Reason #4 your website sucks: You are keeping it a secret.

Your website may boast a great design, but if you aren’t drawing visitors you are missing the main purpose: earning profits for your company.

In the last few years there has been an explosion of ways to network with potential customers and colleagues and get the word out about your business.  Research show, however, that you can increase your profits better by building relationships rather than hitting people over the head with hard advertising. That’s where social network marketing comes in.

Not too long ago you would have had to spend big advertising dollars to reach your potential customers. Now, thanks to social networking websites where potential customers willingly complete profiles and indicate their interests, your job of reaching them is much easier, very affordable and more effective. One such site is MySpace.

If you haven’t heard of MySpace.com, either you don’t have kids, don’t know any kids, or have been living on another planet for over a decade.

MySpace is a social networking website started in 2000 by Tom Anderson (graduate of UC Berkeley and UCLA) and Chris DeWolfe (graduate of USC) . It was bought in 2005 by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation.

My Space is an interactive network of user profiles, photos, an internal email system and blogs. Although the founders claim to have started the site as a place for 18 to 25 year olds to socialize and hang out, its phenomenal popularity with teenagers and preteens has brought it under heavy scrutiny from the media and watchdog groups. These groups worry that unsupervised youngsters who display their personal information and suggestive photos online will fall victim to the more than 50,000 sexual predators believed to troll online sites and chat rooms.

By contrast, MySpace has been a godsend for fledgling musicians and independent filmakers because they can upload their original songs and films where they begin to develop a following. Here they can get visibility, popularity and sometimes, gigs.

As of today Alexa reports that MySpace is the 11th most popular English website in the world. My 25 year old daughter and my college students swear that they use MySpace just to stay in touch with friends they already know. But is MySpace appropriate for business and educational use also?

While some business owners believe that MySpace is a good place for them to network and meet potential customers, many businesses and schools are blocking access to My Space from their employees and students because of the tremendous strain it has put on bandwidth and professionalism.

Many believe that MySpace pages have been damaging to students who, already the object of teasing in their local school, can now be humiliated worldwide. In other situations, jobseekers’ chances of landing their preferred jobs have been hurt by the personal information they’ve shared.

 MySpace was recently at the center of the first cyberbullying trial when a Missouri mother perpetrated a hoax directed at a 13-year old girl pretending to be a teen boy. When the fictitious boy dumped the girl and told her the world would be better without her, she committed suicide.

Think twice before you decide to test the “six degrees of separation” theory on MySpace. While as an adult you may not be as likely to fall victim to sexual predators as preteens, you must consider whether the types of clients you seek will really find you on MySpace.

What do you think? Are you on MySpace? Has it helped grow your business?

Tomorrow we’ll look at another reason your website sucks.

Remember how the late-night munchies distracted you when you were studying deep into the midnight hours?

Students who attend one of several lucky universities can now fuel late-night study sessions by having munchies delivered to them. The Daily Pennsylvanian reports on a service created by Wharton students called The Lazy Grocer.  Currently they offer food, drink and essentials in 23 categories up until 2AM Sunday through Wednesday and 3:30AM Thursday through Saturday.

Another late-night service is La Mamma Pizza and More that gets high ratings from students in the Boston area for its delicious food and friendly late-night service.

Want something fast in Manhattan? Max Delivery will bring a rental DVD, cold medication, food, cleaning supplies and more to you in 10 minutes. They take orders 24 hours a day but delivery is noon until midnight.

These businesses all prove that there is a market for services that meet customers’ needs in unique, convenient and fast ways. Perhaps there are some inventive ways you can make your gift basket service more attractive to customers. Hmmm.

Companies who invest in the $1 trillion advertising and marketing industry are seeing half of their investment go down the drain reported an Economist article.That’s because consumers are increasingly relying on other ways to make their buying decisions. Word of mouth, an old way to spread news, is still the fastest and most affordable to advertise. Here are some ways to put word of mouth to work for your gift basket business:

1. Get current happy customers talking by asking for referrals. Put it on your business card, fliers and brochures. Offer incentives for new customers who result from these referrals.
2. Give customers and visitors to your website something to talk about: contests, giveaways, but most of all, provide great, unique products.
3. Provide customers with frequent information and updates about your business such as with a weekly newsletter. Ask for their opinions, questions and reactions. Encourage them to forward your e-newsletters to their friends.
4. Give your customers the tools to get them talking. Start a blog, message board, or chat to encourage customers to speak out.
5. Use social media to get the word out about new products, services or to ask for information. The most popular are Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter. You can visit me on all three:

• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Get word of mouth working for you and watch your profits grow.