Doing Business Online with Transparency

One of the benefits of doing business online is that you have a platform from which you can communicate openly with the world at large. You can engage customers, relay information about your industry, and broadcast details about your business.

You can also practice transparency. Merriam-Webster defines transparent as follows:

2 a : free from pretense or deceit : frank b : easily detected or seen through : obvious c : readily understood d : characterized by visibility or accessibility of information especially concerning business practices.

Let’s examine these definitions and see how they can be applied to doing business online.

Free from Pretense or Deceit

Nothing makes customers more uncomfortable than feeling like they’re being deceived. Empty promises (you too could be filthy rich in less than 90 days!) and impossible guarantees (your website ranked #1 on Google or your money back!) are rife with deceit. Oh sure, it’s possible to get rich in less than 90 days, but statistically, it’s unlikely. And nobody should make Google guarantees unless they are (you guessed it) — Google.

When you practice business ethically, you don’t need to deceive people into buying your products and services. If you’re fulfilling a need or desire that people have, then they will be willing to pay you for it. When you’re doing business online, if you can’t sell your wares honestly, then maybe your wares aren’t worth selling.

Easily Detected or Seen Through

We’ve all visited a business website, trying to contact customer service to get a little help. You click a help button, then a support link, and you end up on a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page. But your question isn’t addressed, and you can’t find a single way to contact the business. There’s no email address, no phone number, not even a mailing address. Somebody doesn’t want to be detected. Why?

Businesses that allow themselves to be easily detected have an advantage over other companies. Consumers are increasingly willing to pay more for the same product if they believe they’ll get better service and support because in the age of phone answering systems and websites, it’s easier than ever for businesses to give their customers the runaround. Transparency means allowing customers to find you and get in touch with you (or a representative of your business).

Readily Understood

When customers come to your website, is it clear what you’re offering? You’ve probably seen commercials for products and wondered, What is that? Maybe you’ve visited a website and had no idea what, exactly, the business behind the site could do for you. When you use industry jargon or complex language, people cannot understand what you’re saying, and they, in turn, will not become your customers. Make an effort to always be clear.

Visibility of Information Concerning Business Practices

Hidden fees and questionable agendas are the bane of consumers everywhere. You think you’re getting the full package, but it turns out you’re just getting some parts. They told you it would cost $50 a month, but then you get the bill and it’s closer to $60. You ordered a product online and the company automatically entered you into a monthly program, so now you’re receiving an ongoing, monthly supply, and your credit card keeps getting charged over and over again.

There are plenty of ethical dilemmas in business that can give business owners or customers pause. Occasionally, situations arise where it’s not completely clear what the morally right course of action should be. In other cases, it’s as clear as day, yet businesses continue to operate in murky waters, and they just keep getting dirtier and dirtier.

This is not a good way to create a buzz about your products. The fact is, consumers talk. People love to complain to each other about how crappy your service is or how shoddy your products are. Or how you duped them. For every ten positive experiences that your customers have, you’re lucky if one of those gets shared. For every ten negative experiences, you can bet all ten will be retold again and again.

Doing Business Online

Transparency online is easy. You tell folks what you’re selling. Show them how your products or services will make their lives better. Promise that you’ll do your best to serve them. Then, meet that promise. If you’re selling a viable product or service, this shouldn’t be a problem.

I’m always confounded by businesses that sneak around and try to pull underhanded tactics on consumers. If you’ve got a worthwhile product, you don’t need to be sneaky. You can be completely transparent.

How Online Marketing Strategies Level the Playing Field for Small Businesses

When I was a kid, there was this little Mexican restaurant in town. It sat right next to a movie theater, and it was a hot spot. Those folks made a mean burrito! Kids always stopped in on the way home from school for nachos, and whenever we went shopping or to the movies, we’d grab a bite. It was cheap, tasty, and popular.

But apparently, it wasn’t popular enough. Because in 2003, when a big-box store wanted to move in and take over the space, both the restaurant and the movie theater (plus several other small businesses) got knocked out to make way for a chain store.

Rather than relocate and start over from scratch, the restaurant owners closed their doors and walked away after being in business for 30 years.

Missing Main Street

This is not an unusual story. Big businesses are constantly kicking the little guys off the map.

There was a time when every town and city in America was home to small businesses run by hard-working and self-sufficient people — people who possessed an entrepreneurial spirit. They ran restaurants much like the one I just told you about. They owned grocery stores, cafes, and bookstores. But in recent decades, big businesses have slowly been taking over, eliminating the mom-and-pop businesses that defined main-street America.

Nobody believed that a chain of coffee shops could drive community cafes out of business, but Starbuck’s proved it could be done. And because ambitious executives are hooked on exponential growth and thrive on eliminating or overtaking their competition, corporate growth has proven that no industry is safe from its reach.

After all, bigger businesses have the advantage. They have more money to spend on research and development, marketing, and personnel. They can even use that money to affect law, supporting politicians and bills that advance their agendas or opposing those that would give better leverage to the little guys.

Small Business Concerns

They say some industries are safe from corporate competition. I don’t believe it. If there’s a way to make money, the big businesses are going to want to get in on the action eventually.

If you’re a small business owner or if you’re thinking about starting your own business, these are real concerns.

Can you go up against bigger or more established businesses? Even if you can compete now, will a corporation move in on your turf a few years down the road? Should you just get a regular job and forget about it? Or can smart online marketing strategies save your business?

Small Business is Alive and Well

The truth is that small business is alive and well. It just looks different than it did ten or twenty years ago. True, it’s more and more difficult to find a grocery store owned by people rather than shareholders, but there is a whole world of entrepreneurs. And that world is the wild, wild web.

Remember that little Mexican restaurant I told you about, the one that went out of business in 2003? That restaurant recently got itself a Facebook page. Sounds odd, I  know. Why would you set up a Facebook page for a restaurant that has been out of operation for almost seven years?

Maybe the owners are thinking of reopening and are testing the market. Maybe they’re just waxing nostalgic. I have no idea, but what I do know is that they already have hundreds of followers, a pretty good indication that their little restaurant may be gone, but their customers have certainly not forgotten them.

21st Century Entrepreneurs

The entrepreneurial spirit will never die. Someone, somewhere will always find a way to outsmart the big guys and either beat them at their own game or build a brand new game.

In 1999, when big corporations already had their arms wrapped around shoe manufacturing, a little company named Zappos hit the scene. It was unheard of. Why would anyone go up against Nike or Manolo? But Zappos found that by skirting marketing and customer service models that big businesses favored and by operating on the web, they could in fact succeed and compete effectively. Less than ten years after it was founded, Zappos was sold to Amazon, reportedly for over a billion dollars.

Hoards of independent-minded people have figured out ways to make money using online marketing strategies. Some of them employ tactics that may be questionable (are they really selling anything?) but most online entrepreneurs just want to offer a decent product or service that brings value to their customers. They want to run a real business, and they want to succeed.

Many of these people make a living from home. Some of them work in their pajamas. Others are working from their couches or backyards. A few of them don’t even realize they’re running a business. They’re blogging for fun, and one day someone offers them some money for something, and next thing you know, they just turned a profit. That’s business, and this is still America.

Online Marketing Strategies

But it’s an online America, a globally connected America. And what’s missing on the game board are small businesses that are doing business the old-fashioned way (with a brick and mortar store, or an in-person service, or some really killer art to sell), while simultaneously harnessing the newfangled marketing advantages that the internet offers.

Let’s face it; some things just can’t be done online (home repairs, haircuts, dining, just to name a few). So, as big business moves in on these industries, traditional businesses need to use the web to compete more effectively.

If a little restaurant that closed its doors ten years ago can use the internet to reclaim hundreds of its former customers without even having a business anymore, then what can your business do with the web?

Scribizzy helps small businesses succeed online. Visit our web content services page to learn more about our copywriting, design, and marketing solutions.

Simple Online Marketing Strategies and Opportunities

Are you missing simple opportunities to promote your business online?

When you’re working for yourself or running your own business, the lines between your personal and professional life start to blur. You are no longer “on the clock” or “off the clock” because you own the clock. And you want it to tick.

When you work for someone else, there isn’t much motivation to put a link to the company website in your personal email signature. Lots of people who use Facebook and Twitter don’t even list their place of employment. And all kinds of forums are buzzing with workers who want to banter about anything and everything… except work.

Employed workers don’t promote their employers for a number of reasons. First of all, they may not be allowed to, legally. For the average worker, marketing and bringing in business is not part of their job description. Many workers won’t see any benefits from such efforts, anyway. Most would rather not think about work when they’re off the clock.

When these folks leave the cubicle behind for good and set up their own shops, old habits are hard to break. But think about it: now that you’re running your own business, you should seize every opportunity to let people know about the products and services you offer.

Online Marketing Strategies

There are two types of online marketing strategies. The first type is a concrete plan. You’re going to set up a website, publish a newsletter, and launch an email marketing campaign. That’s a clear, comprehensive plan. The other type of online marketing involves an open-minded awareness in which you are able to identify and take advantage of opportunities when they arise. When you’re filling out a form and it asks for your website, do you leave it blank because the form has nothing to do with your business directly? Well, that could be a missed opportunity.

Let’s say you have a Facebook account, which you use primarily to connect with friends and family. You post photos of your kids and pets, play games, and take polls and quizzes. This has nothing to do with business, right?

Wrong. Let’s say your second cousin twice removed lands on your Facebook page and notices that you work as a translator. Maybe she already knew this was your profession and forgot, or maybe she had no idea. The point is, she notices and as it happens, her company is trying to land a foreign-language client. Instead of hitting the yellow pages, she hits you up and you land a pretty decent gig.

You don’t have to wallpaper your life with your business information, but when there’s a space for business, you should use it, even if that space is one that you would normally associate with your personal life.

Signatures

Naturally, you have a website and an email account that uses your website domain. It’s just more professional when the emails you send to clients come from @yourbusiness.com rather than hotmail, gmail, or yahoo. Certainly, you’ve put a professional signature on your business email. Even workers in big companies are required to use such signatures. But what about your personal email account? Just about every email application includes a feature that lets you set up a signature. In that signature, you can put your name, a logo, and a link. So do it. Add a little reminder to let people know you’re in business and you’re available.

Social Media

I’m always surprised when I see business owners who don’t list their businesses in their social media profiles. If you’re using Facebook (or any social media) for friends and family only, why should you mention your business? Your friends and family already know what you do, and they know how to reach you. But that doesn’t mean they’re actively or constantly thinking about your services. When I first started my business, a couple of my acquaintances hired professionals who offered services similar to mine — because they didn’t yet know that I had gone into business for myself. If I’d been quicker getting my profiles up to date with my business information, maybe they would have. Including your business in your personal profiles will keep your business fresh in people’s minds, plus it’s a quick and easy way for folks to grab your link and send it to professionals in their greater network.

Forums

Lots of people use forums, or discussion boards, to engage with other people online. Most forums focus on particular interests — gaming, the arts, science, politics, spirituality. There are forums for every subject under the sun. People gather in these online communities to exchange ideas and information and to share their interests. As a forum member, you set up an account with a profile, which is much like a social media profile. And like an email account, you can usually set up a signature on your forum profile too. This will place your signature on all messages that you send and post in the forum. If you’re in a knitting forum and your profession is restoring antique cars, you may not want to be overt, but it doesn’t hurt to put the name of your website (with a link) just below your name.

All Business All the Time

The idea behind online marketing strategies is to make it as easy as possible for anyone to find you online. Marketing strives to pull people to your business so you don’t have to do as much pushing (selling). And that means using the simple opportunities that arise as well as implementing a comprehensive marketing plan. All three of these simple online marketing strategies (email signatures, social media profiles, and forums) have one thing in common: they each harness existing opportunities to promote your business.

Online Marketing Strategies

Scribizzy works with small business that want to establish an effective online presence. We can help with your online marketing strategies and other marketing collateral, including your website. To learn more, visit our web content services page.

How to Assess Your Website Performance from the Front End

We’ve already taken a brief look at back-end website performance assessments. Today, we’ll examine the front end of a website and discuss how to test and assess its performance.

Websites are comprised of code, text, images, and other media. Visitors view the website through a browser, and the code tells the browser how to display the site’s content.

The code says “Put the logo up at the top. Below that, place a navigation menu. Over on the side, let’s display some links. And right in the middle, let’s put a big block of text.” The back end of your website is all that raw stuff from which your site is made — the stuff that your website developer manages for you.

The front end, however, is the side of your site that is publicly accessible. When you open a browser (such as Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome, or Internet Explorer) and visit a website, what you’re seeing is the front end.

For metrics, we track website performance from the back end. How many visitors come to the site? Where do they come from? How long do they stay? This information helps us understand how the site is being used and whether it’s successfully selling our products and services.

Website Performance from a User’s Perspective

Front-end website performance assessment looks at a website from a user’s perspective. Also known as quality-assurance (QA) testing, these types of assessments provide feedback that will help you keep your site friendly and functional so visitors will be more likely to stick around and soak up your content, products, and services.

Here are a few questions that are answered by looking at website performance from a user’s perspective:

• How does the site look across different platforms and browsers?
• Are any links or images broken?
• Is the site user-friendly and easy to navigate?
• Does the site clearly communicate its purpose?
• Is the content presentable and relevant?

QA Testing

Cross-platform and cross-browser testing involves viewing the site from different operating systems and browsers. The two most common types of platforms are Mac and PC. There are several popular browsers in use today and your site should be thoroughly checked through each browser and platform combination.

Broken Links and Images

For your website to be fully functional, you have to identify broken links and images, and then fix them. Broken links can be hard to catch, especially if your site has a lot of written content and external links. You have no control over external links — if someone moves a page or changes the content on another website, your link to that URL becomes faulty. You have more control over the images that are displayed on your site. Users have a better experience with your website when all links and images are fully functional.

Functionality

User friendliness and a navigable structure are essential. If you site is difficult to use, visitors will quickly click away in search of friendlier pastures. Make sure it’s easy for users to get around the site with a clearly labeled navigation menu. Also, ensure that the site displays properly and that everything works as it should — for example, make sure that all videos play and contact forms work and issue confirmations.

Clarity

It’s tempting to use clever language on a website, but this can confuse visitors. Nothing scares off a potential customer faster than cryptic sales messages that they can’t decipher or vague offerings that they don’t understand. Be especially conscious of using internal or industry-specific jargon. If you’re a web designer, you probably want to talk freely about FTP, HTML, stylesheets, and flash animation, but if your visitors already know all that stuff, do you really think they need your services?

Content

Your site’s content should be easy to access and relevant to the site’s overall purpose. Every word, image, video, and link should be working toward a common goal. That goal might be to get more subscribers to your blog or newsletter. Perhaps you’re trying to sell products using e-commerce. Maybe you want visitors to pick up the phone and give you a call. Whatever your goals are, the content should be directly related to achieving them.

When to Assess Your Site

Your first quality-assurance review should take place after the design is done but before the site launches. You should also do a careful website performance assessment after any major redesign. Whenever you update, add, or change the content, a quick check is in order to make sure it looks good and works properly.

You should also think about doing an annual assessment of both front-end and back-end website performance. It’s too easy to notice a broken link and think, “I’ll take care of that later,” only to completely forget. After all, you’re a busy entrepreneur. If you schedule regular reviews, you’ll be more likely to catch problems and get them fixed.

Scribizzy offers a full suite of website performance reports and assessments. Ready to clean up your site? Get a quote online.

Happy New Year from Scribizzy!

We have said goodbye to 2009 and stepped into a fresh year and decade, one in which I hope you will all enjoy great success and bountiful prosperity.

The beginning of a new year is a time of reflection and planning, especially for entrepreneurs and small businesses. We all have to close out the last fiscal year (balance those books and file those taxes!) and open the new year with our plans for the future. Hopefully, those include growing our businesses and strengthening our online presence.

This year, Scribizzy will launch a number of new services, including website design, to make it easier and more convenient for our clients to get set up on the web without having to hire multiple service providers. Small business owners have enough to do without having to run around finding one person to write copy, another to create a website design, and then coordinate and manage online marketing projects.

So, my top goal for this year is to provide flexible and affordable website design solutions for small businesses and independent professionals and offer these services in conjunction with Scribizzy’s existing website copywriting, management, and marketing services. Our website design services will range from cost-efficient turnkey solutions to fully customized websites. These service offerings are in development and will launch officially in the coming months, along with WordPress theme customization (for bloggers). In the meantime, if you need a website design, we can always put together a quote and a project plan just for you, so go ahead and use this handy form to tell us about your project.

Once again, I wish all of you the very best in your business and personal endeavors. Let 2010 be a year of peace, prosperity and goodwill.

Sincerely,
Melissa Donovan

The Top 5 Business Blogging Essentials

Business blogging isn’t fast or easy. You have to master the writing, command your audience, and grasp the technology. Upload images and download plugins. Moderate comments and manage posts. It’s a ten-man job, there’s only two hands on the helm, and chances are they both belong to you.

If you’re lucky, you’ve got a partner or an assistant and you can spread the workload around a little. Otherwise, it’s all yours. So you grease up and get down to business churning out blog posts and moderating comments like a freight train barreling down a steep, slippery slope.

And what a slippery slope it is. I know, you’ve got your hands full. With a business to run and blog to maintain, who has time for the details? But there a few core essentials that every blogger should master, even if business blogging is simply a means for you to drive your online marketing efforts.

1. Master WordPress

Do you just log in, write a post, hit publish, and then go about your merry business? WordPress needs your attention. After all, it houses your blog. Like any home, it requires care and maintenance. A few quick tips:

• Always stay upgraded to the latest version of WordPress. Otherwise, stuff might break and your blog or website will not be secure (in other words, a hacker could get in).
• Fill in those fields. The tags and categories aren’t there for show. Make sure you don’t have a bunch of uncategorized posts and use your tags for Google’s sake.
• Check your dashboard. Don’t you want to know who’s linking to you? Don’t you think you should head over to their place and show a little love? Okay, if you’re a big shot blogger, maybe not. But if you’re a big shot blogger, why are you reading these tips? Plus, your dashboard provides a summary of how many posts and comments you’ve acquired to date, stats you should be aware of.

2. Embrace Plugins

Don’t neglect your plugins. There’s a reason a little red blurb pops up to let you know that your plugins require maintenance. When you see that red blurb, it means your plugins are jumping up and down, waving their arms in the air and yelling “Over here! We need your help!”

If you’re using the latest version of WordPress (see number one above), upgrading your plugins takes about two clicks and just as many seconds.

Don’t have plugins? Get some immediately. They’re there to serve a purpose – to make your blog run more efficiently and effectively. My favorites are: All in One SEO Pack, CommentLuv, and of course, the plugin nobody can live without – Akismet. Actually, there are a lot more but that’s a whole ‘nother post.

3. Track Traffic

If you don’t know how many people are visiting your blog, then how can you know whether it’s bringing in more business? Knowing how many visitors you’re getting on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis is how you will determine whether your business blogging efforts are paying off.

Some key stats to check:

• Unique visitors – how many individuals visited your site
• Pageviews – how many pages of your site people looked at
• Top landing pages – how people are entering your site
• Referring sites – who is sending traffic your way
• Time on site – how long people are hanging around

Where you do get this information? There are several options for tracking traffic, but I prefer Google Analytics (it’s free and easy to use).

Make sure you always keep the purpose and goal of your website and blog in mind when you analyze your stats. Lots of traffic won’t do you any good if your visitors aren’t buying whatever it is that you’re selling. In other words, don’t be misled by hoards of traffic.

4. Draw Traffic

The other day a friend and I were having a little chat about our blogs and when she complained about her statistics I asked her what she was doing to draw traffic. Her response: “What do you mean?”

I’ve said it before. I’ll say it now and probably again later: If you build it, they will come, but first you have to tell them about it.

If nobody knows about your website, how can you expect them to visit? If the only keyword you’re ranking for on Google is your name and you’re not famous (yet), how do you expect people to find your blog? The opportunities for drawing traffic are limitless but first you’ve got to make it a priority. Whether you use an ad campaign, social media, or word of mouth, you’re going to have to put a little effort into attracting a crowd.

5. Inform, Educate, and Entertain

None of this matters if your content fails to tickle readers where it counts. Every single person with an internet connection could visit your site but if the content isn’t compelling, all that traffic won’t do you one bit of good. A decent design helps and a spectacular one might push you over the top, but nothing beats good writing. This is especially true for business blogging because readers expect professionalism in a business blog.

Start by planning out your posts in advance. Schedule some brainstorming sessions so you have a nice big pile of ideas for topics. Then, write some killer headlines. Make sure your content has value – offer insider tips, free but valuable information, and a hearty laugh.

Don’t forget to establish your voice. That would also be the voice of your company, which is one part of its image. Are you clever and dry? Is your company image gritty or sleek? Develop a voice that is in line with your brand. And if you don’t have the time, skill, or interest, then hire a professional writer to do it for you.

Want More?

When it comes to business blogging, there’s a never-ending list of tasks to do. Even though these are the essentials, they’re easy to neglect, and often go unattended by small business owners and hobby bloggers who get caught up in other, distracting activities. Sure, there’s a lot more you can do for your blog and for your entire website, but if you don’t stay on top of the core action items, those extras won’t matter a whole lot. The pro bloggers know this and tend to their blogs with due diligence. You should 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.

Five Quick and Easy Web Content Development Tips

If you have a small business, you probably don’t have time to sit around thinking about web content development. You’ve got a business to run and resources may be tight, but you know that you need to expand your online presence. Your  customers are on the web and you want to be able to reach them. Where do you begin?

The trick is to stop thinking like a business and start thinking like a consumer. What do your prospective customers want? What problems are they facing and how do your products and services solve those problems? What makes your business the best one to patronize? Most importantly, how are your target customers using the web?

It shouldn’t take you long to answer these questions. In fact, if you’re already in business or if you’ve started laying the groundwork for your small business, then these are a few of the first questions you should have addressed. But all business owners lapse into entrepreneurial thinking. We get caught up in our own industries and fields of expertise. We forget that the consumer sees from a different point of view and speaks a completely different language.

Keeping the customer’s perspective in mind, you can apply the following five web content development tips to start creating content that will reach the right audience and get them to buy tickets to your show.

1. How-to Articles

You’re a pro at what you do, but your customers are novices. Don’t ever forget that. In addition to the products and services that you sell, you can give away your knowledge (advice) to make the customer’s experience more pleasurable. Let’s say you’re an electrician. You can just go to people’s houses and fix their wiring or you can leave a lasting impression and give your customers a branded flier that offers some tips on how they can maintain their electrical devices. Now, post those tips to your website and you’ve just added some useful content for your website visitors.

2. Case Studies and Storytelling

Once you’ve been in business for a few years, you’ll have some stories to tell. You’ll have stories about customers who benefited greatly from doing business with you and stories about customers who suffered because they didn’t. In the meantime, be creative. Use storytelling to show (not tell) people how your business offerings will improve their lives. If the story is long, add a page to your website. If the story is short, post it via your Facebook group. If it’s super short (140 characters or less), share it on Twitter.

3. Solving Problems

You need to think of your products and services as solutions. And you also need to think of your customers as people with a problem. Now, put the two together and explain to your customers how you can solve their problems. Many business owners tend to think that the problem/solution model is obvious. For example, our friend the electrician believes that if his customers have an electrical outlet that’s not working, they also know he’s the one who can help. But he needs to detail the problem and emphasize himself as the solution: Power outlets not working? Did you know faulty wiring and broken outlets can be a safety hazard? I’m here to help keep your family safe and make sure your electrical wiring works.

4.Transparency, Credibility, and Loyalty

For a small business, the best customer is a loyal customer. These are not only the customers that come back again and again, they’re also the customers that run around telling all their friends how great you are. They send you a lot of referrals. How do you land these kinds of customers? You start by building credibility. Establish your expertise and back it up with excellence. You can do this by publishing web content that showcases your top customers or by engaging in transparency. Write articles about your business processes. Explain your reasons when you make changes to your offerings or pricing. Let the customers come behind the scenes and help them become fans.

5. Find Their Haunts

Once you’ve got your website up and running, you have to drive traffic to it so you can convert that traffic into paying customers. In order to do that, you have to create even more web content and publish it around the ‘net. I call this peripheral content. It can be as short as a tweet or as long as an in-depth article. And it can be based on any of the four tips above. But you’ll need to find the haunts where your customers hang so you can get the content up on the wall. Here are a few bonus tips to help you find your people:

• FREE – Are you selling music, trendy clothing, or cheap eats? Trying to round up the teens? Get a spot on MySpace because that’s where the teens and tweens do the internet thing.
• FREE – Facebook offers a few different ways to connect. You can create a page or launch a group and then invite people to join or become fans. How do you find those people? Send an invitation to all your Facebook friends. Post updates to your wall. And add one of those how-to articles.
• PAID – Facebook also sells targeted advertising. So does Google and a number of other ad networks. Your ads will be shown to people who are either already searching for whatever you offer or who have expressed specific interest in it.
• FREE – Twitter’s great for relationship building. If you can carve out some time to engage on Twitter every day (or a few times a week), you’ll make some friends and they’ll share links to whatever good stuff you’re selling.
• FREE/PAID – Let’s go back to our friend the electrician. His main customers are homeowners. All he has to do is find out where homeowners hang out on the web and voila! He’s found his base. Search for forums where your customers hang out. Use your favorite search engine to find “homeowner forums.” If you service a geographic area, be sure to narrow your search appropriately (e.g. “homeowner forums new york”). Join the forums and participate in the conversation. Add value and grow your network.
• FREE/PAID – If you have web development skills, adding a blog to your site won’t cost a dime. Or, you can hire someone to take care of it for you. Either way, blogs that are properly designed and maintained have a tendency to draw traffic to a website. Blogs are great because your website visitors can subscribe and because they’ll get regular updates, they won’t forget about you!

And then there’s SEO, which helps make sure customers can find you via search engines, but that warrants a post of its own.

Web Content Development for Small Businesses

Building an effective online presence can have an exponential impact on the growth of your business. Think like a customer to create riveting content, then use social networking, blogging, and other online marketing efforts to bring visitors to your site and then convert them into customers.

Scribizzy offers web content development services for small businesses. We’ll devise a plan that’s tailored to your business and then create the content that brings the plan to fruition. Start growing your content today by getting a quote online.

SEO Keyword Research and Selection Process

The English language is incredible. There are hundreds of different word combinations that can be used to communicate a single idea. And every combination is a possible SEO keyword phrase for some website. Maybe yours.

So how do you decide which words and phrases to use when you’re optimizing your website to increase search engine traffic? Do you choose the keywords with the highest search volume? The ones that you’re already using on your site? Do you pick keywords with the least competition?

All of these questions must be addressed through the course of developing a comprehensive SEO plan. But for a small business website, one question rises above the rest: Which search terms are your customers using?

SEO Keyword Choices

Putting together a proper SEO plan requires making sensible decisions about which keywords you’ll target and which ones you’ll ignore. Sounds easy, right?

Not so quick. As you conduct keyword research and start developing your ideas for an SEO plan, you’ll be faced with infinite choices regarding which keywords you should include in your SEO campaign. Many (too many) website managers make their decisions in a rash manner, often without giving any consideration to why one keyword might be a better choice over another.

I’ve actually witnessed small business owners and bloggers tackle the decision-making process in an arbitrary, freewheeling manner. So I thought I’d put together an article that addresses some of the considerations that should be involved in making choices among all of your keyword options. And chances are, you’ll have a lot of options.

Synonyms

A synonym is a word that has the exact same meaning as some other word. If you want to find synonyms galore, just open a thesaurus (or visit an online thesaurus). Look up the word buy and you’ll find out that one of its synonyms is purchase. This raises the question: Should you optimize your site with the word buy or with the word purchase? You’ll find that the synonym dilemma arises for every single SEO project. The ongoing challenge in the keyword selection process often involves deciding between synonyms and synonymous phrases.

Search Volume

Search volume refers to the number of searches a term receives in a given time period. For example, the word buy was searched about 68 million times on Google in January. Purchase only received about 6.1 million searches. Still, that’s a lot. A knee-jerk reaction might be to decide that you’ll use the word buy in your SEO because it gets more searches. But there are many cases in which it’s much better to target a keyword with a lower search volume (although you don’t want to go too low!).

Competition

If buy gets more searches than purchase, then more people probably use the word buy. Therefore, it will probably have greater competition, which means you have to work harder (publish more content, obtain more links) to see results. That’s something to think about. Maybe you could optimize for purchase and get a big chunk of the 6.1 million searchers within a few months whereas you could spend a year optimizing for buy and never see a single visitor as a result of your efforts. Don’t worry about which keywords get the most searches. Worry about which keywords will draw your customers and which ones will realistically lead to success.

Customers

The best way to start narrowing down your list of synonyms is to determine which words your customers use when referring to your products. For example, many musicians refer to their recorded music as “records.” They’ll say something like “We made the record for our fans.” But fans don’t search for records. They don’t buy or purchase records. So records are not what music lovers are looking for. The fans — the customers — the searchers — are looking for music. They want to buy or purchase music. Or songs.

Existing Keyword Traffic

Let’s say you sell music on your website. Should you optimize for purchase music or buy music? If you find that you’re already drawing a few visitors every month for the term purchase music but you’ve never drawn a single visitor for the term buy music, then you might be better off working on the former term. Whenever possible, leverage keywords that are already drawing traffic! For example, if purchase music brought in five visitors and you find your site ranked on page 35 of the search engine results pages, you should optimize and try to move up a few pages. Then, you should keep optimizing and try to move up a lot more pages.

Writer-Friendly

Some potential keywords and phrases don’t lend themselves to written content. This includes odd phrases that people will enter in search engines but that they wouldn’t normally say or write while communicating with other people. It also includes keywords that are misspelled (many searchers misspell their search terms). Keep in mind that when you finish your research and finalize your keyword selections, they will have to be implemented on your website, which means they will be written into the text. If you want the language on your site to be readable and correct, then you want to choose writer-friendly keywords.

Narrow the Search

Let’s face it, there’s a whole lot of music out there. You can get more specific about which music you’re selling. If you’re a full-service music store, you’d do well to choose a bunch of keywords with each one targeting a different genre or artist. You could optimize for purchase rock music or purchase pop music. Sometimes you’ll see better results optimizing for a larger pool of keywords that are highly specific and that have less competition.

Long-Tail Keywords

How specific can you get? I already mentioned artists and genres. What about format? Do you sell music downloads? Maybe instead of purchase rock music you should optimize for download rock music. As you add more words to your keyword phrase, it becomes a long-tail keyword, which is simply a keyword that consist of several words. These can be effective when used thoughtfully.

SEO is About Asking the Right Questions

When you start compiling a list of possible keywords, your head might spin. It’s truly mind-boggling how many words and phrases can be used to search for one product or service. As you go through your list of keyword possibilities, avoid making arbitrary or meaningless selections as much as possible. Try to cite a reason for every decision you make. If you eliminate a keyword from the list, make sure you have a reason why.

As you go through the process, asking the right questions is essential to informing your decisions. Think about each keyword and determine how many ways that term might be used by people searching for it. Are they more likely to be looking for your offering or is it possible the search term is even more applicable to something you don’t sell at all:

• If I optimize for download rock music, I might draw searchers who are looking for free downloads.
• If I optimize for purchase rock music, I might get visitors looking to buy sheet music or CDs.
• Should I optimize for buy rock songs online?

Sometimes you end up back at square one, and you have to go back and do more research. But it’s worth it. If you’re going to invest in a serious SEO campaign, you want to get the research and keyword selection right the first time.

Here’s a summary of considerations to keep in mind when making SEO keyword selections:

• Synonyms: Do you have a nice, long list of keyword possibilities to choose from?
• Search Volume: How many searches are conducted for each of the potential keywords?
• Competition: Which keywords are highly competitive in the SEO field?
• Customers: Which keywords do your customers use when looking for your products and services?
• Existing Keyword Traffic: Are you already seeing low volumes of traffic for some of these keywords?
• Writer Friendly: Lean toward keywords that are correctly spelled and fit naturally into written communications.
• Narrow the Search: To attract customers looking for exactly what you offer, narrow your language. Be specific.
• Long-tail Keywords: Be more specific. Use a larger number of keywords that have lower search volumes and less competition.
• Finally: Ask the right questions. Make sure you have a reason for each elimination or selection from your list.

SEO is a tedious process, especially the research and keyword selection phases. But once you get past the nitty-gritty grind of poring over lists of words, phrases, and statistics, you get to move to the next step: keyword implementation. And that’s when SEO gets fun.

Scribizzy offers a full suite of SEO services and can help you through any phase of your SEO campaign. Get a quote online.

Seven Simple Tips for Business Blogging

When you’re business blogging, you need all the skills that every other blogger uses to establish a successful blog, plus you need a strategy to promote your business.

But if you get too caught up in the business end of things, you might find yourself skimping on some very basic business blogging strategies.

Let’s get back to basics and look at a few simple rules of good blogging. These blog tips will help you build a better blog whether you’re blogging for business, as a profession, or as a hobby.

1. Never make your readers work to access your content. Avoid breaking up one post over several pages unless it’s a series and you’re publishing each stand-alone section on a different day.
2. The same goes with verification codes and comments. Comments benefit your blog, and they are your readers’ gifts to you. Don’t add extra steps to the comment process by forcing readers to enter verification codes. If you have spam problems, get the Akismet plugin (it absolutely works!).
3. Full feed RSS! I recently had to clean out my subscriptions because there were simply too many to keep up with – and guess which were the first to go? Partial feeds. Besides, they defeat the whole purpose of RSS, which is for readers to get content in one convenient location without clicking all over the place.
4. Quality assurance testing. Check your site for functionality, and check it from different browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari). Also, review your site on a Mac and a PC. You might be surprised by how different one site can look across various browsers and platforms.
5. Clickable header. Most WordPress blog themes include this feature. Visitors generally expect that if they click on your logo or header, they’ll be taken to your home page. Keep your site navigation consistent with standards by making sure your header is clickable and takes the browser back to the home page.
6. Website copywriting. If you’re business blogging, your blog is probably integrated with your business site, but what if your blog is your business? Make sure that your blog posts as well as the pages on your site (about page, contact page, FAQ) all have solid, compelling web content writing.
7. Subscription options. Include at least two options for subscribing: RSS and email. Lots of people still don’t know how to use RSS, so it’s essential that you include the email option. Make your subscription options clearly visible and test them to make sure they work properly (be your own subscriber!). Bonus tip: Use Feedburner!

Some of these business blogging practices may seem like more trouble than they’re worth. You don’t have the time to dig into your code and figure out how to turn comment verification off. Or, you can’t be bothered with making your header clickable because you’ve got too much to do.

Here’s the thing –the more minor annoyances readers bump into on your blog, the more likely they are to unsubscribe or stop reading. If your content’s great, a verification form might be forgiven (just don’t sit around wondering why you get so few comments). But comment verification plus a header that’s not clickable — these things just build up and suddenly your reader is saying, “Why do I come to this blog? It’s such a hassle.” Then poof! They’re gone.

Business blogging might mean you have to focus heavily on ensuring your content relates to your business offerings, but neglecting the basics of good blogging will only come off as amateurish and unprofessional – and that’s not good for business.

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.

How to Plan Your Website: Design Tips for Non-Designers

In any website design project, the planning phase is the most critical. If you’re working with a website designer, it’s essential that you communicate your vision clearly so that the designer can make your vision a reality. And the designer must communicate her vision too, providing clear examples, ideas, and images that will help you understand what the site will look like once it’s completed.

There are three basic components to any design: the design itself (look and feel of the site), content (text and images that will appear on the site), and functionality (how it works).

As you work with your designer, you need to keep all of these components in mind. Additionally, there will be a learning curve for both of you as your designer studies the nature of your business in order to reflect it appropriately in your design and as you learn about the many options available to you in terms of how your business will be presented to an online audience.

Throughout the planning process, clear communication is key to building a good relationship with your designer and to your designer building a great site for you.

I thought I’d share some basic website design tips that will help you work with a designer to hammer out the details of your design plan. By working as a team with a shared goal and by focusing on communications and smart planning strategies, you and your website designer can build a stellar website together.

Website Design Tips to Help You Get Through the Planning Process

1. You Don’t Need a Vision — Most designers are thrilled when a client gives them complete creative control over a design project. If you’re not sure which direction to take in terms of design, consider giving the designer some leeway. Tip: Ask for samples to make sure you like the designer’s work, and pay special attention to the designer’s own sites since they’ll offer a good example of her style.

2. Use Examples — Nothing is clearer than a visual example. Spend some time surfing the web and find different website designs that appeal to you. Be sure to scroll through the pages and note what you do and don’t like. Collect a few URLs (links) and then send them to the designer with your thoughts about each one. Tip: Start with your competitors, but branch out into other fields too.

3. Don’t Overdo It — If you send your designer 100 examples, there’s going to be a lot of confusion. Shoot for sending your designer three to five examples of designs that you like with notes highlighting what appeals to you and why.

4. State What You Want — Be specific about what you like and what you want. If you send your designer three links to sites you like that are all extremely different from one another, she’s not going to be able to figure out which elements you like best unless you communicate your preferences to her. Offer comments about each site’s design. Do you like the colors? The layout? Does the site boast features that you’d like to see on your site? Is the content similar to yours?

5. Mention Your Dislikes — If there’s a design element you’ve seen but don’t like, make sure you let your designer know about it lest she use it on your site!

Avoiding Feature Creep

Try not to engage in feature creep. What’s that?, you ask (I’m so glad you asked). Feature creep is when you see the final design for the first time and suddenly come up with a bunch of new ideas that were not included in your original project scope and expect the designer to add these features to your design at no additional charge.

Examples of feature creep are as follows: Actually, I think I would like a form on the contact page after all. I know I said I didn’t want a blog on my site, but now I do. Those colors just aren’t working for me. Oh, by the way, while you were working on the site, I had a new logo made. Most feature creep requests are followed by a statement like, That’ll only take a minute or two, right?

It’s that last statement that qualifies a request as feature creep. Most designers do expect a project to expand a little as it unfolds and will build that into the price, but any big, time-consuming add-on (as well as a bunch of little add-ons) will incur additional fees. If you do want to make some serious changes, you should be upfront with your designer, because trust me, your designer wants you to be a very happy and satisfied customer. Just be aware that some post-design adjustments may show up on your final invoice.

Teamwork

Like any true professional, a website designer wants you to be pleased with the final product. But since it’s your website, you have an important role in explaining what you want your site to look like. As long as you communicate clearly and openly with your designer (and encourage her to do the same), the design process will flow smoothly and your website will come out looking exactly the way you want.

Scribizzy offers website design services for small businesses, independent professionals, and bloggers. Visit our website design page to learn more or get a quote online.