I've been getting back into the 'swing' of things lately, so I've been looking at more and more provider's websites. Since I'm in the business, I thought I'd just pass on a few things that may help everyone involved. I'm not trying to sell anything, just sharing info.

1. Music Playing: please stop. while it may seem fun and festive, it can (a) slow down the site and (b) potentially get someone in trouble when music starts playing out of nowhere

2. Email Address: if at all possible, attach it to your domain name. Some free email providers (AOL and Hotmail being the worst) have over-active spam filters that could be causing potential clients to be unable to get a hold of you. Most webhosts offer this for free, and if not you can set up your email via Google Apps for free (involves some web nerdery, but it's pretty simple).

3. Pictures: small thumbnails are hard for everyone to see. if you're concerned about people stealing your images, adding a watermark and disabling the right-click & save feature is pretty straight forward.

4. Mobile Phones: a lot of us hobbyists now have smartphones and can view your site on there...if you've set it up that way.

5. Phone Number: if you can get one, check out Google Voice (free). You get a local number that you can direct to any phone you want, control when you get calls, block individuals, etc. It's still in invite-mode, but they can be found (I have 2 invites if anyone wants one).

6. Free Webhosts: be careful. Consider this - if you're using a free webhost, you most likely don't actually 'own' your content, so they could pull the site at any time, or include ads without your consent to make money. A domain name is $10 bucks a year, and a good host is $5 a month. Not a bad deal in the long run to have ownership.

Good advice. I have some Google voice invites as well.
If you get your own site as Mr. Punk Rocker advised, there are a lot of free templates out there that allow you to update content and add pictures without knowing anything about building web sites. I can give advice and maybe even help out a bit with implementation and stuff if you're really cute

Thank you for the information. I am currently building a new site and always love feed back from the boys and some of the girls. I'm going to look into the google voice but from what I understand it is not very crackberry friendly. Have a great weekend.

Should work just fine with a blackberry. Making calls might be a multi-step process if google hasn't made an app for it (you call the google voice number, then the number you want to call), but receiving will work just fine with any phone.

And don't forget whatever you do...pay for the privacy service on your domain name otherwise just anyone can use the "whois" lookup and find out all your real name and other info.  

You also may want to block search engines from indexing and/or cacheing your site pages and your ads as well if you don't want your info coming up in a google search!  

The list could go on and on, but great advice.
Thanks