In today’s tough economy, you have to set yourself apart from your competition now more than ever. And while price is a major deciding factor for many consumers, a large majority of people make their decisions based upon other factors. Quite commonly, your website is the first thing consumers see or learn about your company. And considering this powerful marketing tool is available to potential customers 24 hours a day, if your website is ugly, hard to use, or just plain broken, it is time to look into upgrading. Think about it, if you are currently losing customers because of an ugly or broken website, you’ll never know because they will simply leave your site and never return, there is no feedback to learn from, nor complaints to address; and you’ve most likely lost a customer for life.

We all know it’s a tech-driven world, so there is no excuse for having an un-usable website, or worse yet, no website at all. According to Google, in 2008, 75.9% of people in America had access to the internet. And with the popularity of internet-capable smart phones and smaller laptop computers, this number can only continue to increase every year. Today’s consumers expect to have the ability to visit a company’s website and learn more, or sign-up for a membership, or purchase a product. Bottom line, if your company is not catering to these millions of visitors, they will find another company who can.

Did you know 156 Billion dollars were spent online in 2009? If you’re retail business is currently selling products, just not online, you’re missing out on a huge sales and marketing opportunity. A shopping cart website can allow anyone to purchase your goods, at anytime of the day, any day of the year. Online stores offer powerful benefits like preventing the need for additional employees or overhead associated with a traditional “brick & mortar” building. You also have the option of selling not just locally but globally; something that was practically impossible for small businesses to do even just a few years ago.

As for cost, once you start to compare an E-Commerce website to traditional forms of both retail sales and marketing, an E-commerce website is a bargain. For the cost of a complete turn-key website, you would only get a few months (if that) of traditional billboard advertisement. Or, maybe a month or two of rent and utilities in a traditional store. Once a website is in place, it can serve informational, marketing, and retail sales duties with no additional fees (aside from 3rd party hosting/security fees) for years and years to come.

About a year ago, I posted a blog entry outlining some of the design related websites that I check on a regular basis. After further thought, I was a bit disappointed that I didn’t post more links. So with this post I want to offer a few more of my favorites links. This collection includes all kinds of sites including tutorials, blogs, roundups, reference sites, graphics links, and more. They also cover a wide range of skill levels so there should be something for everyone. Some are old, some are new, but all have been helpful to me in the past so I offer them in the hopes that they might help another. Even if someone only finds one new site or idea from this post, I’ll be glad to have helped.