March, 2008

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When You Need Your Website “Yesterday”, Don’t Call Me

Wednesday, March 12th, 2008

About two weeks ago I received an email from a lady who took one of my classes about two years ago. She was looking for a website redesign for her employer.

Well, I put together a nice proposal and emailed it off to her. For two weeks I didn’t hear anything. Then yesterday comes this email:

Will,
We have decided to go with a bid from another web company because of the time frame they can provide. Over the last two weeks, we’ve realized we need our website “yesterday”. Your pricing and other items were right in line with the other bid, but we decided to go with them because of our timeline.

Umm, ok. My response (once I calmed down from the sheer stupidity of the scenario):

Hi X,
Congratulations on your selection of a designer for your website! I personally would never build and launch a website in two weeks. I don’t think it would be fair to my clients. Nonetheless, I wish you luck (blah blah blah)

I ran the response past my PR team (aka my wife) and verified that it wasn’t a smartass reply. I didn’t want to come across that way, but rather let them know that I create quality, and I can’t create quality in a matter of two weeks.

Sure, I could throw together a website in a few days. Any web designer could. But it wouldn’t be optimized for search engines. In fact, I’d be willing to bet the ‘winning bidder’ won’t even put meta descriptions and keyword-targeted titles on each page. Heck, that’s the easy part, but I bet they don’t.

If you’re serious about building a website, you need to take the time to get more than pretty colors on a page.  You need to sit down and think about how you’ll market your site.  Will the site simply be a brochure, or will it be a full-out marketing machine, ready to suck in customers and spit out revenue?

If you’re not serious about a website, just pick any two and I’ll get started on it.

  • Good
  • Fast
  • Cheap

Posted in Marketing, money, small business | 4 Responses »

Cheat the Newspaper System – Advertise Your Local Business Cheap

Saturday, March 8th, 2008

Most all towns have a small newspaper, or at least a newsletter that goes out to all the homes.  Some are weekly, some monthly.  No matter what, there is a targeted audience for you in that paper.

Problem is, most of these small newspapers think they can still charge big money for advertising.  Afterall, they’ve got to pay those distrbution bills somehow.  But let your competition pay for those big  money spots.  You’re thrifty, especially with your advertising budget, so you just need to get creative.

For this example I’m going to use a local sporting goods store.  Since it’s spring, they’ll be wanting to move their baseball stuff.

Got some old items that aren’t moving?  Or perhaps some seasonal items you want to sell? Post them on your site (each item its own keyword-targeted page) and put a small ad in the classifieds section.  Make it short and post your URL (for more information).  Some papers have a ‘Bargain box’ for items under $300.  Lots of people look at this section just to see what’s out there, and since its highly random ads, they usually read every one of them.

Example: (Merchandise or Bargain Box)
New & used baseball helmets and gear.  From $12. www.LocalSportsStore.com
Classified Cost: ~$5-$15

Ever have a sidewalk sale?  Why not rename it a Yard Sale or Garage Sale?  Or just be generic.  They won’t know the difference.  You could even go so far as buying a domain name just for the sale and point it to a page about the sale on your real site.

Example: (Garage Sales)
Sale at 500 Main Street, Springfield. Items include baseball gear, hats and more for kids and adults. Saturday 7-3.  BaseballSale.com
Classified Cost: ~$15-$25

And of course if you’re having a big sale, you’ll need help.  Lucky for you, teenagers will work cheap.  Post a help wanted page on your website. Then promote it in the help wanted section of the paper.  (Note: This will only work for smaller papers.  Help wanted ads are usually really cheap, but that’s not the case in bigger papers)

Example: (Help Wanted)
Need 2 teenagers to help move boxes from 7-9AM.  $20ea See www.LocalSportsStore.com
Classified Cost: ~$5-$15

I also run a local town forum, where people talk about the events and politics going on in town.  When someone posts a help wanted on my site, I put an ad in the local paper saying something like ‘Dishwasher needed: see www.example.com’.  Very generic, but it works.

Some of these ideas may be require a little imagination on your part, but they are all pretty cheap ways to get your brand in front of local residents.  And that’s what you’re after.

Two things: You may want to Disallow the pages you create for these ads in your robots.txt since they won’t be around long.
If you link to them from your home page (which you should, since that’s where your sending the readers), make sure you nofollow them.  You don’t want them to take away even a little of your PR juice.

Posted in local marketing, small business | 3 Responses »

Your Website – Marketing Machine or Afterthought?

Thursday, March 6th, 2008

Every day thousands of new businesses are born. A new entrepreneur enters the scene, gung-ho to make his/herself a millionaire.

The Small Business Administration is there for those people, to help them take those first baby steps. Register your business name. Get a bank account. Hire an attorney and accountant. Register a domain name. Print some business cards.

Pretty much everyone who joins the self-employed world is revving up for fun, excitement, and of course a big payout.

But what percentage of these go-get-em people are really serious about their online presence? Is your website going to play an important role in your business, or will you treat it as an afterthought?

“Oh, I guess we’ll need a website, too.” Wrong answer.

That answer may have been ok a few years ago, but in today’s economy, your online presence should play a significant role in your marketing strategy. Many small businesses I deal with are starting to realize that print media and advertising is taking a back seat to their website.

Business owners need to be serious about their online presence. More and more people are going to a ‘research online, buy offline‘ model in their lives. This is especially crucial for retail and service outlets that rely on local walk-in traffic.

If you’re selling the best widgets ever, and you’re not online, many people won’t even know your company exists, even if you’re right down the street.

Of course, there are many more factors involved than just being online. You’ve got to optimize your website to capture those searches, which means more time and money invested into getting your website to that point.

And this is where the breakdown occurs. Most small businesses don’t even realize the impact of optimizing their website for local organic results. Even worse, most web designers don’t either. Big problem.

A smart business owner will budget in money to get their website built and optimized. Even if it’s only a few hundred bucks a month, they need to realize the impact will be much greater than spending that extra few hundred on a bigger Yellow Pages ad. Save money, put your URL in the Yellow Pages ad, and budget that extra money to bringing in even more leads through your site.

Your website is a reflection of how serious you are about gaining customers. You can’t just throw up a splash page and think you’re done.

So, how serious are you?

Posted in Marketing, SEO, local marketing, small business | 1 Response »

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