Looking For An Image

Images are expensive to produce. Whether creating art or hiring a photographer, you can expect to send significant dollars for images. But, having quality images for your web site is important.

Stock.XCHNG is a free stock photo web site. Over 200,000 images are available for use without fees. Some of the images have restrictions that, for example, do not allow them to be used on commercial web sites. However, most may be freely used on any web site.

Images are uploaded by people who are willing to share their photography. Quality of the photography varies, but after reviewing over 500 images I can't say that I saw any that were terrible, and I did find about a dozen excellent images for a new web site I was creating.

Give Stock.XCHNG a try. It's worth a visit.

Four Steps Every Business Can Take to Improve Local Search Results

In the past the greatest value in having a web site was that you were reaching a worldwide market. A business that served a local market might have avoided the web because it brought in inquires from a worldwide market they did not serve, and did not want to spend time dealing with. If this is the way byou are thinking, it's time to change your thinking.

Patricia Hursh has an excellent article on Clickz that discusses "Four Steps Every Business Can Take to Improve Local Search Results". If you are targeting a local market you need to be showing up in the local search results. This article provides the best suggestions I've seen for accomplishing this. Here suggestions are:

"Update your business directory listings. Visit the Amacai, infoUSA, and Acxiom Web sites."

"Submit your site to local search engines. Submit your Web site to local search engines such as Google Local, MSN Local, Yahoo Local, Ask Local, and TrueLocal."

"Update your IYP [Internet Yellow Pages] listings. Likewise, find and update your listings at YellowPages.com, Verizon SuperPages, and SwitchBoard.com."

And don't neglect to "Feature your address on your Web site."