Only about 50% of small businesses in the U.S. with fewer than 10 employees have Web sites. Yet, with eight of 10 people in
this country spending as much time online as watching TV, having an active Web presence can be an important marketing tool.
Indeed, many business owners and homeowners search for landscape management services only online. If you are not there, you
won't get an invitation to quote.
Creating a Web site yourself no longer is a daunting process. With the help of a couple of affordable software solutions,
you can easily develop and maintain a Web site and take advantage of various online marketing techniques — including posting
your own mini-infomercials on YouTube.
Microsoft Office Live Small Business 2.0 ( http://www.officelive.com/)
This suite of Web-based software and services includes free Web site hosting, free services and several design capabilities
that will guide and aid you in creating a professional-looking site. The program includes custom domain name registration
with 100 business e-mail accounts, each with 5 GB of storage. Custom domains are free for a year, and $14.95 annually after
that. The software features several business applications, including a contact management application for performing basic customer
relationship management; Team Workspace, for posting documents and information you'd like to access remotely or share with
employees, customers or business partners in a password-protected environment; and Document Manager, which can serve as an
online repository of documents, photos and other data.
Adobe Premiere Elements 4 ( http://www.adobe.com/)
This conversion video-editing software enables users to take digital photos and/or video clips, attach identifying keywords
(tags) to them, and produce polished movies — with surprisingly speed and ease — that can be posted online.
There are two easy ways to put together a video with the software — either by using a timeline or a sceneline. The sceneline
method is easy and fun. The screen is divided into three work spaces:
1. A thumbnail display of the media clips (photos or videos) you want to work fill most of the right side of the screen. Getting
them there is a simple drag-and-drop process. Once they are up there, you can rearrange the order or delete any scene with
just a few clicks.
2. A large interactive version of the clip on which you currently are working is displayed on most of the left side of the screen.
3. The video you are making is displayed as a horizontal sceneline, which will scroll across the full width of the bottom of
the screen. Building the video requires only dragging and dropping each scene you select from the scenes available on the
upper right anywhere into the sceneline.
You edit each scene, in turn, on the upper left, trimming length, zooming in or out, and/or superimposing a title. The program
supports one-click use of a broad range of transitions and effects, such as spin in, swing out, flip, swipe or dissolve between
scenes, as well as the addition of lighting effects and other special effects to each scene. You can drag and drop to rearrange
the order of the scenes, and can delete any scene at any time.
