In 1918 Romanzo Adams published “Taxation in Nevada, A History”. In his forward, Adams wrote, “The subject of taxation is not necessarily so abstract and technical that it is devoid of interest to the ordinary citizen. This monograph is written, not primarily for the specialist, but for the citizen, and the writer has tried to attain a style that will not detract from such interest as may inhere in the subject.” The book chronicled the development of taxation policy in the state of Nevada from pre-statehood days to the turn of the 20^th Century. Beyond its obvious focus on taxation policy, the book also chronicled the development of what could be termed the “Nevada Economy”. Dominated by mining, and to a lesser extent agriculture, the Nevada Economy of Romanzo’s time is surprisingly not unlike the Nevada Economy today in the 21^st Century. Mining remains a dominant economic engine for the majority of Nevada communities and agriculture also remains a central cornerstone of the economies of Nevada’s rural counties. In the more “urban” counties of Clark and Washoe, gaming and tourism came dominate with the rise of Las Vegas, Reno and Lake Tahoe. As Romanzo argued, and many do so today, Nevada’s economy has largely remained a “one-industry” economy in many of our local communities. Most importantly, Romanzo wrote his observations to help citizens throughout the infant Nevada have a better understanding of public taxation and economic development policy in their own local communities.

But with the spread of Indian Gaming – in California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, New Mexico and Idaho – and the spread of gaming abroad in markets like South East Asia and with mining be so subject to the “boom and bust” cycle, can Nevada remain economically competitive? Can the “Nevada Economy” of today, or should I say the Nevada Economy of yesterday, deliver the goods and services demanded by a radically different population with diverse needs today?

Nevada is not a small state anymore. The days of the wild, wild west are gone and although some have termed Northern Nevada as “America’s Adventure Place”, it is an adventure place with air conditioning, sport utility vehicles, expensive gear and $200 a night dinners. With the wealth of a “grown up state”, there comes plenty of bad with plenty of good. Local jurisdictions are flush with new sources of sales tax revenue and property tax revenue as Nevada’s population has grown tremendously and median family incomes are up. But so are the number of homeless people living in our communities and so are the number of methamphetamine addicts and so are the number of inmates in Nevada jails and prisons and Nevada still lags behind almost all other states in the performance of our public schools.

Economic development means many different things to many people. Small business development, job training, redevelopment and urban revitalization, tourism development, housing development, the upgrading and expansion of key infrastructure including airports, rail-ports and freeways, and the development and protection of Nevada’s vital natural resources are all aspects of economic development Nevadans as a whole have to explore and pursue to remain competitive in this new century. But economic development is much more than just dollars and cents, spending here and investing there.

Economic development at the local level and the state level is greatly impacted by a number of forces including public policy decisions our elected officials at the federal, state and local level pursue. It is affected by the type of education offered to Nevada students at the K through 12 level as well as the college and university levels. It is influenced by the values our communities hold sacred. It is influenced by the number of people we incarcerate. It is influenced by the weather and it is also influenced on what we fail to do. It is my hope that this blog can provide some insight into how Nevadans could pursue economic development. Who benefits? Who pays the price of pursuing economic development? (Yes, there is a cost to economic development.) What strategies should we pursue in lieu of others given limited financial, human and natural resources? These are the topics and the questions I hope to explore with all of you.

In 2001, nearly 100 years after Romanzo Adam’s 1918 publication, Frank Partlow wrote and published, “Observation Point” where he chronicled his “reflections” on the political and economic “goings-on” of northern Nevada. Partlow’s forward concluded with the following statement: “My hope is that these reflections from my observation point on local government here in northern Nevada will help citizens throughout the New West better understand public policy in their own local communities.” Sound familiar?

In my own way, I hope to add to Partlow’s observations and help citizens throughout the “New West” – our New Nevada – better understand economic development policy in their own local communities in relation to the many issues that face us collectively today.

Washoe County’s resiliency has been put to the test in 2007 as the slumping housing market has continued to grab the headlines month after month.

Following three extremely hot years for real estate, no one was surprised to see things start to cool off, but the cooling trend is starting to look like a deep freeze and the worst may be yet to come. By mid-year 2006 it was apparent that the housing boom was over and the market was beginning to cool off, but a year later it’s obvious that this slowdown has been more pronounced and will be longer lasting than most analysts predicted early on.

The fact that data for the preceding three years show such phenomenal appreciation rates makes this market correction seem worse than it really is, though, and when the dust finally settles we’ll be left with more “normal” (or “historically average”) appreciation and sales rates.

Until we’re back on track, though, the housing market is likely to get somewhat worse as record numbers of foreclosures hit the market and shell-shocked consumers wait to see where the bottom truly is.

• In August 2007 there were 45 percent fewer new single family home sales and the median sales price of those homes had dipped 12 percent from the previous year. Existing home sales looked much the same – 24 percent fewer sales and 10 percent lower sales prices in Washoe County.

• Sales of existing condos were better in August, with a 29 percent increase in sales of existing units, with a 10 percent higher median sale price. The condo market could wind up being the one bright spot in Northern Nevada real estate by virtue of their lower prices relative to traditional single family homes. With several new condo projects in the works, the Truckee Meadows will soon have more variety at the lower end of the market. In August, only 16 new condo units sold (a 57 percent drop from a year ago), but the small sample size makes it particularly sensitive to changes in units and pricing.

• The inventory of new homes available for sale has remained somewhat high by historical standards, although new home builders have all but stopped building homes in 2007 in order to clear out standing inventory and reduce their exposure to the market. Single family building permits issued through the first half of the year were about 46 percent off pace from 2005 and 2006 levels and several new projects slated to begin construction in 2007 have been put on indefinite hold.

• In the second quarter of 2007 new and existing home sales were dramatically lower than one year earlier and pricing continued its continuous slide from the peak in 2005. There were 29 percent fewer existing single family homes sold in the second quarter of this year compared to last, and the median sales price was 16 percent lower. For new construction, sales were down 27 percent and reported pricing was down 11 percent according to data from the county assessor’s office. Condos performed similarly – 28 percent fewer sales with a median price 9 percent below the previous year.

• At the end of June 2007 there were approximately 14,800 residential units with final approval to start construction but had not yet started to build and an additional 35,000 residential units with tentative approval to begin construction that were not yet final mapped with the county. Many of these units will be phased in over the next decade, and many will never come to fruition based on market conditions.

• There were just over 1,000 units in standing inventory at the end of the second quarter – which are newly built units ready for occupancy but still owned by the builder. Builders had slowed their construction dramatically by the end of 2006 to try and reduce this number of standing units, but given the slower sales rate this year it could take several months to absorb these units.

• Applying an estimate of 2.5 persons per household to these approved-but-not-built units yields a population increase in the area of nearly 125,000 people – and this does not include projects that have not even begun the planning phase. Clearly there is still tremendous growth potential in the Reno-Sparks area over the coming years.

• The sales rate of new homes has slowed significantly from the pace of previous years, but the steady stream of new residents from California and the Pacific Northwest has provided builders with a qualified pool of buyers ready to take advantage of the generous discounts and incentives being offered. With the rest of the Northern Nevada economy on solid ground, it’s just a matter of time before we see an end to the housing slump.

• As the availability of vacant land within or near the McCarran ring diminishes, land values on parcels large enough to contain a residential development have skyrocketed, forcing most of the new development to the outskirts of town. The North Valleys, Spanish Springs, and the Damonte/Double Diamond areas are all slated for thousands of new homes in the coming years and there are several thousand units planned east of Sparks along the north side of the Truckee River canyon towards Fernley.

Nevada provides many tools to small business - from incentives for business expansion to self-insurance plans to assist in risk management. Another tool Nevada corporations have in their business arsenal is the publicly registered offering of securities.

Raising capital through a public offering can help with an expansion or the launch of a new business. In Nevada, there are three ways to accomplish this: registration by filing, registration in coordination with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC); and an intrastate registration by qualification.

The “registration by qualification” process is business friendly. This is a cost-effective alternative to a national IPO. It takes only a couple of months to process and you can theoretically raise an unlimited amount of capital. The benefit of this process is that as properly qualified officer or director of the company, you can approach investors - anyone living in Nevada - through telephone calls, direct mail, seminars, and advertising.

As with any capital mechanism, a business owner needs to determine the risks and costs associated with the venture. For a variety of reasons, the securities markets provide an excellent source of capital for small business. But accessing that capital presents small and large business alike the responsibility of compliance with applicable securities laws. Understanding those laws is the first step toward raising capital, and the Nevada Secretary of State, Securities Division is committed to helping legitimate businesses, after they have consulted with their won attorney and accountant, chart an appropriate course in gaining assess to public capital.

The content of this post was provided in its entirety by the Nevada Commission on Economic Development and is used by permission.

We have just added Josh Kenzer’s QuickPost plugin to the WordPress interface that powers our Blog, It’s cool and will make it much easier for our authors to create their posts on our blog.

I’m creating this post to take it for a spin the first time.

Josh works over at Twelve Horses, the folks that built our website. He is a very cleaver guy.

So if your business or organization is using a blog powered by Word Press you are gonna want one of these.

The days of putting up a website then waiting for it to show up on the first page of any search engine are long gone. Today it takes time and effort to see your site in the first couple pages of results. However, most site owners and webmasters do not know where to begin. By following these 10 steps you can increase your website’s natural search optimization and get the search engines to take notice.

1. Optimize for keyword content
To get listed correctly in the search engines, each page of your site needs to be optimized to the best of your ability. Since the keywords that you decide to target will be used throughout the optimization process, choosing the right keywords is essential. If you choose the wrong keywords you will not be found in the search engines. If you are not found in the search engines how will anyone find your site? Pick one core term for each page and write the optimized text around it. To brainstorm top phrases for your industry try reviewing your competitors’ websites.

2. Write unique title tags
The title tag of your page is the most important factor to consider when optimizing your web page for the search engines. This is because most engines place a high level of importance on information found in your title tag. The title tag is also what the search engines usually use for the title of your listing in the search results.

The title tag appears as the description of the page at the top of your browser’s window. It should be a complete sentence that includes your term(s) for that page. Do not overstuff these tags or your website will be penalized in the search results!

3. Implement quality Meta content
Meta is a part of the page html code human visitors to your site rarely see. It is used by search engine visitors (robots or bots) to help them determine what the page is about.

Description Meta should be one or two core-term enriched sentences that do not exceed 250 characters.

Keyword Meta is a space-separated list of terms relating to your page. The core term should appear at the beginning and end of this list. Limit the number of characters to 1,024, including spaces.

4. Content is king
The page content is one of the most important factors to letting visitors and the search engines know what it is you are offering. Improve your content and you will improve your listings in search engines. Each page should have at least 200 words of copy and include your keyword terms. The most important aspect of writing for the web is that you write for the human visitors, not the search engines.

5. Use image alt text wisely
Each image on your page can include a keyword phrase that relates to the image. This text will also help those that may have their images turned off when visiting your site. This text can be included in the alternate or “alt” attribute of the html code for an image. The important thing is to describe the image first and then try to work in key terms.

6. Use a robots.txt file to tell search engines where to go
This simple text file is a roadmap of your website. It should be placed in the root directory of your site, and it tells the search engine spiders which sections they should go into and which ones they are not allowed in. It is one of the easiest tactics you can use to help ensure your site gets crawled. It’s also one of the most overlooked opportunities.

7. Use a Sitemap.xml file, and keep it up to date
A sitemap file is a source of information for the search engines, like your robots.txt file. It tells them the location of all the sections and pages of your website, how important each of those sections are to your site, and most importantly when those sections were last updated. Most importantly, when you change your content, update your sitemap file!

8. Get rid of duplicate content
It’s easy to use the same content for multiple pages on your site, especially if you’re a retailer and the manufacturer has already provided lots of content for you. However, every time you use the exact same content you are taking a chance that the search engines will throw your site out of their results, thereby negating all of your hard work to get there in the first place.

Take the time to rewrite content for each page, regardless of how similar it may be to another page. Get rid of mirrored sites or completely rewrite these as well. Also, rewrite an article two or three times for use in article marketing or syndication.

9. Create custom error pages
If a visitor accidentally stumbles into a section that does not exist anymore, their browser’s default “Page Not Found” message does not give them a way to get back into the content of your site. However, it is very easy to set up custom error pages that have the same look and feel as the rest of your site. They will help keep visitors and therefore search engine spiders from reaching a dead end in your site and leaving.

10. Get validated!
First, validate your code for well-formed HTML. The rules of HTML have changed quite significantly over the years, and it is no longer optimal for you or your webmaster to generate messy, broken mark up.Although not a requirement from the search engines, both Google and Yahoo mention it in their guidelines for Webmasters.

Second, validate your entire Web site through Google and Yahoo. This is a simple task that involves uploading a file to your Web site’s root directory or adding information to your meta tags.You can find more information on this process in the search engines’ Webmaster guidelines.

This tip also serves to build a level of trust with the search engines and lets them know that your site is a current and active. This is a major component in determining how often your Web site is visited by the search engines.

The 10 tips presented here are just the beginning of a well-optimized Web site. The depth of a successful natural search optimization strategy is beyond the scope of this article, but we hope this guide will help site owners and Webmasters improve their natural search optimization.

Written by Kristy Crabtree with Chris Gandolfo.