Archive for: August 2007

For most small businesses, the goal of having a web site is to attract customers, gather leads, and convert sales. But is that what YOUR web site is doing? When you get it right, web visitors have a valuable experience and clearly understand how your product or service fulfills their needs. Get it wrong and you could be sending web traffic and potential business right to your competitor’s door! Here are some common web site mistakes that can scare away visitors and hurt your bottom line:

• Too many choices – When you give your visitors too many options, it can become overwhelming, making them less likely to make any decision at all. All options are not equally important, so be careful to present your information in an organized, logical way that is easy to understand.
• Non-relevant web site content – Be sure that the content on your site is focused on delivering your main marketing message. You are the expert on your business, so you already know what information customers need in order to make a decision. Extra information that doesn’t promote or support your message doesn’t belong on your web site.
• Unprofessional web design – The way your web site looks and functions speaks volumes about your business, even if it is unintentional. If your web site has poor layout, broken or missing links, outdated information, or looks unprofessional, your visitors will have a negative impression of your company, regardless of how great your business may be.
• Red flags – Most web users today have a healthy skepticism when they visit web sites, so make sure you show them immediately that your company is legitimate. Provide detailed contact information that includes your physical mailing address, phone number, contact names, and email addresses so visitors know your business can be trusted.
• Asking for too much information – When visitors want to make a purchase, sign up for your mailing list, or request information from your web site, what kind of a form will they be faced with? Make sure you ask only for the information that you absolutely need, and don’t try to gather too much information at once. Instead, keep the form short and simple, and then follow up later to gather any additional customer information that you may need.

Just when you thought you had figured out how to optimize your web site for the search engines, Google has come along to shake things up again! Google’s Universal Search is a new, comprehensive approach to searching that gives users results not only from web pages, but also from blogs, images, video, news, and other “verticals” that Google uses in its search results.

So what does this mean for your web site? It means that you can no longer rely on simply optimizing the text and keywords on your web pages, you now must think in broader terms. Since Google’s search results now include “alternative” media, your small business should follow suit. Tactics such as RSS feeds, web “widgets” (small, web-based applications on your site), and social media strategies that incorporate Wikis, article syndication, and blogging are quickly becoming the new standards in search engine optimization.

Because Google’s new algorithm is giving precedence to verticals like video, press releases, blogs, images, and news, we will likely see this influence on the search engine results pages over the next few months.

For small businesses, this is a great opportunity to implement a variety of additional SEO strategies that will help your web site thrive in this new world of Universal Search. The key to optimizing your web site is the same as it’s always been – develop lots of great, relevant content and build inbound links. But with the launch of Universal Search, you now have many, many more verticals available in which to build great content.

Hopefully, your search marketing strategy is part of an overall marketing plan that involves regular testing and measuring.  It’s like eating vegetables when you’re a kid….you gotta do it because it’s good for you, even though it’s not your favorite part of dinner.  The same is true for monitoring your search engine positions – you gotta do it to know if customers can find your business in the search engines, and to know when to act or react to the changes that are bound to occur from time to time. 

Consider these numbers:

• More than 74% of all consumers check the web FIRST before they make a purchase (either online or in a brick-and-mortar store), so the importance of being on the web is pretty clear.
• Reports also show that more than 80% of all web traffic comes from search engines, because that’s where most people begin the research/buying process.

So if your business can’t be found in the search engines, how will people know about you? And if you don’t monitor your positions in the search engines, how will you know if you are on page 1 or page 1001, or if you show up at all?

Of course, there are many ways to help build your search engine rankings, like publishing lots of good quality content on your site, regularly updating your site’s content, sending out press releases on the web (for inbound links), listing your business in quality online web directories or on industry-related sites, optimizing your web pages for the search engines, plus many others.  If you are already doing these things but not monitoring your rankings, how will you know if your efforts are working?  

Optimizing your web site for the search engines is only part of the job; you must also track and monitor your search engine positions in order to have a healthy, well-balanced search engine strategy.  Because it is so important, you should include search engine monitoring as part of your regular marketing activity each month.  By keeping tabs on your positions, you can watch the effectiveness of your current search marketing strategies, and also take the steps necessary to stop any negative trends that could threaten your hard-earned rankings.  So go ahead and eat your vegetables, monitor your search engine positions, and maybe you can have some dessert.

Many small businesses shy away from sending out press releases because they are just not comfortable with writing them.  They think “what should I say?” or “will anyone be interested in this?” instead of remembering that press releases are always welcome if they are well-written and timely. Here are five tips for making sure your press release is appreciated!

1.  Make sure your press release is newsworthy. 
Readers and reporters love to hear about new product releases, important additions to your staff, client wins, or local events in which you are participating.  They do not, however, want to hear about an upcoming sale, a change in your suppliers, or a thinly-veiled advertisement for your business. Make sure your press release covers something that is actually news about your company.

2.  Include quotes from people.
Quotes from human beings will help a fact-based press release become more readable, more interesting, and more personal. Be sure to add quotes from company officers or managers, as well as quotes from customers or others that may be referenced in your press release.

3.  Send your press release to web outlets as well as wire services.
Most of us know that press releases are typically sent out over the “wire services,” but did you know that there are also many web outlets that accept press releases?  Web press release outlets have the added benefit of contributing inbound links to your web site, and your press release will also be added to the news archives where it will have a longer shelf-life.

4.  Send your press release to local news outlets.
In addition to wire services and web outlets, consider sending your press release to local outlets as well. Local newspapers, Chambers of Commerce, and other community-based organizations love to publish news from local businesses as a public service to the community.

5.  Make it relevant.
Try to tie-in your press release with something that’s happening in your local community, in your industry, or directly to customers in some way.  By providing concrete details about your news, you make it relevant to the people who will be reading it.  Press releases that are interesting and relevant have a much better chance of getting picked up by media outlets and publishers.