Is your business struggling to survive in the current economic environment? Are you seeing your cash reserves dwindle as new business drys up? Even if you are doing well I have the same advice- Use the web to save and grow your business.

Here’s a 7 step strategic plan that should fit most small businesses. Naturally a good deal of hustle will be needed to implement this kind of plan while doing everything else you need to do to keep your business afloat. There are businesses that can help you implement this plan as well- wink, wink. But if you can dedicate the time and resources I have no doubt that you will see serious ROI. I have seen it in my business and with many of our clients.

1. An Effective Website- your website is really your front door and sales floor. If you had dozens of people coming to your door everyday, looking around and leaving then you would probably freak out! This is happening right now on your website. Your prospects are sticking their heads in, looking around, finding nothing of interest and moving on. An effective website is one that knows its audience, guides them quickly to where they want to be and removes obstacles for conversions or contact. An effective website is also an active one, updated often and doesn’t look dated. Think of a grocery. If you went every week to find the same thing wouldn’t you shop somewhere else? Don’t underestimate the importance of a fresh website. So make sure your new website is built on a Content Management System (CMS). This way you don’t have to pay a web company to make the updates you should be able to easily make with a CMS. This is really important since it plays into all your other efforts.
   
2. Email Marketing- now that you have an effective website it’s time to build on your contacts. Now you have somewhere to link to without shame. Send out monthly email newsletters with specials, updates and useful information. Once you have this rolling you will want to divide your email list into interest categories in order to tailor the emails to different audiences. I also recommend doing some A/B testing with your email titles. It can really impact your open rate. There are many email list providers. I’ve been really happy with Constant Contact and have used them for the last 8 years with no major issues.
   
3. Search Engine Marketing- time to step it up a notch. You are confident in your website and communication so now is a good time to increase your site’s traffic. There are many ways to do this but the most effective is using search engines. If you are a company serving a local audience then chances are people are already looking for your products or services. If you sell Widgets then people are searching for “City Name Widgets Store”. Make sure your site is optimized for this. Are you on the top of page one of Google for this and other related searches? If not then someone is eating your lunch. It doesn’t matter if you are best Widget maker in town. Google doesn’t know this unless you tell them. If you can’t get to the top organically (meaning showing up in the unpaid listings) then you can pay to be there. Regardless, you need to be there. Local search is increasingly important and there is a land grab going on around you. Start paying attention now and it will be much easier to get your spot on the first page of Google for your local search.
   
4. Blogging- your website and email newsletters will get you some good results but in order to take it to the next level it’s time to establish yourself as an expert in your particular field. So if you know widgets better than anyone else around- prove it! Talk about what you know, share your knowledge. This benefits you two ways. The first is that it adds valuable content to your site. Your existing visitors will appreciate your insights and your site will become a destination for them if they need your knowledge/information or share your passion. Blogs really help create a comfort level with your prospects. Remember, these are real people so the more your site feels like a real person is behind it the more comfortable that prospect becomes. The second benefit is that your blogs will create new content that is indexed in search engines. So if you blog about “10 Tips on Installing Widgets in your House’s Thingabob” then you run a good chance of showing up for a related search. The people typing that search in are probably looking for the goods or service you offer so you are well on the way to gaining a new customer.
   
5. Social Media Engagement- with an active blog you are well on the way to jumping in the Social Media waters! What is Social Media? It’s Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc. It is also a Webinar or Instant Messaging. Anything that using the web to create an environment for people to gather and have a conversation. So chances are you are already using Social Media on a regular basis. But I also bet you aren’t really finding it a good lead generation environment, yet. The key to Social Media is to focus on the relationship and not the sale. Sales as we once knew it is in danger of extinction. Instead of pushing products and services on people you must now enage them in a conversation. You will need to listen as much as talk. I personally find Twitter a great environment to quickly share information with others, get their feedback, join in their conversations and build relationships. Some relationships will never result in business, some will. That’s ok, I still get value from the conversations. Focus on meaningful conversations since those are the ones most likely to bring value to your life and business.
   
6. Press Releases- time to toot your horn and blow the trumpets! You have really made some exciting changes that others should know about. Maybe you’ve set up a cool microsite for a special promotion or sponsored a series of events that you promoted across all your different platforms (website, email, social media, etc). So now is a good time to go after some earned media. Put together a concise but exciting press release letting everyone know about the cool stuff your company has been up to. How you’ve shirked the industry trends to grow in a downturn, how you’ve launched a new product and used these New Media tools to get the word out. Send it out to the local/industry press and also promote it using PRWeb.com. Make sure to add links back to your website when you send out the release!
   
7. Analytics or Tweak and Repeat!- by now you should really be rolling with great website traffic, lots of leads or sales coming through your site, an active and meaningful online conversation with colleagues and prospects, good buzz in your industry, an overall increase in business and new energy in your team. So what now? Make sure when you set up your website and email marketing that you have good Analytics set up as well. For the web I recommend Google Analytics and Get Clicky. They give you two different ways of looking at traffic and both are valuable. For email I recommend using Constant Contact or another email list provider. This will let you see what emails were opened, what links clicked on, etc. Valuable stuff all around. Not everything you do will get the same return. So find out what works, tweak and repeat!
   

Want to add anything else? Please do below using the comments feature!

No question the last few months have been murder for most businesses. I’m happy that Small Box is doing well and still growing but believe me, I’m nervous like everyone else. So when you see a large corporation actually grow during this time you pay attention. A lot has been written about Amazon’s success so I’m not going to retread, hopefully, too much of that ground. I want to focus on one particular thing I think they do better than anyone else.

Amazon is acting like a real bricks and mortar company. They know real people are coming to their site.

I know that sounds simple but think about how many companies run websites that virtually ignore their visitors treating them like numbers and not people? I would argue that almost every business website out there needs to be run like it’s a real store front. Regardless of what you are selling.

How often do you look at your site’s Analytics? Some? None? What’s Analytics? The answer needs to be daily. Everyday, look at how people are coming to your site- keywords, links, direct. Look at where they go, where they get lost, what they are not finding.

Most small business website have 10-100 visitors a day in my experience. If you had 10-100 people walking into your business everyday, looking around, maybe asking some questions that you don’t have answers for, and then leaving, wouldn’t you be in a panic to fix that problem?

I’m in a constant state of panic when it comes to web traffic for Small Box and our clients. Why aren’t the visitors doing what we want them to do? How can we direct them to the conversion pages? What are they looking for that we aren’t giving them? Why are they bouncing back to Google after typing in a high intent search that we should perfectly match?

Your website’s visitors are real people. Most of them aren’t finding what they want when they get to your site. Amazon gets this and they obsess over giving their visitors and repeat visitors in particular, the exact experience they want to have.

I’m not a huge fan of Amazon’s design but it works. Sometimes horrible web designs make very effective websites- see plentyoffish.com for instance. I know it makes little sense but remember that you are not your audience. Your audience doesn’t care much for what kind of experience you want to push on them. They want to have the experience they expect to have, give it to them and you will see some of the same success that Amazon continues to have.

I’ve been thinking about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) a lot recently. My recent post on Compendium really brought some of my thoughts into focus. Here is what I think a website’s guiding SEO strategy should be- usability. Not title tags, Meta tags, external links, etc. These are all important but really the heart of SEO is about the user. Giving them the experience they want to have when they come to your website.

You can spend a lot of money, and many do, on getting a lot of traffic to your website. But if it isn’t the right traffic or it isn’t sticky traffic then what good is it? You need to have a website that attracts and retains the right people. Engages them in a conversation. If you do this, along with the obvious on-site SEO stuff, you will see your rankings increase over time for the right searches.

Think like Google thinks. They aren’t really a technology company they are a connection company (borrowing a great phrase from our buddies at MediaSauce). They are trying to match people with the best possible result for their search. If they connect you with the right listing then they will consider the search a success. More importantly if you land on a page that quickly addresses your search and guides you to the information you need you will consider the search a success. If you bounce back to Google and modify your search or choose another listing then the site you landed on has failed. Google sees this and takes note.

Get to know your visitors. Use Google Analytics or GetClicky.com (my personal fav). They are as real as people walking in the front door of your business, looking around, maybe asking some questions and most of the time leaving without taking action. If you had dozens or hundreds of people doing that every day wouldn’t you be in a panic to fix the problem and convert more of them into paying customers? Start thinking of your website that way. People are walking in, looking around, not finding what they want and leaving, silently.

There are still a lot of ways to game Google but eventually Google will find those tricks and eliminate them. One thing they will never punish a site for is being user friendly. Focus on that and the rest will follow.

First off let’s not assume you know what SEO is. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It’s often used as a catch-all term for all the things that go into getting a website listed on a search engine for specific terms, usually industry terms. For instance if you sell Widgets you will want to show up for Indianapolis Widgets right?

So why is it time to get serious about how your company’s website shows up in Search Engines like Google? Bottom line is that 72% of all purchases now include research online. How do you think people research? Most will have their first stop at Google.com and their search will probably look something like this…

Are you at the top of the listings when they type in that search? If not you are losing out on business, probably on a daily basis.

How do you get to the top of your listings? Here are the three basic elements of SEO, do these well and you will probably be on page one for your local industry search.

1. On-site keyword optimization. This is mostly title tags (what shows up in the browser) and on page content. Don’t stress out too much over Meta Tags, do them if you can, they aren’t too important anymore. Use tools like Google Adwords Keyword Suggest to find out what keywords you should be using. Here is a screen shot of some of the results for “web design” a search we compete for locally. Note that it shows the volume of searches on a monthly basis. In general you will want to optimize your site for the searches that get the most traffic.
   
2. External links. Make sure your site has lots of good links from other sites including relevant industry directories. Be wary of companies offering to sell you links. Google usually recognizes these links and it can actually hurt your rankings. Not sure how many links your have? Use good research tools like SEO for Firefox to help. Once you have it set up, search for your company and then, with the tool turned on, you can easily see how well your site is doing. Here is what we look like with SEO Firefox turned on when searching for “Small Box”. 
   
3. Update your site regularly. A good policy is to update your site in some way at least once a week. To do this you will need a good Content Management System. If you have to use a web company to update your site then you probably need a new web company! A good company will build your site wil a CMS so that you can easily make the changes without having to pay and wait on them everytime you want to update the site. This leads to sites never being updated which is a big no-no. Here is what our CMS for this site, smallboxweb.com, looks like (only partial view but hopefully you get the idea). You can demo our CMS by contacting us.

Obviously there is a lot more to SEO but these are great starting
points. Obviously this is what we do at Small Box full time. Everything
we do relates in some way to SEO. We obsess over it for ourselves and
our clients. We would love to obsess over it for you! Want to see how
good we are? Search for “Indianapolis SEO Companies” or “Indianapolis Web Design” and see for yourself.

Have you recently heard the phrase “inbound marketing” bouncing around? As with most new fangled terms it actually means something quite simple- being found by your customers instead of you seeking them out. Basically you are playing a grown up version of hide and seek where you actually want to be found.

If you own a company you know that it’s much cheaper and more effective to make a sale with a customer that is actually seeking your services. Essentially you are cashing in on someone else’s work. Someone else has already convinced the customer that they need your product or services. Maybe a friend, a co-worker, peer or a blog. Doesn’t matter really, the bottom line is that this customer has their wallet open and is ready to go. All you have to do is not screw it up!

Since we all know and agree that Inbound marketing is much more effective than traditional (Outbound) marketing the question becomes now do we most effectively practice Inbound marketing?

The answer is in how your company uses the web. People are looking for your products and services. More than ever their first stop is a search engine. Are they finding you there for your industry related searches? If you are selling “green widgets” and when they type in “where to buy green widgets in Indianapolis” are you the first listing? If not then you aren’t being found and it doesn’t matter if you have a better green widget. The customer has already completed the transaction with another company.

So don’t hide from your customers, get found. More specifically, use the web to get found or get you will get left behind.


Note: Thanks to Hubspot for their informative post on Inbound Marketing that I referenced in writing this blog.

Is Social Media a gigantic waste of time?

A recent column in the IBJ (Indianapolis Business Journal) by Morton Marcus is asserting that this brave new world of online communities are nothing more than that- a huge, colossal waste of time.

Before I do the obvious and prove Mr. Marcus wrong I think we should concede a little ground. He has a point, it is not hard to waste a lot of time online. Building up meaningless connections with people you don’t know has little value. Having 1000 online acquaintances (or “friends”) doesn’t beat having 10 “real” friends.

The problem is that Morton is not having meaningful conversations online. So who can blame him for throwing in the towel?

My wife has recently embraced Twitter and Social Media in general. It’s been fun to watch her get bitten by the Social Media bug over the last few months. First it was Facebook, aka the Social Media Gateway Drug, and now Twitter. Although I joined Twitter over two years ago I have to admit it wasn’t until the last few months that I “got” it. The reason was that I didn’t see any meaningful conversations happening when I logged in.

As anyone who is a member of Twitter will tell you the problem was that I wasn’t engaging in the community. I wasn’t seeking out like-minded individuals to share ideas. Also, I wasn’t posting my ideas and links so why would anyone seek me out?

The Web is a huge, ever expanding universe. It’s easy to get lost and feel like everyone is trying to sell you something. So how do you have a meaningful online conversation?

Here’s a few ideas on how someone like Morton Marcus can have a meaningful online conversation-

1. Talk To Peers- ask around, what sites are they spending time on?
2. Look But Don’t Touch- before creating accounts, spend some time on the recommended sites. You don’t need to join every community you come across online. This can lead to Social Media Fatigue (SMF as it will now be called).
3. Start Slow- join one community, I suggest Facebook, Twitter or a niche Ning community (i.e. SmallerIndiana.com). Spend 10-15 minutes every day on that site. Join conversations that interest you, message users that seem to be on the same path as you.
4. Know When To Fold ‘Em- it’s ok to leave a community. I left My Space recently. I wasn’t having any meaningful conversations. I left a note on my profile page letting people know they could find me at Musicalfamilytree.com which is the music community site I started with some friends and now has about 1500 members and many quality conversations centered around one of my great loves- music. It’s a Goldilocks’ site. Not too big, not too small, just right. If the community you joined has passed the Goldilocks’ sweet spot then opt out.
   

You will start to see a return on your time investment as you start to have meaningful conversations around topics you care passionately about with people that share this passion. That return might be in the form of knowledge, friendship, or business. This depends mostly on what you wanted going in.

So I hope you are reading this Mr. Morton and you give Social Media another chance. It does require a different way of thinking especially in how one allocates time. But if done properly it can yield a great return, personally and professionally.

There is a lot of buzz about using a blog for business purposes and I agree, obviously!, but too often a business blog ends up being a waste of time. Here are some suggestions on having a meaningful conversation with your business blog that can lead to real relationships (read- sales!):

1. Fresh content. Too often a company’s blog hasn’t been updated for months since the company bloggers never add new posts. Content gets stale fast on a blog. Get into the habit of posting weekly. Set up a reminder in your calendar.
   
2. Say something meaningful. Avoid blog posts that are clearly sales pitches and do not have any new or meaningful content. Don’t use your blog to just sell your services. The rest of your site can do that. Use your blog to communicate interesting ideas, insights on your industry or anything meaningful that your visitors might find worthwhile reading. If your company is doing something interesting and you want to blog about it, fine, just be careful about sounding like a used car salesman.
   
3. No “I” in Team. Too often only one person from the company posts. As a visitor and potential client I want to know what your team is like, how they think. Only hearing one voice doesn’t give me that insight.
   
4. Have a point of view. Too many times I read a blog that simply quotes another blog and then summarizes the rest of the post that they are quoting. I want a blog to have a point of view. Companies are often sensitive about being controversial and blogging can sometimes cross that line. It is better to be a little controversial than boring. No-one remembers a boring blog post.
   
5. Be passionate. That is really rule number one. If you aren’t passionate about your subject, or your job!, then you probably shouldn’t be blogging about it (or doing that job). Start with passion and the rest will follow.

Do you have any rules to add? Oh yeah that reminds me of another good rule.

6. Engage your readers. Don’t just stand behind the podium preaching. Ask your readers what they think, encourage interaction. Once they are having a conversation with someone you have already crossed the important confidence threshold. Focus on relationships and a sale won’t be far off.

So what do you think?

You’re probably thinking that just like with John Edwards of Crossing Over and the magicians David Blane and Criss Angel, there’s got to be a “trick” behind the seemingly other-worldly, metaphysical, mind reading powers of Psychic Web Pages by Small Box. If so, you’d be right.

Psychic Web Pages by Small Box use techniques very similar to those used by the most successful mentalists and poker players. Mentalists and poker players rely upon observing “tells” (i.e. often overlooked details of speech and behavior) to successfully infer what’s on your mind. Similarly, Psychic Web Pages by Small Box make note of the “tells” you leave around as you surf the web.

One of the biggest “tells” you leave around is the URL of the page you just visited. Whenever you enter a new web page, your browser tells the server of that web page the URL of the page you just left. So, anytime you leave Google to visit a web site, that site “knows” that you just came from Google.com Not only that, it also knows the exact URL on Google.com that you came from.

Now take a closer look at the URL for the Google search of “indianapolis labor attorney” in the screen shot below. It contains the keyword “labor”.

When you click on the entry for Harrison Moberly, the server “knows” that you just came from a Google search that used the keyword “labor”. So, it serves up a homepage that features the Employment Law Practice Group and one of that group’s attorneys.

Even though it’s not magic, it still seems pretty magical to your site’s visitors when they see highly targeted and relevant content that matches exactly what they’re looking for. This will result in a lower bounce rate and increased number of conversions from your site’s visitors.

Getting this to work just right requires a team effort between Small Box web developers and Small Box SEO consultants. The web developers implement the technology that allows a server to see the URLs of referring sites and serve up dynamic page elements based on a defined set of keywords. The SEO consultants do the content and keyword analysis to determine which dynamic page elements best match the user intent behind the search phrases used to enter the site. Over time, Small Box SEO consultants also “train” the site to become a better “psychic” by conducting periodic reviews of site’s web metrics in Google Analytics. These reviews uncover new keywords visitors use to find the site and also reveal effectiveness of particular dynamic page elements against their assigned keywords. As this data driven maintenance is carried out, the web site becomes more and more uncanny in its ability to read the mind of its visitors.

Want your very own psychic web site? Then contact us through our web site or give us a call at (317) 254-0932.