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.

Donny Deutsch’s show The Big Idea is one of my absolute favorites to watch.  He’s very inspiring and just keeps on truckin’ day after day with his “you can do it” attitude.

The only thing about his show that irks me is that he never has people on there that simply provide services. All of his guests for the ‘Minute to Millions’ segments (and others) are people with real physical products to sell.  Sure, it makes better television when people can see what they’re buying, but he’s missing an entire part of the business world - services!

Funny thing is, he’s an ex-marketing exec.  Marketing is a service industry!

C’mon Donny, have me on your show.  Let’s show SMBs that there’s more than just having the product.  You’ve gotta market that thing through conventional and online media.  You’re alienating a ton of SMB owners who sell services!

Just a few examples:

• Plumbers
• Grass cutters
• Web Designers
• Taxis
• Printers

These businesses are important too!

Next Wednesday is the last time you’ll be able to attend my presentation at the local library on SEO.  After that, I’m hoping to hit the main stage at at least two events this year.

I love public speaking.  There’s a rush getting up in front of tens or hundreds or thousands of people and explaining something that you are passionate about.  I hope to be able to do that this year for SEO.  In particular, local SEO.  Its a hugely untapped market, and the potential for businesses to explode is there - if only they SMBs knew about it!

An open letter to all small and medium business (SMB) owners

Dear Mr. Business Owner,

I heard a rumor from a buddy of mine that you were currently thinking about getting a website going for your company. Congratulations - I think that is a wonderful thing! The future of your business very well may lie in the decisions that you make when building your website.

My buddy told me that you haven’t decided yet on an individual or company to do your website. He was asking me if I had any tips, which I do. I hope you don’t find my questions and tips too intrusive on your business, but if you want a truly functional and revenue-producing presence online, it’s going to be necessary.

1. Can you navigate the web easily?
   Sometimes I meet SMB owners who are a bit proactive online - just enough to get them through the things they need to do. They can do email and stumble through Yahoo! to find what they need. They aren’t the typical Internet user, in fact most SMB owners, in my opinion, are less computer savvy than the average Joe.
   You may want to consider taking some free classes at the local library or civic center on computers. Most of them offer keyboarding basics, Understanding the Internet, and even basic Word and Excel classes. Sign up for them all. It’ll help you and your web designer, I promise.
2. Speaking of designers, have you picked one out yet?
   You may have already started probing your business friends and family members about potential designers. Your cousin said that his neighbor’s boy is good with the Internet, so you’ve got one possible lead there. There’s also a guy in town that runs a local town-hall type website, maybe he could help you out too.
   Let me go ahead and say it now - hire a professional. Yeah, I know, they expect you to pay real money. Duh! If you bought a billboard down on the highway, would you ask your cousin’s neighbor to go paint something on it? I hope not!
   This is by far one of the most important decisions of the entire process. Choosing a web designer who can make a pretty website isn’t enough. You’re going to have to find one that understands the marketing end of web design, too. If you don’t you’re going to end up paying more in the long run. I’ll assume you don’t want to do that!
   Here are some things you should ask a potential designer:
   • Do you do keyword research prior to starting the site?
   • Do you use templates or design the site from scratch? (Using a template isn’t a deal-breaker, but it’s nice to know if your site will end up looking like other industry-related websites. You don’t want that.)
   • Do you build the framework prior to starting the design? If so, is it keyword specific?
   • Do you provide hosting, or can you refer me to a reliable hosting company? (yeah I did it)
   • After you build the site, are you done, or will there be monthly fees/maintenance? (If he says no, you may actually be in trouble!)
3. Are you committed?
   I recently had an appointment to meet with a guy who started a new taxi service in town, and he wanted a website. I talked to him a few times and we set a time to meet. Well, when I showed up, the guy was busy with another client. He told me to ‘wait here’ and he’d be back. Fifteen minutes later, I left.
   If you aren’t committed to getting a website, or you don’t have your $h!t in order, don’t waste your designer’s time. Shoving off your designer like that is like telling him/her you don’t value their time. Bad idea.
4. Speaking of commitment, are you committed for the long haul?
   Getting a cute little website up isn’t enough to run a business. Sure, you’ll have your own .com and you’ll think you’re great, but really - why are you building this site? To get accolades or to make money?
   If you aren’t willing to stick it out with monthly marketing fees/costs for at least a year, you may be simply helping out your competition. They’ll know in an instant that you aren’t serious, and they’ll steal all those hot leads that could have been yours.
5. Lastly, do you have someone that can provide content (or ‘copy’) to the designer?
   Nothing is worse than hiring someone to do a website and not providing them with one ounce of text to put on it. Do you think a web designer knows the first thing about your industry? Probably not. And it’s not their job to make stuff up. Its yours. So make sure you or someone on your staff can promptly provide information to your potential designer. Don’t make them wait.

Mr Business Owner, I really wish you the best with your endeavour. Don’t get discouraged by the overwhelming amount of pre-work that goes into getting a website.

Like your Dad probably told you, It’s better that you do it right, than do it twice.

Sincerely,

Will Hanke
WillHanke.com

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