Although the Internet is a powerful equalizer for small businesses; building a killer small business website is important to snag viewers and convert them into paying customers.
These days building a killer small business website is essential to entrepreneurs for attracting customers and not just a matter of aesthetics.
You can no longer just slap up a Website and expect customers to flock to your door.
Because your web site is the first thing your clientele see, even if it’s just to get your phone number and street address; they will measure the quality of your business, by the quality of your web site.
The conversations between manufacturers and buyers that used to take place over the telephone, are now conducted through the content on manufacturers’ Websites.
Building a killer small business website could be the difference between surviving our current recession and buckling under to it. And, getting the best return from your small business website, is based on understanding what does and does not work.
Here are some tips for building a killer small business website that will work:
- When you set up your shop online, you’ll first need a Web address.
- There are tons of address sellers, or domain hosts online where you can register your web address.
Network Solutions, Go Daddy, and Register.com are just a few of the more prominent hosting sites.If a direct name for your small business is available, it is easy to remember and will probably be your best choice.
For example: If your business is called Ancient Coins By Jack, it makes a lot of sense to buy the rights to the URL “www.ancientcoinsbyjack.com”.
There is a huge secondary market for previously purchased domain names on the Internet so, it’s probably a good idea to purchase a few variations to your domain name that are close to your primary address; especially if it is a relatively common name.
- Good navigation is one of the most important functions of a good Web design.
- There is no single correct way to move your visitors around your site, but there are some navigation strategies you should avoid using. Drop down menus, although increasingly popular, can be frustrating and confusing as additional menu boxes pile up on the computer screen.Because wide computer screens have now become the norm, rather than the exception; take advantage of it by organizing your navigation tabs from left to right.
- Present compelling backgrounds on your company’s management, along with their accomplishments and pictures, to help establish your business credibility.
- It also pays to put up your client list, some shining testimonials, or even full case studies showing how your product or service solved your client’s problems.
- Building a killer small business website using killer graphics can cause problems with the search engines. Use them sparingly and only when necessary.
- Use high resolution, “non-dithering” colors that are easy on the eye and don’t distract from the focus of your site.
Now for SEO:
Building a killer small business website that is easily navigated and absolutely beautiful is worthless if no one can find it online. That’s why Search Engine Optimization is so important.
- Use Google AdWords free service to select at least 100 of the most relevant keywords to your product, service, and target niche. You can specify zip codes, cities, and regions in addition to phrases, for local area searches.
- The more that those key words appear on your Web pages, the higher up in the rankings your site will appear.
- Attach meta tags to your website, in order of how import they are to your business, for your top 25 keywords.The meta tags will drive traffic to your website when people perform a search using those keywords.
- It’s also helpful to place your business in the online business directories to get more visibility.Among others; Best of the Web, Insiderpages.com, Yelp.com, and Google’s free Local Business Center can help increase your small business visibility.
These tips for building a killer small business website, will help you bring in web traffic, convert them into valuable paying customers and survive in these current economic conditions.
Facebook is still getting bigger and seems to be sucking the air out of everything!
If you ever had any doubts about Facebook being the number one public watering hole online, you might consider the fact that one twelfth of the world’s population, or about a half billion people now make regular use of the social networking site.
Facebook is still getting bigger and because of the sheer magnitude of visitors who use the service; it has got to be one of the best sites online for Internet marketers to promote their products and services.
Although my preferred social network for marketing is Twitter; I also feed my Tweets to Facebook.
Twitter is great for marketing, but is simply not rich enough for deep conversational interactions. There are no threads. And images and videos are spread out across any number of third party services.
Twitter, which is more of a micro blog broadcast site, is more suited to some types of Internet marketing but is much less conversational than Facebook.
By Facebook’s own measure, they currently have over 400 million active users.
If this statistic is accurate, it dwarf’s Twitter’s active membership at 21% of it’s 75 million users.
To say the least, Facebook’s statistics, although somewhat antiseptic, are exciting for online advertisers and other Facebook partners.
Facebook has become so pervasive in our lives, that a day doesn’t pass where it is not being discussed in news reports or blogs.
Facebook is full of people carrying on spirited conversations about everything and anything happening in their personal and business lives.
People often share, sometimes too much information.
Facebook users often do not realize or understand that the information they are sharing is often being disseminated with the outside world.
For marketing purposes this can be extremely beneficial and a source for acquiring business contacts, new customers and even joint venture partnerships.
It should be assumed that anytime anyone shares information on a social network with their friends or business associates, the information will find a way to get outside the network.
Facebook taps into a need for people to connect and rebuild something we’ve lost as families and friends. As we move away from our tightly knit neighborhoods to more insulated suburbs and even to other countries, we need ways to connect personally and business wise.
The need for people to connect remains primal, and the ability to connect across all physical, cultural and language barriers is strong.
For this reason Facebook is still getting bigger and will continue to grow as a social network and marketing platform for those who know how to make use of it, in the U.S. and worldwide.
To make the best of your advertising dollars, working with The Facebook Ad Platform and the perfect formula to turn those high click rates into pennies on the dollar Click Here!
A great way to make some extra advertising money on your blog, is to set up Google AdSense for Search on your site.
If you have your blog up and running, but have not yet become part of Google AdSense; you had better your but in gear because you’re definitely leaving cash on the table that could be in your pocket.
To set up Google AdSense for Search on your site, you first need to get yourself a free Google AdSense account.
After you have setup your account, your next step is to configure Google AdSense for Search.
From your AdSense Home page, click on the “AdSense Setup” link at the very top.
Next, choose “AdSense for Search” from the page that comes up, to create your custom search page that you will set up on your blog.
You will need to provide the correct keywords in the next page that comes up, so the Google Ads that are placed on your blog are relevant to your blog’s content.
Here you can also configure how your AdSense search box looks, where the search results page opens, your Search Palette, Ad Location, etc. You can easily make the search box blend into your blog’s theme, or make it stand out.
To set up Google AdSense for Search on your site to open on a blog page; put the complete address in the text box that is provided.
If you would like to create a new page in your website to display the results; enter something like this example:
//search.php”>//search.php”>http://<yourdomain>/<pathtosite>/search.php
After you complete the wizard, the code snippets that are displayed, must be configured on your blog.
You must create the Search Results Page first, if you have configured Google AdSense to display the search results in a new page, like in the following example:
//search.php”>http://<yourdomain>/<pathtosite>/search.php
As long as you don’t have any custom components on the search page, you can just copy the Search Results Code from the box and paste it in the new search.php page.
Next, decide where you want to place the search text box on your blog.
Normally it is placed in either the header or in the sidebar, which makes it available on all pages of your blog.
Copy the Search Box Code and paste it where you want it to appear on your blog. But make sure that the <form action=”……”” id=”… value of action correctly points to the search results page that you have just created.
Your blog visitors can start using the custom search box to search for relevant content on your website immediately.
That’s really all you need to do, to set up Google AdSense for Search on your site and start earning some additional income.
