I recently attended a Synergy Sessions workshop about Social Media at the Business Development Center here in Lynchburg. While the information presented at these sessions is great, there is another aspect of them that I find valuable as well: the people. While talking and learning with other business owners, the subject of websites invariably comes up fairly often. One business owner doesn’t have a site, while another can’t figure out how to manage theirs. Or one company’s site looks great, but it doesn’t actually do anything, and yet another company exists solely on their Facebook page. It is a great experience to hear what business owners are struggling with and what their needs are in terms of the web.
A comment that stood out in my mind after leaving the meeting was that of a frustrated business owner who didn’t see the purpose in even having a website, since he couldn’t see any direct impact on his sales. From what I can see there are two approaches to this ‘problem’: business owners need a clear understanding of what a website can do for you, and what you need to do for your website.
I had a brief moment of dread earlier this week when I visited one of the sites I manage, only to find a disturbing “That page cannot be displayed” error page. Like I said, though, my fear was short lived thanks to today’s featured sites. These three websites reliably (as far as I can tell) test and report whether a web page is down universally or it is your own computer/system creating the error. 
