Your website is available to the whole world 24 hours a day, every day of the year. It’s out there working for you when you’re asleep and when you’re on holidays.

It costs a bit to set up and maintain your website, but nothing compared to what it would cost to hire an army of salespeople to do an equivalent job.

If you’re looking to grow your business, investing in your website could be one of the wisest investment decisions you can make.

Have you ever had one of those emails that says “We would like to get your website on first page of Google.”? I get them all the time.

To me, the first page of Google means www.google.com, and I would be willing to bet my house that nobody outside Google top level management would be able to get my website there.

Even though they don’t say it, I presume they don’t mean Google’s home page, but rather the first position in the Google search results page.

Here’s what happens when I Google “Arrowsmith Websites Maleny”:

Google provides a map and details about my business! That’s great, thanks Google!

When you do a location specific search on Google, often you’ll get a map and business details. This handy feature is even more useful when you are using a mobile phone to search for a business or service in an area you’re not familiar with.

Google your business and location and make sure your business is listed in this way. If not, you can add it using the Local Business Centre.

If your business is already listed, Google may have found your details on your website or a directory website and listed them for you. If so, you can correct the listing and add more information, even photos.

With Google becoming the main way people look for products and services, this is a simple and free thing you can do to help potential customers find your business.

So you’re putting together the content for your website, and you’re wondering where to start. If you’re a small business, you’ll want to keep it as simple and to the point as possible, to make your website easy for people to use.

There are website conventions that have become accepted to the point that people expect certain items to be there and in the right place.

You should always have a ‘Home’ button somewhere near the top left, and you can guarantee if you don’t that people will say ‘where is the home button’.

You should always have a ‘Contact’ button linking to a page with all your contact details, it’s one of the things people look for, and most people in business want to make it easy for potential customers to contact them!

Another standard feature to include is the ‘About’ page. This is your opportunity to share your history and qualifications with visitors to your website, allowing you to build rapport and become less anonymous.

What you put in between the Home, About and Contact pages is the stuff that makes you different; it’s the products and services you offer.

This formula will make it easier for people to use your website, and if you’re in business, that’s good news.

Anyone who has ever planned a wedding will know how much work goes into organising the whole thing to ensure a memorable and glitch-free day. So the first thing you need is an experienced wedding planner to help and provide advice. Weddings and Events of Maleny are complete Wedding Planners, and will assist you with all aspects of your preparations, co-ordinating and styling your event.

You’ll also need a ceremony and reception venue, a marriage celebrant, professional photographer and a wedding florist. Luckily, Maleny and the Sunshine Coast Hinterland has an abundance of professional services.

For a wedding venue, it’s hard to go past award winner Maleny Manor. If you prefer a traditional church ceremony, then the Little White Wedding Church provides vintage charm set in a beautiful rural setting with sweeping views.

Marriage celebrants are becoming more popular, and you’ll be spoilt for choice when it comes to choosing your marriage celebrant in Maleny. Ian Stevenson from Peachester Celebrations and Janelle Wellsteed are professional marriage celebrants who would be more than happy to discuss your Maleny wedding plans. As an aside, If you’re getting married in Townsville, then you can’t go past Weddings in Townsville (Hi Mum).

You’ll want the photography handled by a top quality experienced professional, such as Penny Riddoch, to ensure your special day is captured in the best possible light, to be cherished for years to come.

When it comes to wedding flowers, there’s really only one choice, award winning florist Mondo Floral Designs.

With so many professional services on offer, it’s no wonder Maleny is such a popular place to get married.

One of the recent developments that have come with faster broadband connections is an increasing prevalence of software that runs over the internet, rather than being installed on your computer.

Non Cloud – Most people have used Microsoft Word or other similar office software products. You create documents on your computer and save them on your computer.

Cloud – With Google Docs, the software is installed on Google’s computers, and the files are saved on Google’s computers. You log in using your browser (internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari) to create and edit documents.

Also known as ‘Software as a Service’, the term ‘cloud computing’ comes from schematic diagrams of computer networks, where the internet is drawn as a cloud.

Some advantages of cloud computing are:

• Low cost – the software is generally free to use
• No upgrades are required – the software always up to date
• Automated backup – if your computer crashes, the files are accessible online
• Collaboration – many users can work on the same document, no need to email back and forth.
• Flexibility – You can work on the document from any location with Internet access, even your phone

Word processing is one example of cloud computing that you can start using immediately. But you can do almost all your computing in the cloud – email, accounting, customer relationship management, ecommerce, project management etc.