Doing Business Online with Multiple Income Streams
June 30, 2009 by Melissa Donovan · 3 Comments
Most small business have established an online presence. They have a website and are running ad campaigns and using marketing strategies to draw targeted traffic to their sites. But some small businesses are missing online opportunities for diversifying their income streams because their efforts to draw traffic are too targeted or their offerings are too limited.
Think Outside the Box and Beyond the Zip Code
Take, for example, a small nursery with a simple website that provides their location, hours of operation, and listings of plants and flowers that are in season. The only customers they’re targeting are people who live within a reasonable driving distance and who are interested in gardening or landscaping. They have an online presence but are not doing business online — yet.
Then, the owner of the nursery adds a blog to the website and begins writing regular entries about the growing process, including tips for taking care of plants and ideas for creating beautiful gardens. Several of the nursery’s customers start reading the blog but many more readers come from regions beyond. Within a year or two, there is a large following, which is not constrained by geographical limitations.
The nursery’s owner puts together a collection of her best, most popular, and most informative articles and self publishes a book, which generates some much needed extra revenue during a year that’s otherwise slow for business.
Grow Your Offerings by Doing Business Online
Now, instead of selling plants, flowers, and gardening supplies, the nursery owner is also selling information — information that was obtained through years of experience and that people are willing to pay for.
Selling information products is just one of the many models that business owners can adopt to expand their offerings, increase revenue, and diversify their income streams by doing business online.
There are several ways to harness an online presence that can breathe new life into the bottom line. Here is a small sampling of other possibilities the nursery owner might have explored:
- Online consultations – share expert, personalized advice for a small fee via phone or chat
- Affiliate marketing – sell gardening-related products on the website through the Amazon Associates program or some other affiliate marketing provider
- Online store – develop a unique line of products and sell them online – it could be something as simple as a mug that says “I love to garden” or something as complex as a specialty fertilizer mix
- Basic advertising – contextual ads throughout a website, especially one with a blog, can do well if there is a significant amount of traffic passing through on a daily basis
- Paid membership site – create a section on the site that is for paying members only – a forum, workshop, or online course related to gardening
Re-evaluate Your Demographics for Multiple Income Streams
Once a business decides to branch out in new ways and create multiple income streams, there will likely be a shift in the target customer demographic. Our friend the nursery owner used to advertise strictly to local gardeners and landscapers. Once she realized that people were actually interested in her blog, she had to change her marketing strategy.
She should still advertise locally, but online, she can launch a broader marketing campaign, one that appeals to hobby gardeners and professional landscapers all around the world. Her perspective audience has grown from a few thousand to several million.
As more and more of those perspective readers subscribe or visit her blog, more and more of her books are selling and not just to folks who live in her hometown. People who live on the other side of the country are buying. People who live on the other side of the world are buying. Meanwhile, she’s enjoying an increase in profits.
Generate More Revenue
Because gardening is her passion, the nursery owner enjoys writing about it and with relatively little effort or work, she is earning larger sums each year as her blog audience grows. During a time when most folks are strapped for cash and the economy is in dire straits, the nursery owner has demonstrated true enterprise through a willingness to think creatively and try new things.
Millions of small business owners have websites but have not seized the opportunities that an online presence provides. Launching a new income strategy involves planning and research, some elbow grease, and may even require an initial investment of either time or money, but the payoff can be great.
If you already have a website for your business, there’s no better time than right now to start looking for new ways to generate revenue online. You may even decide to launch a second website devoted entirely to your new pursuit. In difficult economic times, like those we face today, it will be the entrepreneurs and creative risk-takers who ride out the storm and rise to the top.
BONUS TIP: Make a commitment to setting aside a few minutes each day and start exploring the nuts and bolts of expanding your offerings and creating multiple income streams.
Planning Your Web Content Development
June 23, 2009 by Melissa Donovan · Leave a Comment
We’ve already talked about how to lay the groundwork for your web content development by brainstorming. You jotted down all your ideas, did some research, and expanded on those ideas. You looked at the competition and learned more about what your industry is doing in the online marketplace. You took notes and made lists. You asked questions and came up with answers. You went in empty handed and came out with a better understanding of what your online presence should look like.
Once you’ve done your brainstorming, you should have plenty of possibilities for your web content development plan. Maybe you’ve got it scrawled all over a bunch of pieces of scratch paper. Perhaps you used an orderly mind mapping technique. Or PowerPoint.
Take a look at your notes. Those are the seeds that you’ve gathered. Now you need to plant those seeds and make them grow, you have to water and fertilize them, and make sure those seedlings get plenty of sunshine. To do this, you’re going to need a plan. A web content development plan.
The Benefits of Having a Plan
I’m a big fan of planning. If you spend a little time on a plan right now, you can save loads of time later. A good plan will also help you avoid mistakes and bumps in the road because as you build your plan, you’ll naturally contemplate various possibilities and scenarios. You’ll be able to work contingencies into the plan, as well as emergency exits and the notorious plan B.
Running a business is not easy. It takes up a lot of time and energy, especially when you’re just starting out or going through a renovation or expansion. If you don’t write a plan, then you might get caught up in your day-to-day business activities and forget all about the evolution of your online presence. This is especially true if you have a long-term business plan (please tell me you do).
A plan also provides you with a blueprint. There are infinite possibilities on the web and it’s easy to get lost among all the opportunities. If you have a plan, you’ll be able to navigate through your many choices with ease and confidence.
Tips for Web Content Development Planning
Prioritize
I believe that all good plans start with a sense of priority. Let’s say your first web project will be to redesign your website. You decide to scrap all three or four pages of written content because they are outdated, and you want to get rid of the layout, which is just dated. But you’d like to keep your logo. You decide you need about twenty pages of content, including one page for each separate product that you sell. You also want to get set up on popular social media sites. You’d like to use video as well. You’ve got a big list of big ideas and you can’t wait to see them come alive.
But first you need to step back and decide what matters most. This is how you organize and put things in order: Your website is more important that your social media. Your email marketing campaign is more important than your hopes for creating a viral video. Later, we’ll talk about contingencies, timelines, and budgets. But for now, keep in mind that no matter how hard we work or how carefully we plan, things change. You might get a golden opportunity in a few months and have to postpone some of your content development plans for lack of time (being busy is good, right!). You might have a difficult quarter and have to tighten the budget. You just never know what the future holds. So dream big, but then put your dreams in order.
When you’re dealing with a website, for example, you should definitely give your core pages greater priority. These include your home page, about page, products or services page, and contact page. Four simple pages that every business website should have. Viral videos are all the rage but millions of people post videos every day and there’s no guarantee that yours is going to be a phenomenon. A more reliable marketing strategy should come first. Put things in their proper order. Prioritize, and everything else will follow.
Flexibility
Nothing stresses me out more than a plan that has no flexibility built in. Let’s say you’re a middle manager. You have to get a project to your boss by Friday. Please don’t tell your subordinates that it’s due Friday. You tell them it’s due Thursday. Or better, Wednesday. That gives you some leeway in case anything goes wrong. And things do go wrong. Next year, your budget might be twice what it is this year (or it could be half). Even the very best plans, the ones that are perfectly executed, are subject to reality. And in reality, stuff happens. Unpredictable stuff. So create your plan, but don’t create it out of iron or chisel it into stone. And remember, technology is changing all the time. Be prepared because this year’s blog is next year’s Twitter, and who knows what we’ll be dealing with the year after that?
Timeline
A website doesn’t happen overnight. If you’re starting a brand new business, you’ll want the completion of your website to coincide with the launch of the business itself. If you’re doing a redesign and want to time it for a product or service launch, you’ll need to coordinate your timelines.
The biggest mistake I see small business owners making in the online world is not having any plan at all. The second biggest mistake is no timeline. They’re going to start publishing a newsletter, but when? They’ll update their online profiles, eventually. They’d like to add fresh content to the site. Someday.
Lots of people don’t like committing to a timeline. Well, that’s what flexibility is for. At least with a timeline, you can make some sound guesses about the future of your web content. At the very least, you can create a series of events and ascertain how long each will take and how much time you need between each one. For example, you can allot six weeks to creating a website. You might need two weeks to create an email marketing campaign. You don’t have to glue these projects to the calendar, but you can use a timeline to better understand how long everything will take. This will enable you align various facets of your entire business.
Budgeting
Smart businesspeople know how to budget. But we just talked about flexibility and the unforeseeable future. The fact that you cannot know for sure what the future holds also means you can’t know for sure what your budget will be in later months or years. The economy is unpredictable, the market is unpredictable, and consumers are getting more fickle by the day. Hopefully, you’ll have a bigger budget than you hoped for or at least be on track. But we all know how many businesses fail every year (if you don’t know, the answer is this: the vast majority!). And when disappointment comes knocking, the first thing that shrinks is your budget. Some businesses can avoid failure by having a flexible budget, or rather, by having a plan that’s flexible enough to adapt to changing budgets.
You should, however, budget for online marketing on a long-term basis. A lot of small businesses throw a few hundred dollars at a website and then forget about it. Three years later, they remember they have a website and they pay a few hundred more dollars to update it. This is not a healthy cycle. It could be costing the business customers, who are apt to think that if the website is half-baked, the company probably is too. Make sure you have a regular, ongoing budget for online marketing and website maintenance.
Contingencies
A contingency is something that might happen, but there’s no guarantee. It’s a what-if. As a writer, I’m thrilled by what-ifs. Questioning possibility is what drives fiction. It’s also what keeps me up at night. What if the video really does go viral? What if nobody responds to my Facebook page? What if the site become an overnight internet sensation; do I have the resources to handle the new business that the site could attract?
When you’re writing a plan, you have to include contingencies. You probably don’t need a lot of them, but contingencies work alongside flexibility. In your plan, you believe that if you build a site and launch a proper marketing campaign, you should be able to increase your current sales by 20%. So you build the site, but it’s drawing more customers than you anticipated. Will you be ready to handle the new business that’s coming in?
If things happen the way you plan, then your entire business will start to see benefits from your web content development efforts. And if things don’t go as planned, well, you should have a backup plan.
Plan B
If your plan doesn’t pan out the way you intended, what are you going to do? Nobody likes thinking about worst-case scenarios, but this is business and the reality is that success is not guaranteed. However, you can minimize your losses by having a solid backup plan in place. And you never know, a good backup plan might lead to another (and more successful opportunity). Let’s say you’re just out of college and want to be a freelance graphic designer. You set up a website and start hustling online. You do okay, but not great. Your designs are awesome, but sales isn’t your thing. A year in, you’ve invested a lot of time and money building your little business. But now, you’re not sure you’re in it for the long haul.
Secondary plans abound in situations like this. You can rework your website, turn it into an online resume and portfolio, and then use it find a regular job (you can always continue freelancing on the side). You can find a partner who specializes in sales and work together to grow the business. You can sell your site (aged websites have value, and aged sites with decent content have even more value — high traffic sites are worth a lot) and get out of the business altogether.
Yes, it sucks when things don’t work out the way we’d hoped. But it’s not the end of the world. If you have a plan B, you’ll be prepared and you’ll get through any major disappointments just fine.
Get Ready to Execute
Planning takes time and effort, but it can prevent unnecessary hassles later. Take some time to brainstorm your vision for your online presence. Then, turn that raw material into an organized plan, one that’s prioritized and that has a clear budget, a tentative timeline, and a lot of flexibility. Include contingencies and a backup plan. Once you get through that planning phase, you’ll be ready to execute. It’s time to start building!
Scribizzy Web Content Services
Need help putting together a plan for the future of your online presence? Scribizzy provides web content development services. You can even get a quote online.
SEO Starts with Keyword Research
June 16, 2009 by Melissa Donovan · Leave a Comment
Whenever I’m working on a website copywriting project, I ask my client to fill out a questionnaire that helps me understand their business. This enables me to write copy that truly represents the client’s company, mission, and goals.
One of the items on the questionnaire used to be “Please list any keywords related to your website or business.”
I quickly found out that very few small business owners understood what I meant by “keywords.” Sometimes, they would jot down something like “use your best judgment.” Usually, they’d list a few keywords, but it was clear that they weren’t researched keywords for SEO. They were simply words and phrases that represented the products and services that the client offered, and they had been selected at random.
Since most small business owners don’t specialize in web content and design, how could they be expected to know that when a web content specialist inquires about keywords, she means keywords that have been researched for SEO purposes?
Entrepreneurs understand business. They are concerned with their industry, profit margins, customers, sales, and ROIs. They know that establishing an online presence is essential to business, but they do not usually realize the complexities involved in developing an effective web presence. For many small businesses, getting online merely involves building a website. So it’s up to web content specialists to educate small business owners. That doesn’t mean selling them products or services they don’t need (and many small businesses do not need keywords or SEO), but it does mean helping them be more informed about their options.
It wasn’t long before I changed my questionnaire to read “Have you conducted any SEO keyword research?” Rewording the question had some interesting results. Some clients simply put “no.” Others became curious: What do you mean by keyword research?
Search Engine Marketing
Search engine marketing is an online marketing strategy that grows traffic to a website by increasing its visibility on search engines. This is primarily done through search engine optimization (SEO).
This is easier said than done. Search engine marketing is extremely competitive. Most small business owners think that by simply launching a website, they’ll automatically start getting traffic through search engines. But these days, to get traffic through search engines, you have to carefully optimize your website. That means researching and choosing keywords, implementing those keywords, establishing incoming links, and monitoring keyword and traffic performance.
Search engine marketing isn’t for everyone. If you’re on a tight budget in a field with highly congested keywords, you would be better off with an alternative online marketing strategy. There are lots of ways to draw traffic, and before you start an SEO campaign, you should do your research and make sure it’s a good match for your business.
Keyword Research
You can’t just pluck keywords out of nowhere. Well you can, but your results will be less than ideal. Keyword research can be a tedious process. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of possible keywords for just about any search term you can think of. When you conduct keyword research in preparation of optimizing your site, your goal is to find the keywords that will draw the most traffic. You also want the traffic to be targeted to your business offerings.
Let’s say you run a small, independent bookstore. You might think that a good keyword to pursue would be “books.” But that would be wrong. To gain traffic through a keyword like that would cost tens of thousands of dollars in research, content development, and other SEO efforts. You’d be much better off finding narrower and more localized search terms. Another option would be to forgo search engine marketing altogether and use another strategy to increase traffic to your site.
To discern which search terms would most benefit your website efficiently and effectively, you conduct (or hire someone to conduct) keyword research. This is a process in which you start with some general and obvious search terms and use various online SEO tools to expand the list of terms, so that there are plenty of choices. Then, you review each of the terms to determine how competitive each one will be, how much content you’d have to add to your site to compete effectively, and decide which keywords your target customers are most likely to enter into a search engine. For example, people searching for the term “books” are not necessarily looking for an independent bookstore (here’s a hint — “bookstore” is a more targeted keyword than “books”) and even if they are looking for such a store, they may be in a different geographic location.
Here are some of the questions you want to keep in mind when conducting keyword research:
- What are the primary products or services that the website offers?
- What alternative or synonymous keywords can be used?
- How much search volume do these keywords generate each month?
- Which keywords are potential customers likely to use in searching for these products or services?
- What does the competition for these keywords look like?
It’s important to note that when we talk about keyword competition, it’s not necessarily the same businesses with which we’re competing. In other words, there will be other sites that are using the same keywords as you, but their product or service offerings may not be directly competing with yours. You’re competing with them to get search engine traffic via keywords rather than competing with them in business.
SEO
For many small businesses, a little SEO can really boost traffic. The decision of whether or not to pursue SEO is one that must be made by each individual business, and the decision will likely rest on how competitive keywords are within your industry, the amount of resources you can dedicate to optimization, and the findings that come from keyword research. One thing, however, is basic: SEO starts with keyword research, and keywords should never be chosen on a whim. A little research can go a long way in helping you make smart decisions about whether search engine marketing and SEO is the right online marketing strategy for your business.
Scribizzy offers a full suite of SEO services. To learn more visit our SEO Services page, or if you’re ready to launch an SEO project, start now by getting a quote online.
A Rough Guide to Business Blogging for Absolute Beginners
June 9, 2009 by Melissa Donovan · Leave a Comment
So, you have a small business and you’re thinking about adding a blog to your website. You’ve heard that a blog can help your business attract new customers while building loyalty among existing customers. And you’re right; business blogging is a great way to grow your business online.
But blogging is a world unto itself. Think of your blog as a house on the web. Other blogs dealing with topics that are similar or relevant to yours make up your neighborhood. Like all houses, your blog needs to be carefully planned and maintained. And if you want to be a successful member of your community, you’ll have to connect with your neighbors.
Like a home, a blog is an investment. You can invest dollars by hiring a professional blogger to manage and maintain your blog or you can invest your own time and to learn how to do it yourself.
The Rough Guide to Business Blogging
This guide is for small business owners who want to explore business blogging as a way to grow their online presence. The list below includes basic elements to help you get started blogging. It’s by no means an exhaustive list. There is an endless array of blogging activities that you can do to build and grow your blog. But this list does include the bare essentials.
Check Out the Neighborhood
Start by subscribing to blogs in your niche. Find businesses like yours (some of these will be your competitors) and find businesses that complement yours. If you’re an architect, find blogs about construction. If you’re a hairstylist, find blogs about makeup application. Use an RSS reader or subscribe by email. Then, incorporate blog reading into your daily schedule. This is the single best way to get familiar with business blogging. Watch and learn. And make sure you visit the blogs you read directly so you can check out the features on site and view the comments.
Draw a Blueprint for Your House
Once you’ve familiarized yourself with blogs in your niche, start putting together a plan for your blog. What topics or issues will you address? Make a list of possible post titles. Write down the categories that you’ll use to organize your posts. Be sure to think about features you want for your blog, such as plugins that make your blog more attractive to readers (CommentLuv) or that make your blog easier to find on the web (All in One SEO). Learn how to use these features to your advantage.
Put Your House on the Map
Once you launch your blog, focus on creating excellent content. Every article you post should be useful to your readers. And make sure you know exactly who your target readers are. What questions do they have? What kind of help or tips do they need? Answer their questions and fulfill their needs. Will you use your blog to reach out to customers? Other professionals in your industry? Are you establishing your expertise and credibility or are you sharing news and information about your service offerings? With business blogging, a healthy mixture of all these approaches will work best.
Hit the Road
Now that you know your way around your neighborhood and have your house fitted with great content, start connecting with other bloggers. Visit those blogs you’ve been reading and make it a point to leave comments. When folks comment on your blog, be sure to reply and then head over to their place to reciprocate. Set up a Facebook page and mention your posts on your Twitter stream. Add a link to your email signature. Tell your friends and colleagues about your blog and be clear about how they can benefit from reading it.
Build Your Community
You’ll start building your community when you’re out on the road promoting your blog. Return to home base every once in a while (be sure to keep those posts coming regularly!) to make sure your visitors are comfortable. Use questions to encourage readers to comment and participate in discussion. Throw a little contest, host a giveaway, and make your home the hottest spot on the block.
Bring it Home
Throughout the business blogging process, you’ll pick up a lot of blogging techniques and strategies simply by observing other bloggers. Notice how they format their posts. Do they use images or video? How does the layout affect you as a reader? What do they blog about? Ask yourself what other bloggers in your neighborhood are doing to be successful and then bring it home so you can succeed too.
Scribizzy offers a range of blog services to help small business communicate with customers and market their products and services on the web. Want to learn more? Get a quote online.
Small Business Website Design Tips: 9 Things to Avoid
June 2, 2009 by Melissa Donovan · 8 Comments
When you’re shopping around for a small business website design, do you know what to look for and what to avoid? Do you know which design elements will make your site more appealing and which elements will turn visitors away?
If you’ve spent much time surfing around the web, then you’ve probably noticed that some websites have design elements that are distracting, annoying, or just plain ugly. We’ve all bumped into a few websites that make us want to scream. Luckily, escape is just a click away.
But if you’re a small business owner, you definitely don’t want visitors clicking away from your website, especially if they’re seeking escape because the design is unappealing or irritating.
10 Design Elements to Avoid
Here’s a list of design elements that people frequently complain about. Most of these recommendations have been on web designers’ things-to-avoid lists for years, but these frustrating features just keep showing up all over the internet.
- Automatic-loading Music: This is number one on the list for good reason. Nothing startles a website visitor more than loud audio suddenly protruding from the speakers. Maybe the visitor is already listening to background music. Maybe they’re trying to focus on your content (and if your content is not centered around music, the sound is just a distraction). Maybe there’s a baby sleeping nearby. Be considerate and make audio optional.
- Flashing, Blinking, or Scrolling Text: If it’s subtle, you might be able to get away with it. But like audio, moving text is nothing more than a distraction. Sure, you might be using it to get the visitor’s attention, but once you do and they start seriously perusing your site, it’s just going to become an annoyance.
- Animations: Some animations work well with a design. If you’re an illustrator or an animated cartoonist, go for it. But if you’ve got a website that’s centered around some product or service that doesn’t include art or animation, then keep your content static.
- Pop-up Windows: No. Just no. I don’t care if your windows pop up in front, in back, or right on the page. Don’t do it. Some websites are still using pop-ups or have returned to pop-ups. They will never be sustainable because they’ll ultimately annoy people.
- Image Backgrounds: This one almost didn’t make the list because there are a lot of image backgrounds that work well, especially textures. So this is not so much a design element you need to avoid as one that you need to use judiciously. As long as the images are small and fast-loading, you should be okay. But if a solid color will work just as well, then get rid of your image backgrounds. And do note that most major (and hugely successful) websites don’t use them (Google, Amazon, etc.).
- Frames: These days, with CSS and other design technologies so readily available, frames are just an unnecessary and outdated technique for organizing the content on a site. The problem with frames is that they are not compatible with all browsers and may render differently on different computers. So opt for a content management system (like WordPress) instead.
- Excessively Wide or Long Pages: This should go without saying, but I still run into these types of websites on occasion. I always wonder if the designer is using an enormous monitor and has forgotten that most people use 12 to 15 inch screens. And try to remember that visitors don’t like to scroll endlessly down (or across) the page. Except on archived sections of your site, keep scrolling to the length of two or three pages.
- Indistinguishable Links: Have you ever hovered your mouse over a web page and it caused a window to open or carried you off to some other page? That’s just plain weird. Links are meant to be clicked so make sure they’re clickable and make sure that visitors can distinguish a link from regular text.
- Opening a Link in a New Window: There are some instances in which I don’t mind links opening in a new window, but usually I prefer to make the decision myself. All I have to do is command-click (Windows users can right-click and choose “open link in new window”). When web designers use this functionality, website visitors end up with dozens of open windows, and there’s a good chance the window with your site on it will get lost in the fray. Let people use the back button. That’s what it’s there for.
Exceptions to These Website Design Tips
These design elements should be avoided, but not always. Whenever you’re reading a list of tips, it’s important to remember that there are usually plenty of exceptions. In the list above, I’ve pointed out some obvious exceptions, but you should always remember to use your best judgment and keep in mind that sometimes breaking the rules or defying convention is a good thing. If you’re not sure about whether a particular website design idea would have a negative impact on your site, ask your website designer or consult with a web content specialist. Also, ask friends, family, customers, and professionals in your network. Nothing beats user feedback!
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