Most small businesses know how important it is for their web sites to be found in the search engines, especially Google, since it is responsible for around 60% of all search traffic on the web. One of the reasons Google is so popular is because it provides really good results when searchers look for information, products, and services on the web. So when something changes with Google and how it ranks web sites, people definitely pay attention!

If you follow your own web site statistics, you may have noticed some changes lately in your Google positions. Evidently, the Google index (where the web data is stored) is being refreshed on a daily basis now instead of every few weeks, which is causing web site rankings to fluctuate. This constant refreshing is being referred to as “Google Everflux,” and it’s beginning to cause quite a stir. This is good news for searchers, since it means Google can provide “fresher” search results that reflect the latest information available. However, it may not be such great news for small businesses struggling to get or keep good rankings in Google.

The basic principles for getting ranked in Google remain the same; you must build quality inbound links to your site and provide valuable content on your pages that gets updated regularly. But now that Google is constantly refreshing its index, you will most likely need to watch your rankings a little more closely and be prepared to take action when necessary. Some other tips that may be helpful to your rankings include:

• Social Bookmarking – Google has started paying attention to links that come from social bookmarking sites (such as Digg, Reddit, Technorati, etc.), so consider using these sites as a source of quality inbound links.
• New Inbound Links – Keep adding new inbound links to your site, since older links that are pointing to your site may be dropped as newer content is added to Google each day.
• Quality Content – Add new content to your site regularly, and make sure it is useful and valuable to your readers. Content such as informative articles and blog posts can help build credibility and establish you as an expert in your industry, which also helps your Google rankings.
• Keyword Research – Research the right keywords for your business, don’t just guess. Find the search terms that people actually search with, not just the terms that you think they would use in a search. And don’t forget to check out what your competitors are using for keywords, too.
• Don’t panic. It looks like Google Everflux will be with us for awhile, so a little bouncing around is to be expected. When monitoring your stats, watch for trends that develop over time, and make your adjustments according to what shows up in the data.

Most marketing today can be considered motivational, since its ultimate purpose is to convince others to purchase your products or otherwise do business with you. Motivating your audience with a combination of a quality message and a clear call to action is one of the most effective ways to move them from browsers to buyers to loyal repeat customers. If you can provide your readers with a strong, benefits-oriented marketing message, they will be eager to take the next step – so don’t lose them! Make sure you motivate them to take action by using a very specific, obvious call to action.

The Call to Action
To be effective, a call to action should be very clear and direct. Specifically tell your audience what you want them to do, such as “sign up for our newsletter” or “download our white paper.” An example of a simple call to action is to put a “Buy Now” button beside your product or service on your web site that takes buyers to a secure online payment page. Customers who click on the “Buy Now” button know that they have taken action, which is both effective and reassuring for customers because they didn’t have to guess what to do next.

Although a “Buy Now” button is about as direct as you can get, sometimes it takes a bit more convincing to get readers to take a desired action. The examples below are for online marketing, but they could be applied to any type of marketing as well:

• On your web site, engage your audience with great copy and quality content, and focus on the end benefit they will get from doing business with you. Be sure to close with a strong call to action that encourages them to act right away.
• For e-marketing campaigns, consider offering special pricing or other incentives, and create a sense of urgency by including an end date for the offer. You may want to also include some testimonials from other customers or clients to help motivate recipients to take action sooner rather than later as well.

Loud and Clear
Often, the best motivator is a compelling call to action that states clearly and specifically what you want a customer or prospect to do. Don’t be afraid to ask for the sale, but also make sure it is easy to take the desired action (make your phone number or contact info visible, include links to your web site, provide live email links, etc.). When customers and potential customers are motivated to take action as a result of your marketing, your conversion rates will begin to show improvement – right along with your bottom line.

No matter what you call it – economic slow down, one-state recession, troubled economy – you’ve probably noticed that business is a little sluggish for many companies today. No doubt times are tough, especially here in Michigan, and that has prompted lots of small businesses to tighten up their spending and budgets to compensate for the change in revenue. It makes perfect sense, of course, but the challenge for many companies comes when deciding which expenses to cut back on, and by how much.

When business slows down, it’s tempting to cut back on marketing and advertising activities since these are often considered to be non-essential expenses. But if your sales have slowed down, that’s precisely the time when you should turn up the marketing on your business to help bring in new customers and jump start your sales again!

So before you make any drastic cuts to your marketing spending, consider implementing some marketing activities that have a low cost but have a high ROI. Specifically, I’m talking about good ‘ol email marketing!

Ready, Aim, Send
Email marketing is a reliable, proven marketing strategy that’s inexpensive to implement, especially compared with more traditional activities like print ads and direct mail. It is also a more targeted strategy than other conventional methods, enabling you to deliver a specifically focused message directly to the customers and prospects that you want to reach. For instance, if you were to segment your e-mail recipient list into categories, you could then tailor your email message to fit the needs of the recipients in each category. So unlike a print ad that is published for a broad audience, an email campaign can be aimed directly at your target audience.

Tracking Results
Email campaigns are also highly measurable, making it easy to track the effectiveness of each campaign. After sending out an e-campaign, the campaign stats can reveal all sorts of useful information, such as the number of recipients who opened the email, how many emails “bounced” or were not delivered (and why), which links the recipients clicked on, the number of opt-ins/opt-outs, how many times the email was forwarded to a friend, etc. By analyzing this data, you can tell if your message prompted a response (such as clicking on a link or visiting a web site), or if your message was even delivered in the first place!

Weathering the Storm
When times are tough, it pays to be smart about your marketing choices. Cutting back on pricey marketing activities is fine, as long as you don’t give up on your overall marketing goals. Marketing’s purpose is to help generate sales and boost your bottom line, which may be even more important if your revenue has slowed down. To help ride it out, try implementing marketing activities that will get the job done, but will do it for less money – like email marketing.

While it’s true that there are many different strategies that can be used to optimize a web site for search engine success, one of the most overlooked methods for improving search engine placements is building up your web site’s credibility. When you provide your visitors with lots of useful, relevant information on your web site, you create professional credibility and establish your expertise in your industry. When your web site is credible, people will naturally want to link to all of your good information, and your pages will likely be loaded with the keywords and phrases that matter most to your company as well. In other words, a credible web site has many of the elements that impress Google the most!

Brownie Points From Google
One of the ways you can help build your web site’s credibility is to create an online glossary for your site and link to it from the rest of your pages. Think about it – we know that Google gives you points for using your keywords in the text of your links, so why not pick up some extra points by linking your key terms to a glossary that further explains them? This is also extremely helpful to visitors who are on your site to learn about your company, products, and services as well.

Credibility Through Repetition
Let’s say, for example, your business sells insurance, and that each type of insurance that you sell has its own web page. Now imagine that some of your important keywords like “auto insurance,” “life insurance,” and “renters insurance” are linked directly to a glossary page that contains these keywords, plus a short description of each. In this example, you’ve used your keywords as links, and repeated the keywords on the glossary page as well as on the product pages. All of this contributes to the credibility of your web site as Google sees it.

Thinking Like a Spider
A glossary page is inherently loaded with specific words and phrases that are relevant to your business. When a search engine “spider” visits your glossary, it sees these words and phrases and also sees that they are cross-linked and used throughout your other web pages as well. So what’s a spider to think? It would probably think that your site is very important, relevant, and credible. And credible web sites can lead to more web site traffic, increased inbound links, and ultimately improve your search engine placements in Google. Now that’s impressive!

A good web site is one of the most important assets a small business can have, but what exactly makes a business web site “good?”  To some extent, the answer depends on what type of industry you are in.  But certain elements are common to most business sites, and should be implemented regardless of your type of business.  To ensure that your business web site is professional, credible, and relevant, be sure it follows these basic principles:

1. Stand out from the crowd.  Make sure your site is unique and doesn’t look like everyone else’s, and don’t rely on pre-canned templates.  Templates are almost always a bad idea for business sites, since they are too cookie-cutter and don’t deliver anything compelling or unique to your users.  Be intentional about the message that you are sending to your visitors, and make sure your site is an appropriate reflection of your business.

2. Use consistent, user-friendly navigation.  Make sure the navigation system appears on every page so users can easily find their way around the site.  Try to keep information only two or three clicks deep, and use drop-down menus to organize information and keep things simple.

3. Give readers something to read!  First and foremost, great content gives visitors a reason to come your site.  It provides them with something of value, and can result in word-of-mouth recommendations to friends and colleagues.  Don’t waste your readers’ time with boring, irrelevant content that is too company-centric.  Readers don’t really care about your business, they care about how your business can help them solve their problems. Great content is the most important part of a business web site, so don’t skimp on providing readers with excellent content.

4. Provide complete contact information.  Few things are more frustrating than not being able to find out where a business is located or how to contact someone in the company. Make sure you have your complete contact information on your web site, including a physical address, and provide users with multiple ways to contact you (phone, email, etc.).  Providing detailed contact information reassures visitors that your company is real and gives your business additional credibility.

5. Present a strong call to action.  The purpose of having a web site is ultimately to get visitors to do something, whether it’s to buy something, contact you, join a mailing list, or remember your company the next time they need products or services.  Whatever it is that you want your visitors to do, you should always present a clear, strong call to action and make it easy for them to actually take that action.  Be specific, and don’t be afraid to be direct.  For instance, a link that says “keep reading here” is a call to action, as opposed to a more neutral link that says “continued.”  Even something as simple as “Buy Now” invites action because it is so direct.

6. Give readers something of value. Readers need a reason to follow your call to action and/or come back to your site again. Offer them a coupon, a tip sheet, free advice or information, or something entertaining like a crossword puzzle. This can also help build credibility with your audience and set your business apart from your competitors, too.

With all of the marketing techniques, tools, and tactics available today, it can be easy to overlook a basic marketing tool that you probably use all the time – your business card!

Business cards are the ultimate permission-based marketing approach. When you offer your business card to another person, he or she almost always takes it, reads it, maybe makes a note on the back, and then saves it somewhere in a collection of other business cards.  Business cards have staying power – people tend to hang on to them and actually re-visit them from time to time, unlike other kinds of marketing collateral that is read once or twice and then tossed.

To make the best impression, your business card should:

• Have consistent corporate branding – use the same logo, corporate colors, fonts, etc. that you use on other marketing collateral for your business
• Provide up-to-the-minute contact information – don’t cross out an old phone number and hand-write in a new one ( just order new business cards instead)
• Make use of white space – don’t cram too much information on the card, and make sure the layout is clean and attractive
• Be professionally printed – don’t print business cards yourself unless you absolutely have to.  If cost is an issue, try using a web-based printing service that prints high-quality, low-quantity jobs
• Include your slogan, marketing message, or call to action, if possible
• Be complete - don’t forget to include your web address and email address on your business cards, and if either one changes be sure to print new cards!

Even though business cards present a large amount of information in a small amount of space, they can still be very creative and interesting.  Try using colored ink or colored card stock to add some interest, or consider using an image or photo as long as it doesn’t clash with your company logo. Be creative, but use good judgment.  Business cards are a great marketing tool, so make sure yours live up to their true potential!

You probably already know that e-marketing is a very cost-effective way to reach customers and prospects, but do you know how well it works?  According to a new study by data analytics firm Prospectiv, people today get most of their product information from e-newsletters, followed closely by search engines as their primary source of product information. This is a huge vote of confidence for e-marketing, especially for e-newsletters! The power of digital marketing is growing quickly, so if you’re not already sending out e-newsletters or tracking your search engine rankings, it might be time to “just do it!”

“Dear Readers“

E-Newsletters have long been a favorite e-marketing activity, since they give businesses an opportunity to communicate consistently with customers and keep the company’s name and message in front of them.  If you have a small business with a small marketing budget, it’s also a great way to regularly publicize the latest information about your products and services, and can help build credibility and establish your expertise with readers. Since research now indicates that users rely on e-newsletters as a primary information source, sending out a company e-newsletter appears to be a “win-win” for most businesses.

Be Nice to Spiders

Another powerful e-marketing strategy is search engine optimization, also known as SEO.  Millions and millions of people use search engines every day (mostly Google, Yahoo, and MSN), and good search engine positions typically translate into more traffic, new leads, and improved sales for your business.  If you’re like most businesses, you want to show up on the first page of the search results, but it takes some very specific work (and maybe a little luck) to actually get there. 

If you haven’t optimized your web site for the search engines, consider investing in SEO as soon as you can, since it can take anywhere from a couple of weeks to a couple of months before you start seeing results.  In the meantime, make sure your site can be read correctly by search engine spiders, and that your web site is in compliance with industry “best practices” such as CSS, keyword-rich content, appropriate site structure, site maps (XML and HTML), complete meta data, etc.

Where the Customers Are

Consumers typically like e-marketing because it fits into their preferred method of receiving information – electronically – via email, web sites, and search engines.  Businesses are drawn to e-marketing because it’s easy to do, it’s low-cost, and it works. With so many affordable e-marketing strategies available, it seems logical to use them to get your business where the customers are already looking.  And according to recent research, they’re looking at e-newsletters, search engines, and other e-marketing messages - so make sure that your business can be found!

A long time ago, (okay, maybe the ‘90s) small businesses that had web sites were mostly thought of as being cutting-edge and technically savvy.  Remember those days? Merely having a web site sent the message that the company was competent, professional, and innovative.

Helping, or Hurting?
Now, however, having a web site is basically an expectation, something that is essential to most small businesses today.  But having the “wrong” kind of web site can actually be worse for your business than having no web site at all.  Here are some tell-tale signs that your web site may actually be hurting your business rather than helping it:

• The site hasn’t been updated in years
• The site commits web “sins” such as frames-based design, Flash intros, doorway pages, blinky-flashy images, or image-based pages
• Confusing or inconsistent navigation among web pages
• Visitor counters
• Busy, repeating backgrounds that hurt readability
• Horizontal scrolling
• Pop-up ads
• Not enough quality content
• No strong call to action
• Uses a “pre-canned” template design that is not consistent with branding
• Cannot be correctly read by search engine spiders

(Of course there are many others, but those are the biggies…)

Sending a Message
Most small businesses would love to be perceived as competent, professional and innovative, but the wrong kind of web site sends the opposite message about your business.  So ask yourself – does your web site help or hurt your business?  Does it give visitors a great first impression, or does it send some other, less positive message about your company? If you aren’t sure of the answer, then it’s probably time for an upgrade!

Good marketing is built on good relationships, which often means marketing that goes beyond the usual print ads, direct mail initiatives, or business directory listings.  Good relationships are built with consistent, credible marketing activities that also include some level of personal involvement.  Whether it’s the message of your marketing or scheduling face-to-face meetings with leads and potential clients, “the personal touch” can be instrumental in building a good marketing relationship with your customers.

One of the most effective “personal touch” methods, of course, is networking.  But are you doing everything you can to make sure your networking efforts are working for you?  Here are some easy networking strategies you can use today to help improve referrals, create new introductions, and generate more business!

1. Make sure your business associates, customers, and colleagues all have a really good understanding of what you do.  If these people clearly understand what you have to offer, it will be easy for them to recommend your products and services to others.  Take advantage of this “mini sales force” and equip them to work effectively for you!

2. Get some “face time” with new prospects.  When you receive a new lead from someone you know, ask if he or she would like to have lunch and invite the new lead to join you.  This way, you get an in-person introduction to your new lead, and can also show your appreciation to the person who passed along the lead to you.

3. Be intentional about referrals.  Let others know that your goal is to grow your business, and that “word of mouth” referrals are a key part of achieving that goal.  Be sure to be a good referral partner for others too, and ask how you can best refer business to them as well.

4. Consider joining a networking group. There are many business networking groups for you to choose from, so be sure to select one where the primary objective is to refer business to each other.

5. Attend networking events. This seems like a no-brainer, but it bears repeating.  Make the time to attend business functions, Chamber of Commerce events, and community events as part of your regular marketing efforts.  It will help you gain visibility for your company as well as build credibility in the community. Plus, you never know who you might meet that could be a great referral partner or your next big client!