Internet Explorer 8, and Google came out with a speedier beta of its Chrome browser.

Some early data is coming in showing relative market share and how fast people are upgrading. If you look at the chart above from Statcounter, it indicates that since March Internet Explorer (combined shares of IE8, IE7, and IE6) has lost 11.4 percent market share to other browsers. Certainly IE8 (the light blue line) has been growing strong since its release last March, capturing 16.7 percent of the market as of July 4. Those strong gains make up for most of the drop in IE7’s market share from 49.1 percent in March to 30.1 percent yesterday, indicating that Microsoft is doing a good job of getting existing IE7 users to upgrade at a steady pace. And in mid-June, IE8 finally surpassed IE6, which still stubbornly holds a 7.6 percent share. Add those three up, (IE6+IE7+IE8), however, and IE all together holds only a 54.4 percent market share versus the 65.8 percent combined share in March, 2009.

In just over three months, Internet Explorer has seen its overall market share erode by 11.4 percent. Where did that go? It went to Firefox, Safari, and Chrome. Nearly 5 percent of that, or about half, went to Firefox 3.0, which currently has 27.6 percent market share. That doesn’t count last week’s upgrade. See the dotted line just below the light blue IE8 line? That is a combined set of “other” browsers and appears to include Firefox 3.5, Safari 4, and Chrome 2.0.

We are in the midst of a major upgrade cycle simultaneously across IE, FireFox, and Safari (with the Chrome wild card thrown in). When all is said and done, we might see a major shake-up in market share and almost definitely will see leadership pass from IE7 to another browser. The question is will that be IE8 or Firefox? Whichever one wins, the good news is that IE6 is finally dying.

Hey business professionals! Did you know that an ever more effective way to reach your target audience and one overlooked by many in the corporate world is a presence on social networking sites like Twitter, Linkedin, YouTube and Facebook? You need be where the people are and they are online socializing.

Members 18 to 24 are still the reigning demographic, at about 40 percent. But Hitwise, Comscore, the Pew Internet and American Life Project and other Internet tracking services say baby boomers -- the 77 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964 -- are deluging Facebook with memberships and becoming one of its fastest-growing contingents.

Facebook memberships among 45- to 65-year-olds have grown 89 percent since January, from 4.3 million to 8.2 million. The 45- to 55-year-old contingent grew by 165 percent from September to February, according to InsideFacebook .com, the site's own tracking of membership trends.

Also, the number of women age 55 and older on Facebook grew by 175 percent between September and February, and the number of men age 55 and older grew by 137 percent.