So you’re ready to take your small business online.  Like any good consumer, you begin your research and all of a sudden find yourself in an entirely new world of acronyms, theories and strategies.  There are so many distractions that anyone can easily get off track and start to feel a bit like a deer in the headlights!

Far too often, this can either discourage small business owners from getting a website or can distract them so much that they are almost terrified to put up a site that isn’t good enough, so the website is either put on indefinite hold or the idea is buried completely.

Sure, there are basic rules that should be followed.  However, online business is an ever-growing ocean of theories and case studies and waiting to jump in because you’re afraid to miss something, is just not feasible for anyone!

While I think it’s important to learn as much as you can and if appropriate, hire a web designer who’s on top of the latest online trends as well as the time tested website design methods, the most important thing is to not lose focus of the ultimate goal.

Most small businesses first and foremost, want to make sure they have a basic website for their current customers and prospects can visit to learn more about their products or services and make contact.

All other considerations should be both secondary and ongoing!

-Keep an eye out, I’m working on a Web to Human glossary of all of those terms and acronyms! 

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You put so much effort into designing your business’ website whether you do it yourself or hire a design firm to do the job. There’s picking color schemes, images, writing and rewriting copy, choosing domain names and web hosts and a thousand other things that go into creating the perfect website.

With so many things to consider, all too often the simplest things can be overlooked. So what is the worst mistake you can possibly make when designing your site? Drumroll please…

Not designing for your target audience!

What do I mean?

Your website is not your business, it is a representation of your business. All the pretty pictures and flashy menus and bells and whistles in the world don’t mean a darn thing if your visitors don’t feel comfortable enough to make the transition from visitor to customer.

What is all too often overlooked in the website design process is a website visitor’s visceral reaction when arriving at your homepage. I know I’ve been guilty of this in the past. You can get so caught up in having a professional looking, slick site that make people say ‘Wow, they’re big time!’ that you can forget that your website is your voice online. If your website is too “big time” with an overly upscale feel, that online voice can sound pretty patronizing to your small business clients.

The problem is people are human, and when we are going to trust people and work with them, we need to identify with them and feel a connection on some level. We want to feel that our potential business partner understands us and our business.

Let me give you an example…

When I was a kid, my father was the president of a wholesale hardware company. Basically, his company supplied the inventory for a large number of the hardware stores on Main Streets of tiny towns across Kansas and the Midwest.

Now, part of my Dad’s contract was always having a company car. The car allowances that he and the salesmen had would have been more than enough to have provided for a nice, big Cadillacs or Lincolns for him and the rest of the team. So what did my Dad and the sales team drive?

They all rolled in Ford Crown Victoria’s. Those cars were fully loaded, but on the outside, they were the same cars that most of the state government employees around KS drove. With all the options, pricewise they were definitely comparable to the Caddies and the Towncars. So why didn’t they spring for those?

IMAGE!

John and Mary at Joe’s Hardware in Smalltown, KS don’t feel comfortable dealing with the slick looking guy with a fancy suit rolling up to their store in an easily recognizable luxury vehicle. On the other hand, they welcome with open arms their friend Frank who shows up in his Ford to check up on them and the store.

It was hard for me as a preppy, valley girl wannabe girl of the 80’s to understand why we couldn’t have the “cool” car, but in retrospect, it taught me a lesson that I’ve applied to my business life ever since.

Know your audience.

You don’t have to compromise the quality of your website, just modify the packaging to best fit the people you’re trying to reach!

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It just occurred to me that though I have written a lot on the topic of article marketing on my virtual assistant blog, I haven’t touched on it a lot over here. And since it is a website promotion service we offer, I might give a little background info. or the W’s (who, what, where and why) of article marketing.

As I see it, there can be many benefits to using articles to promote your site. Two always rise to the top of the list in my mind:

1. Well-written, informative articles can help establish you as an expert in your field.
2. In the all powerful eyes of Google, Yahoo and the rest of the bunch, links coming into your site from relevant sites are, if not the Holy Grail, pretty dang important! It’s basically the same as number one but with computers instead of people. The search engines see links to your site as recommendations or votes for your website. So the more links you have coming into your site from other sites that are in related fields, the higher your search engine rankings will eventually get.

So how does writing an article get other people to link to your site?

Well, for one, always display your article on your own website or blog. When people run across it or find it by searching, they might just link to your site to refer their clients or readers there. But most importantly, when writing articles for the purpose of website marketing, you must submit your articles to article directories.

Article directories are just what they sound like. They are like giant filing cabinets full of articles that people have submitted. When you submit an article to a directory, you are giving permission to the directory and anyone else who might come across your article to reprint your article. This is where the links come in.

All directories(or at least all the directories that you submit to) allow you to include an author resource box, basically an “About the Author” section that gives a brief bio about you and a certain number of links (typically 3 or less) to your website or relevant sites you are associated with in some way. Webmasters are always looking for great content to put on their websites and blogs, and this way any time they use your article, they’ll be linking to your site.

So where do you submit your articles?

There are lots of services that offer article submission. Also, many virtual assistants offer that service too. In the past, I have used Article Marketer. If you’re really not wanting to spend the time to submit them yourself, you can certainly use on of these services. Personally, I stopped using them and submit articles manually these days both for myself and my clients. I like to have control over where the articles are going, and I like to have the option of changing up the resource boxes when I submit to different places. That allows me to track which ones work best and tweak them.

I’ve often found that submitting to a few of my favorite standby article directories can be just as effective as when I used a service to submit to hundreds.

A few of my favorite article directories that I always submit to first are:

• Ezine Articles
• Go Articles
• Article Dashboard
• Article Alley

There are literally hundreds if not thousands of them…if you have more, feel free to add to this list in comments.

Well, I could literally go on for several hours about the ins and outs of article marketing and preaching the Gospel of content and links. But I think that’s it for this post. Now that I’ve realized that I am seriously lacking in my article marketing blogging though…keep an eye out for more article marketing posts for the all-important How, that you might have noticed I left out of this one!

Please feel free to leave your thoughts, links to other article directories, questions or advice for fellow article marketers in the comments section below. Where do you submit articles? Have you found articles to be a beneficial marketing tool?

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“As a matter of principle, I never attend the first annual anything.” - George Carlin

As an entrepreneur, one of the toughest roadblocks you run into when first starting out is building your reputation. Whether you are in a service industry or selling your own new product line, how do you persuade prospects to become clients? At times, it can seem like an impossible task, but take heart, there are things you can do.

My first piece of advice for any new business owner is use the people you know! Whether it’s friends, family, past employers or neighbors, make sure everyone you know (and everyone they know for that matter) is in the loop about your new business venture. I would suggest sending out an e-mail to everyone on your contacts list giving them a breakdown of what you’re doing and asking them to pass it along to anyone they know who might be interested in your service or product. You’d be amazed how fast your contact list can multiply by just asking the people you know to pass your information along.

You can even include a special Family and Friends offer or discount. Remember, it takes a lot of work and money to get your business off the ground. Even if you only break even or lose a bit of money on these sales, the portfolio and/or great references or testimonials you gain will be priceless in the future of your business!

Read the rest of this entry »

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I’m finally fitting in some writing time, and I’ve just finished my latest article.  I’d love to hear your thoughts on maintaining small business websites.  Let me know what you think!

The Lindsay Lohan Approach to Website Management

By Dana Wallert 

As we’ve all witnessed, maintaining anything, be it sobriety, sanity or search engine rankings takes consistency and dedication.  You may have had an awesome website when you launched it five years ago, but gradually you’ve seen your traffic, earnings and search engine rankings falling.  So is the answer to send your entire site to rehab once everything goes wrong?

Simply put, no.   There are many things you can do on a regular basis to make sure you’re staying on the right track.

Make sure you update the information on your website as you do with any other marketing information.  If you’ve stopped selling a certain product or service, make sure your website reflects that.  Similarly, if you add services or products make sure you are showcasing those on your site.

Also, having a news section or even better a blog that you update regularly with any news, latest projects, tips or other information relevant to your business is a great way to make sure your site is staying fresh to readers and to the search engines!

Likewise, make sure you are maximizing any relationships you have with online and offline partners or groups.  If you belong to the Chamber of Commerce in your town, make sure that your website is listed in any directories, and especially make sure they add a link to your listing in any online directory.  The same goes for any other industry or local business groups you belong to.  A lot of people have belonged to these type of organizations for years before they even had a website, so make sure you have updated any and all places where you are already listed.   Equally, always include your website on any membership applications or directory listings that you submit in the future.

In the same way, any forums or blogs you consistently read will usually allow you to list your website in your profile or in some form in the comments you leave.  Think of your website address as your online AmEx…don’t leave home without it.  The more references (links) to your site that appear across the internet the more important and relevant the search engines determine you to be.  They will reward you with higher rankings for related keyword searches.

So as you can see, the key to managing your website is really to stay on top of it.  Pick up good simple habits, and your website will continue to serve you well!  There are Promises-like website design firms that can take your website at its rock-bottom and completely rehab it, but by proactively managing your site you can save yourself a lot of time and money.  So please, commit to your site’s success, and remember to take your website management one day at a time!

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Maybe I was inspired by my own less than perfect SEO work ethic of late or maybe I’m just having a Stevie Nicks moment.

Either way, I have just written a new article on the subject and thought I’d give you all the first read. Let me know what you think!

When It Comes to SEO, Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow

-By Dana Wallert

Search engine optimization or SEO, the very words are enough to make people run screaming from their desks! People are constantly searching for new tricks, shortcuts and quick fixes. When it comes down to it though, like in so many parts of our lives, consistency is key.

When you first build your website, you are excited to get it up on the web. You are anticipating how to handle all the new business that will be generated by thousands and thousands of visitors. Cut to a few weeks later, and you realize that no one is finding you!

Don’t feel defeated by the lack of whirlwind success online. Surely, by the time you have learned enough about website design to get your site going, you have heard that you must utilize a little thing called search engine optimization to be found on Google or Yahoo.

There are many different SEO techniques. A lot of them pop up one day and then are shunned the next. When you’re new to this brave new world of search engine wooing, it’s important to find the most tried and true methods preached by those who have been doing this for years!

The most common methods include on-page optimization or utilizing keywords and meta tags and link strategies. On-page factors do obviously play a big role in how the search engines view your site, but for now I’d like to talk about linking.

Basically, the concept of links when it comes to SEO is simple. The search engines are looking to see who thinks your site has quality content and who gives your website a vote of confidence. There are many schools of thought in the SEO world as to quantity of links versus quality of links, but that too is a discussion for another time.

There are several tried and true methods of attaining all mighty backlinks. One of my favorites is what I’m doing right here, writing articles. Sit down and write an article based on your knowledge of a subject that is related to your website or that would appeal to your website’s target audience. Then, you submit your article to article directories to be picked up and used by webmasters around the globe looking for new content for their websites. The catch being that when they decide to utilize your article, they are required to publish it in its entirety including an “about the author” or author resource box.

Here’s where the linking begins. In most article directories, when you submit your article, you are allowed to include such a resource box complete with a few links back to your website. Once your article packed with quality information and tips is out there and webmasters are posting it right and left, you will soon notice that your website is logging more and more incoming links.

So where am I going with this and how does it relate to the title of this article, “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow?”

Quite simply put, many online entrepreneurs (sadly myself included), are very eager and ambitious in the beginning. You are writing articles left and right. You are employing new linking strategies and optimizing and re-optimizing your site’s contents for just the right keywords almost daily. You might even start seeing the fruits of your labors there in the first few months.

You may even be getting new customers and jobs from your efforts! Here’s where you, like myself, might find yourself running into a bit of a catch 22 situation. You have put all of your time and energy into online marketing and SEO, and it’s really starting to pay off. Your time and energy are now being refocused on to the daily tasks of your primary business, in my case virtual assistant projects.

You’re business is growing steadily. Each day you think in the middle of all your projects, I should really write another article or freshen up my website. However, far too easily, those secondary tasks fall by the wayside and end up at the very bottom of your to-do list.

Now, you’re 6 or 8 months down the road, and all of a sudden you notice that the traffic to your site seems to be waning. Not as many new customers are contacting you. And worse yet, because you now have time to check on these things again, you see that the number of links to your website is falling and falling fast!

If you’ve been there, you know that though it may sound it, I am not being overly dramatic here. It is not a good feeling at all! You are left throwing your hands up in the air and taking on the prospect of having to start all over again.

Here’s where the “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow” really comes in. No matter how busy you get or how many new customers are slamming your phone lines and inbox, always remember that those people didn’t come your way without effort on your part!

Don’t let this happen to you! Even if it’s only 1 hour a day, three days a week, you must make time to maintain your search engine optimization efforts. In other words, don’t stop thinking about tomorrow, it will soon be here and with a little effort, it will be better than before!

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Well, maybe not yet…but it does seem that we may be heading there.  I have always preached the importance of a web presence to small businesses.  In fact, I use the yellow pages comparison in “Why Your Small Business Needs A Website,” an article I wrote a few months back.

I firmly believe that having a website and online marketing plan is essential to all businesses today, so you can imagine how intrigued I was to come across “Yellow Page Usage Drops By Half” on at the Online Legal Marketing Blog.  Check it out for some interesting statistics on yellow page usage and advertising versus their online counterparts!

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After spending yet another day wading through the latest SEO articles, sites and blogs, I just began wondering…How many people give up on their websites and online marketing plans before they even really get started?

Optimizing your webpages and blog posts is important.  BUT for small businesses and individuals just taking the first steps towards gaining an online presence, don’t let the big, bad SEO boogie monster scare you away!

Most SEO experts will tell you that the one of the most important pieces of the search engine puzzle is building quality sites filled with great content, which coincidentally should be any website owner’s goal in the first place, right?

If you’re getting overwhelmed and start to feel like giving up and that you can’t do this…just focus in on what you started to do in the first place…build a great site that complements your company’s mission and image.

I know this advice might sound oversimplified…it is and that’s the point!  You will inevitably hear more and more SEO techniques the longer you’re online.  After awhile, you will most likely begin to notice that there are three or four main commandments of the SEvangelists and when you feel more comfortable, definitely start playing around with those and find what works for you.

If you’re already at that stage, please by all means continue and check out the SEO gurus blogs, websites, etc.  I do not claim to be an expert!  There is obviously value in being aware of what’s going on around you, or more importantly with the search engines, above you.

Just please, don’t let the Google Monster under your bed, the Yahoo Crypt Keeper in your closet keep you and your business from joining the rest of your competitors online

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When launched my first business website, DW Office Solutions, I struggled with the decision of whether to put ads on it or not.  On one hand, Adsense and other advertising programs can mean a few extra cents while you’re waiting for your online business to take off.  However, I often wonder how putting ads on your business’ website might effect your business’ image and eventual success.

I have read many opinions supporting both sides of this issue.  I think it really has to be a decision based on your personal views and, at times, gut feeling.

I’ve always taken an approach of looking at my site the same way I look at other sites as a viewer and potential customer.  I’m not saying that I will never buy something from a site with Adsense, and I have no problem whatsoever with ads on content sites.  But in my mind, it does take away a bit of the professional image of a service company to see those little Google boxes plastered about.  Obviously, there are ways to include the ads without being blatantly displayed, but my gut feeling always leads me to question business’ who prominently display such ads on the same pages where they’re describing why I should buy from them or why I should hire them.

These are solely my opinions, based only on my “gut feelings” and not research but I can’t help wondering how successful a company is at their specialty if they feel the need to post ads?

Again, I think it’s really something that each business and designer need to discuss and decide for themselves!

Do you use Adsense or it’s alternatives on your business site?

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Ha! Even as a newcomer to the land of blogging, I’m easily drawn to new ideas for blog posts.

If you are in the same boat, you must check out John Scott’s Seven Hot Blog Topics, a brilliant tongue in cheek review of the sketchy tactics (I’ve gone above and beyond and used a modge podge of 4 in the title of this post in case you were wondering :)) people resort to in order to increase their blog traffic and links.

I must say I truly believe that his conclusion OR #7 on the list:

Or, just be legitimately userful and post well thought out posts that help others, make them think, and are truly insightful.

is the way to go. I’m guessing you’ll agree if you actually responded to the title of this post and are now sadly disappointed as to the content! As much as we all wish shortcuts and tricks could swoop down and instantly solve all of our online SEO, traffic, etc. problems, in my opinion, NOTHING will ever replace the value and credibility of direct, informative, intelligent content!

What do you think? Is it ever appropriate to post solely to create your own blogroversy in business blogs? Have you ever used any of these techniques? I’m curious as to how that really works out for online biz folks.

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