A website that is cheap to make, is just a "Cheap Website"!

The key to any business that wants an online presence is visibility (traffic). There are many programs and companies out there that offer you a bargain price to build your website and they tout your ability to be on line in no time as the end product, but buyer beware! Having a website that isn't SEO friendly is like having a sports car without any gas, it can look good, but who's gonna see it unless they happen to drive by your house.
The old adage "you get what you pay for" has never meant more than in regards to the Internet and Internet Marketing.
A whole new era of sales and marketing has opened up and along with the opportunity come many pitfalls to confuse a novice business owner. If having a website alone was enough for your business to succeed online, you wouldn't have to look any further than your desktop because there are software companies out there that provide you with the tools you need to build your own site (it's that simple). These build it quick opportunities are designed more for a family homepage, not a business that looks to grow. And 2 years down the road when you don't have any organic visitors to your site you start wondering about the Internet.
On one call Internet Marketing Magicians went on, we stopped by a medium sized business owner who had concerns about Internet Marketing because even though he had heard other companies were having success he was wondering if it was a gimmick because his company was not having any luck with their online sales. A quick look at their site showed a page rank of 0 ( 0-10 scale) and their online catalog was sending people to a sorting site where they were grouped with other retailers waiting for customers. So their site wasn't creating any "Juice" for the Search Engines to feed from. What they thought was a gimmick was actually their inability to accept that Internet Marketing is another form of marketing that needs to be studied and researched just like Radio,TV or even print.The same basic rules apply, you want your business to be seen by as many people as possible. Not using SEO properly for your website is like having your own TV station in your basement Ala "Wayne's World" trying to promote your products.
We started working with a company called Sound Reading Solutions and dramatically increased the sales of their Learning software by using "White Hat" SEO to create a multi-tier approach to their Internet Marketing campaigns.
The bottom line is a business needs to look at Internet Marketing as a growing field. The majority of individuals under 35 years of age use the Internet more than any other medium to gather information. If my teeth hurt I go to a dentist or if I want a new car I go to a car dealer. So why would the dentist or car dealer not go to the Internet Marketer for their websites? If you look "in house" to build your site that is most likely where it will stay.
DMC