This post is for those really small businesses (that are usually based in someone’s home).

I’d define a really small business (RSB) as one that operates out of someone’s home or other residential location.  The RSB does not have a ‘main office’ or even a place for customers to drop off checks or view products.  A majority of these businesses have a website, and rely on it for most, if not all, of its revenue generation.  Most of these businesses have one to five employees.

Since these RSBs rely on their website, and thus their marketing/ranking of their website for a majority of their income, it would make sense that they need to rank well for local terms.  It would also make sense that they would prefer not to use their local address (ie home) on places such as Google maps, Yahoo local, etc. - yet they really need to be listed on these sites.  Plus, these websites won’t accept PO Boxes for addresses.  They want a real physical location.

Well, these businesses can have a ‘real’ address, not a PO box, and can use that street address to add their business to these sites.

Everyone knows that the UPS store will ship things, but you may not know that they also provide post office-type services as well.  They have PO boxes, but with a twist.  Instead of your address being PO Box 123, you can use their street address and then use a Suite # or Room # to distinguish your business.  This gives you a real street address for your business.

For example, my hosting business is run from my house.  But I don’t want people showing up at my house, and I don’t want to list my house address for my business on Google maps.  So I went up to the UPS store and bought a box, at a whopping $8/month, and now I have a real address which I can list on all the various websites.

Lighthouse Technologies Web Hosting
1243 Water Tower Place
Suite 180
Arnold, MO 63010

I could also say

1243 Water Tower Place #180

or even

1243 Water Tower Place
Room 180

The goal here is to get a physical street address, which this accomplishes.

I should also mention that there are other companies that do this as well.  MailBoxes Etc is a good example, and there are other local ones that may work for you.  The trick here (pay attention) is not to get the cheapest one, but to get the service that is physically located the closest to the center of your town, or the town you are targeting.

Why? Because when someone searches Google maps (for instance), they may type in something like ‘widgets in Utopia KS’.  If your fake PO Box address is located closest to the center of Utopia, KS, chances are you’ll be the first listing for widgets in the area.  This, of course, means you’ll have to optimize your business listing to have the word ‘widgets’ on it, which isn’t a hard task.

So how do you find the ‘center’ of town? Easy. Simply type in the name of the town into Google maps.  This will give you what Google maps considers to be the starting point of reference for anything related to that town.  In most cases, it will actually give you a street address.

Now you can go do a search for local mail box providers (make sure you weed out mailbox manufacturers and sellers, like hardware stores), then get a box there.

It should also be noted that it’s not necessary to get a box in your town.  If your ‘target town’ is one of more affluent people, then get a box in that town!  Wherever you think more people will search for your products or services, that’s where you need to list your address!

Lastly, there’s no rule that says you can’t have more than one address, neither.  If you can afford it, get a box in several target towns!

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, this ‘bad economy’ is a great time for your business to grow.  The down times are causing people to scale back on necessities, and the government is hoping that their new stimulus package will help some small businesses continue to operate.

As part of the stimulus package, the government has also increased the amount that a business can expense (section 179).  This one-year exception means that if you buy business stuff (a van, a computer, some new software) you can write off a larger chunk of that up front, which will help come time that Uncle Sam visits you again in April.

I’m not a tax expert, so do some research on the section 179 details.

This is a great time for small businesses to get their fannies in gear in relation to online presence.  I’m not going to rehash what I said earlier, but man what an opportunity!  Cut back on those Yellow Pages ads and push that money into your Internet plans.  You won’t be sorry.

There’s a local tattoo shop in my town Arnold, MO.  There’s nothing special about the shop, it’s just like most other tattoo shops you’d visit across the country.  The artists are good, the ink flows plentiful, and the business appears to be doing well.

But they don’t have a website.

Interestingly, they do have quite a decent online following.  On Yahoo Local, they’ve got over 50 reviews. They aren’t listed on Yelp. CitySearch lists them, but with no reviews. And the Google Ten Box shows them with some weird Arizona thing going on, and only 1 review.

So how does a business which appears to have no online presence get over 50 reviews on Yahoo?  I’m not sure, but I’d be willing to bet they are simply asking their customers to post them.

People that get tattoos are a ‘unique bunch’.  They love the art, they love to share/show their tattoos, and they are mostly loyal to one artist/store for their artwork. So the fact that they have 50 reviews on Yahoo doesn’t necessarily surprise me.  But it bothers me how they got there.

Theory One: People just decided to write a review of their tattoo (very possible), so they searched out the company on Google or Yahoo.  They all ended up at Yahoo Local.  Since the business has no website (or if they do I couldn’t find it), the Yahoo Local result is the first one that shows up in a Google search.  So that’s where they posted their review.  Perhaps its that simple.

Theory Two: The store owners noticed that people coming into their store had read some reviews on Yahoo, and the owners keyed in to the fact that these reviews were driving foot traffic. So they started asking people to add their review, thus driving more (hopefully) walk-in traffic.  They saw the social potential and revenue increase from the reviews, but haven’t quite grasped the concept of the overall web as a revenue stream.

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts and comments.  How do you think they got all those reviews? What did I miss?

Most people hire a web designer based on a very fragile set of criteria, mostly because they have very little knowledge of the design process or industry.  Since about 95% of “web designers” don’t understand the marketing side of web design, they fail to realize that they are not helping their clients by ‘doing what they do’.

It’s really no fault of their own, heck for years I was just that.  I’d pump out a site a week. Clients were happy to have a site, and I was happy to have their money.  They ended up with an online brochure.

An online brochure is ok if that’s all you want, but most likely you want more than that.  A $2000+ investment ought to do more for you than just look pretty.  It should bring you revenue, customers, or members.  Whatever your goal is with your business, your website should simply be another means of getting that result.

With that said, here is a list of ten things most businesses can do to their website today that will help them rank in the weeks to come.

1. Fix your title tag
   Search engines read this tag to help it decide what your website is about. So put something that makes sense; something that a potential customer would type into Yahoo to find you.
   Something like “Bob’s Widgets - Widget Repair and Manufacturing - St Louis Missouri” is better than “Welcome to our Website” or “Home”
2. Don’t waste real estate
   If your designer thought it’d be cool to put a bit of blank space at the top of your page so that it looks ‘centered’, he was wrong.  Since everyone around the world uses different screen resolutions, its pretty much impossible to vertically center your website copy on every one of them.
   Sure, you can build it for the most common resolution, but why?  Just put your info at the top so you’ll be sure that everyone can see it.
3. Put your contact info on every page
   This should be a no-brainer.  The purpose of your website is customers, so make it as easy as possible for them to get a hold of you!
   To further this point, make sure your contact page has a form they can fill out to get more information.  You need more than just an email address, because many people don’t know how to configure their browsers to handle email links.  A form they can fill out will make sure you don’t lose that technically-challenged customer.
4. Get yourself a real street address
   This is one many small and home-based businesses overlook.  They’ll use their home address or a PO box, which is actually losing them customers.  Go up to the UPS store and fork out the $8 bucks a month for a ‘real’ mailing address.  Then put this address into Google maps, Yahoo Local, Yelp, Insider Pages and others.
   People like playing with maps, and with SmartPhones getting overly popular, you’re going to need a real street address to capture those users when they type ‘Widgets in St Louis MO’
5. Get the visitors email address
   Face it, they came to your website for a reason.  Even if they’re remotely interested, you’ve got a lukewarm lead.  Offer them a free whitepaper on ‘Trends in Widget Colors’ in exchange for them signing up to your newsletter.
   Then, of course, don’t forget to do a newsletter at least once a month.  Market to those leads!
6. Bonus tip: Get rid of Flash
   No matter how cute, and no matter what designers say, Flash still sucks when it comes to ranking your site.  “cute” don’t pay the bills.  Ranking does.

Last night my wife and I went to the Three Doors Down concert at the local outdoor amphitheater. The venue has some under-roof seating, but the vast majority of the seating is on the lawn, a huge grass-covered hill where you can just pick out a place, flip out a blanket, and sit.

You can also rent lawn chairs. After about 15 minutes of sitting on a blanket, my back was hurting and I was ready for a chair. So we walked all the way back down the hill (about 10 mins) and scoped out the rental place.

I noticed the sign right away - Lawn Chair Rental $5. Excellent. Five bucks. I can handle that.

So we go up there and hand over the $5 bucks. I get a chair and a ticket. The lady explains to me that if I bring the chair back, along with the ticket, I’ll get a dollar back.

Wow, really? I can walk all this way back for a dollar?

If you’ve read the book Freakonomics, you’ll remember a story about daycares in Israel that were having problems with parents picking up their children late. So the daycare decided to issue a ‘late penalty fee’ of $3.00. And what happened? The amount of late arrivals increased dramatically. The parents realized that for only $3/day, they could extend the time they had without the kids to get things done. The daycare’s plan backfired.

Same for the lawn chair. I had walked up there fully expecting to pay $5 for a rental. Once there, they informed me of the deposit return, but instead I heard “For no extra money, you can leave your chair on the hill after the show”. They just saved me from walking all the way back over there, thanks.

So in my little marketing mind, I started thinking about things they could do that could actually work. We know the chair rental really costs them nothing, other than the initial purchase price of the chair, which I’m sure they recouped in the first two shows of the season. That means the other 100 or so shows are pure profit, minus having to pay the girls that man the rental booth. So let’s just say the profit per chair per concert is $4.50.

There are many businesses who would love to get the exposure of thousands of people nearly every night of the summer. These businesses would be wise to contact the lawn chair rental place and work out a deal. For example’s sake, lets say I own a sandwich shop near the ampitheater. I could print up some buy-one-get-one sandwich coupons, and give them to the lawn chair rental booth (up to $5 value). Now the booth can promote something of more value for each returned chair, a free $5 sandwich, making the rental “free”.

They’d do even better if they got a few vendors to offer deals. A local nightclub/bar would do well after most concerts. A free bucket with purchase of a bucket would pull people in. A skate shop (for the teen visitors) could offer a $5 discount off shoes. Dave & Busters (which is very near the amphitheater) could offer $5 in free tokens.

Even if the lawn chair company paid $1 for each coupon, they’d still come out was ahead.

Be careful how you portray ‘value’ to your customers. I was fully willing to pay $5 to rent a chair, and when I found out that I could just leave it, and didn’t have to bring it back, it was even better. I was in no way notified of the $1 ‘refund’ until I had already paid for the rental.

A ten minute walk with an already-hurting back vs. a $1 refund was an easy decision. Someone come get this chair. I’m going home.

If you run a local community or small business website and are needing ideas on how to get some free press, why not piggyback off the local items of interest?

There are two top news stories this week in Saint Louis.

• Flooding

I’ve already started a photo contest related to the flooding.  Take a picture of flooded areas, or perhaps a teenager filling a sandbag, or perhaps an elderly gentleman donating water to workers.  I’ll post the pictures, send out a press release about my contest, and get more traffic and brand recognition.  The winner will get a $25 gas card, which appeals to pretty much everyone nowadays.

• Anheuser Busch Takeover

Several ‘web-people’ have already taken advantage of this, launching sites such as SaveBudweiser and SaveAB. Smart because they’re getting free mentions on all the news broadcasts, radio stations and links galore from beer lovers and proud Saint Louis bloggers.  They’ve started petitions (even if useless, these encourage people to spread the word about the website) and forums to discuss the takeover.

Check out the news. Even if its depressing, there is still plenty of goodness to be found if you’ve got a somewhat creative mind.  People are happy to jump on a bandwagon, all you have to do is hook up the tractor and get in front of them.

This summer, on Wednesdays and Thursdays at the Wehrenberg theater in Arnold Missouri, you can bring your kid and watch a kid-themed movie for free.  First come, first served, no rainchecks.

What a brilliant idea.  Their marketing team hit this nail on the head.

• Moms (and Dads) can give their kids something to do during summer break
• Moms (and Dads) will spend money on snacks
• The theater makes money that otherwise would have never been made by opening the theater at ‘off times’ that they are normally not open
• Families are exposed to the theater’s branding and a positive experience (free for the parents, fun for the kids)

This is the kind of thinking that most marketing people don’t get.  Or worse yet, upper management freaks out at the word “free”.  Thing is, they’ll be way ahead on this deal by offering these free movies.  Good move, Wehrenberg!

With every TV newscast, radio program and newspaper screaming about the recession, this is the perfect time to be spending.

No, I’m not nuts.

Think about it.  Everyone is saying it’s time to cut back.  And nearly everyone is.  Your competition probably is.  They’ve cut their advertising.  They’ve even cut employees.  The marketing budgets are being sliced - but why?  If everyone is cutting their spending, that means there are a lot of open markets that you can get in to.  This is the time to start building the foundation for your future.

Mom & Pop, listen up.

When you start building now, you’ll be way ahead of the big dogs when the economy recovers.  And it will recover.  That’s not a question, it’s a fact.  A year from now when companies are finally starting to put a little money back into their marketing budget, you’ll have a stronghold that’s going to be hard for them to break through.

Build now while the gettin’ is good.