My web development company, West Hills Web, is all about creating websites for local businesses.

Some people think that if you’ve got a local company, then you don’t need the Internet. People will find you by driving down the street or word of mouth.

While that may be true, I’ve met very few people who have too much business. And even those who truly do have more business than they can handle really ought to defend themselves against what their competitors are doing. Even though you’ve got business coming in the door now, there’s no guarantee that’s going to continue.

That’s why the websites we design at West Hills Web are designed to drive people to your website, and then to get them to turn into leads and buyers.

And it doesn’t matter if you’re in the Real Estate business, the plumbing business, a local flower shop, a roofing contractor, an Attorney, or something totally different, you need a website that attracts visitors online, and then turns them into paying customers or clients.

By the way, Google LOVES local businesses. Google knows that the future of the internet is Local. Have you noticed how no one uses the Yellow Pages any more? That’s almost entirely because of the rise of the Internet as the resource for finding local businesses.

I could go on for a long time, but frankly, you’d be better off at visiting West Hills Web directly.

The whole story — and information about how to get started — is all there.

Go now to http://www.WestHillsWeb.com

To Your Success,

–Mark Widawer

I was 13 years old at Portola Junior High School, and was enrolled in the “AE” level math class. We had a Monroe Programmable Calculator in the room, and we learned how to program it to do math problems using punch cards. The one thing I remember about programming that machine was that “401″ was the code for “HALT”, which is what you put at the end of each program.

That was 1976 — a loooong time ago. But I’ve stuck with computers since then.

I wrote my first real computer program, with the help of my older cousin Lawrence. We wrote a program to play the game Mastermind, which was popular at the time. We did that in the BASIC programming language on a teletype machine using paper tape for storage.

I caught the bug, though, and saved my own money to buy myself a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model III computer with 16 kilobytes (NOT megs or gigs) or RAM, and two floppy drives. I upgraded it myself to a 10mb hard drive system, and a whopping 64kb of RAM. (I was a real tinkerer back then.)

I’ll fast forward a bit, through my time at UCLA and then graduating at CSUN with a degree in Computer Science.

After working as a programmer for an Aerospace and Defense Software company (where I created the company’s first office computing department), I started a business and computer consulting business with my college friend Mitch Silberman. From there, I co-founded the Los Angeles Times Financial Fax with my friend Joel Block, and I ran the department for the Times until Joel and I sold it to the Times in 1997. I stayed on another two and a half years, and left in 1999 to become CTO of  Total Funding , a company specializing in online equipment leasing.

The big BIG IDEA about  Total Funding was that their company would be the first to allow a small business owner to apply for and be automatically approved for equipment leases — all online and in minutes. The owners (who shall remain nameless, at least here) had hired Deloitte & Touche and spent a quarter million dollars on developing their website to automate this whole process.

That’s when they hired me.

At our first meeting with Deloitte, they showed us the site they had developed. It allowed the customer to enter in his credit app. It had screens that showed the approved lease plans. But in between — the magical part that was supposed to run the credit apps and compare the results against available lease plans — had not yet been developed. D&T didn’t know how to do it.

I designed and finished the program, providing the critical parts of the website and the business as a whole, for about $5,000.

The desire for some people to overspend, simply for the ability to tell a story about the value of what they are buying never ceases to amaze me. The owners of this company truly had no idea what they were doing.

So when their company ran out of money (due to mismanagement and other issues), I went to work for Datalicious Corporation, a company that merged online and offline marketing. I was the Vice President of  Technology. The largest project we had there was one for a yellow pages advertising company. I wrote the software that allowed their clients to run and manage their yellow pages advertising for their customers.

When Datalicious died in the Dot Bomb of 2001, I started West Hills Web, a web hosting and web development company.

In 2003 I started working with Google Adwords and developed the Keyword TurboCharger to help make keywords for Google Adwords.

Shortly after that, I developed the Landing Page Cash Machine ebook.

You can read more about me and my infoproduct and training business on the Internet Marketing page.

And now, at least, you have a better understanding of me and my technical life. It’s been long already, and just getting longer.

Now, I find most joy still in doing two things…

1) Teaching people how to use technology to build their online business.

2) Building websites for local companies for those who just don’t have the time or knowledge to do it themselves.

Of course, there’s more, but you’ve spend enough time on me. I’d really much rather know a bit about you.

If you think I can help you in any way, contact me. Let’s see how we can work together.

To Your Success,

–Mark

I’ve been online since about 1997, building a business within the Los Angeles Times that delivered personalized stock market reports via fax, and then expanding that to other online information services.

In 2003, I wrote the Landing Page Cash Machine, an ebook that showed people how to easily turn their website visitors into buyers. Some of the techniques in the book can easily increase sales by five times. Since then, I’ve spoken to thousands of people live, as far away as Singapore and Malaysia, teaching them how to make money online. I’ve been on stage at Affiliate Summit several times, Simon Leung’s Adwords Workshop in San Jose, and even the World Internet Summit in Las Vegas.

Thousands of copies of the Landing Page Cash Machine have been sold, and I’ve run hundreds of webinars and teleseminars on Internet Marketing. But I’m also responsible for…

• Traffic And Conversion — There are basically two parts to Internet Marketing — getting traffic, and then converting that traffic to sales. The TrafficAndConversion.com site is my blog all about how to make more money online.
• Optimizers Club — The Optimizers Club is a community that is all about answering one question — “How can I make my website sell better.” Join the Optimizers Club to improve your own landing page. It’s free.
• Prospect Xray — all about knowing your customer (a critical first step in any marketing plan)
• Total Traffic Formula — an online webinar series all about simple, effective steps to getting traffic to your site. Each “formula” stands on its own, but also leverages the other tactics to create a flood of traffic to your site.
• Big Bucks Ebook — If you’re new to online marketing, and looking for a product to sell, there’s no better place to start than writing an ebook. But not all ebooks are created equal. Here’s how you can create an ebook for any niche with the marketing built right in so that the book practically sells itself. That’s why it’s called a “big bucks ebook.”

Of course, if you’re looking to build a website for your business then visit West Hills Web. I live in West Hills, California, and specialize in building websites for local business. That doesn’t mean “local to me” but instead means “local to YOU”.

If you’re a local professional, tradesman or business and want to drive traffic to your door, then you need to be online. People now search online for just about everything before they get into their car to get what they want. And when they’re already in their car, they’ll check their iPhone before they head on over.

That’s what West Hills Web is all about.

So that, in a nutshell, is all about me and Internet Marketing.

Visit one (or more!) of my sites,  or follow me on Twitter.

I hope to meet you soon.

-Mark

I’m Mark Widawer, and you’ve reached my “get to know you” site.

Yes, you’ll find out a little bit about me here. For now, it’s mostly business stuff. You’ll also find other thoughts here about family, politics and other important stuff.

But mostly, for now, what you’ll find here is a directory all about me and my internet marketing business, and my web development business.

P.S. Here’s a hint for you. If you don’t own the domain name for your own name, go buy it now. It’s an asset that can be very valuable for you.

Not only can you use the website like I use this one — to be a link to  all of my other websites — it’s also important to own it as a defense. I mean, can you imagine if someone who didn’t like you managed to buy a website with your name?

I’ll leave it to the lawyers to argue about whether someone else has a right to buy and own a domain name with your name.

But why not avoid the hassle anyway?

-Mark