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Top 10 Search Engine Marketing Tips

Tuesday, December 13th, 2011

In a recent Press Release, Barbara C. Coll, President of Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), said, “Search engine marketing is ready to become an integral part of all marketing campaigns for online businesses. SEMPO will inform marketing executives worldwide that search engine marketing programs are highly-effective, cost-efficient ways of generating high-quality sales leads and customers for their businesses.”

Studies conducted by Georgia Institute of Technology shows that 85% of people first look up information on products and services on search engines before purchasing them. With the help of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) experts and SEM tools you can attract potential customers to your website and redirect these leads to sales.


Top 10 Search Engine Marketing tips can effectively improve your online sales:

1. Understand how much cost per click is charged by search engines

Consult SEM professionals and understand how much ‘cost per click’ is charged by the search engines; which maximum bid you should opt for, that’s suitable for your budget. Else you may end up with more bills than sales.

2. Decide on the timeline and period to maximize your gains and outrun your expenses

Consult and decide with SEM experts if you should be going for day parting of the ad, i.e., whether your advertisement should showcase 24X7 or particular hours of the day only. This decision would depend on aspects like kind of product/service, target audience, cost factor of your product etc.

For e.g., for a global gift delivery company one can showcase the advertisement round the clock, but for a law firm based service, particular slots in a day would suffice.

3. Research your keywords well as they are the doorway to your website

To divert maximum traffic to your website, make sure the keywords you showcase in your ad matches with the keywords your prospective customer is typing in search engines. So seek expert advice to select the right mix of keywords which face lesser competition, but couples with great traffic diversification.

4. Make sure your website is customer friendly

Ensure that heavy images, files and videos on the home page do not delay the loading of the site. This may result in customers moving away from your website. Also ensure that your website is organized in a simple and interactive, yet polished manner, backed by the right codes and appropriate hyperlinks. This will make the customer feel more at ease when browsing through your business products/services.

5. Give due attention to your website development

The goal of your website is to create awareness, build brand image and spread customer awareness. Your website is your virtual shop, so make sure you create the right mix of marketing elements.

6. Seek professional help for better ranking website

A higher ranking website often succeeds in making a bigger impression on potential customers and grabs more sales. Your brand may be bigger and your products better, but ranking is what matters when it comes to online sales.

7. Check compatibility of your website with different browsers

Make sure your website operates without any difficulties on different browsers and their various versions. Also check its visual appeal on various screen resolution sizes.

8. Modify SEM according to the market

Modify your advertisement and keyword tool as per market needs, buying trends, seasons, holidays etc. Improvise and incorporate your website with newer ideas, fresh content, etc to rank higher in search engines.

9. Keep a check on competitors’ strategies

Analyzing the marketing techniques and trends your competitors are following. Search engine marketing experts can help you with this, and give you monthly updates on the same. This will help you decide better on updating strategies, budgets and marketing campaigns, and keep up with the competition.

10. Emphasize on your USP

To gain an extra edge over competitors you need to lure customers by offering them something extra, apart from the usual product mix other brands are offering.

Tips for Keeping Your E-commerce Site Fresh and Interesting

Monday, November 21st, 2011

Keeping your website current and interesting has assumed paramount importance in the increasingly competitive web business world. The availability of a plethora of options has resulted in low attention spans and a sort of impatience with sites that do not deliver the required goods. The question most website owners are increasingly asking is this: How do I keep my website fresh and interesting?

It’s a good question. The answer, surprising as it may seem, does not require costly overhauls in the design and content on a regular basis. Just a few simple tips and actions will help ensure that your e-commerce website remains relevant and interesting.

The Internet has opened up a world of possibilities for people. Information is literally at everyone’s fingertips and a click away, if we were to indulge in clichés. But it goes beyond just information. Increasingly, a lot of commerce and business is being conducted on the Internet, as is evident from the boom in online shopping portals, online utility payment sites, and banking websites.

In fact, the growth and influence of the Internet is apparent from the fact that most businesses, even brick-and-mortar ones, have their own official websites to capture business that can come in from the online marketplace. In such a scenario, the way a website is designed, updated, and managed makes the difference between winning or losing business.

A few things can go a long way in making your e-commerce website interesting and keep it fresh.

  1. They say change is the only thing that is permanent. New developments, new ideas and concepts, new technology, new rules, laws and legislature, new product offerings, new prices, all constitute a change in information. That change has to reflect in your site content and design. There is nothing worse than an updated customer looking at outdated content on your website. But even worse is a customer making a wrong decision based on the information they find on your site.
  2. Check for dead links in articles or content. Hyperlinked text should lead to more information, not ‘Page not Found’ messages.
  3. Invest in a good content writer right at the start, so you have grammatically correct content and no typos. Good content adds character to your website. Witty content makes reading it an enjoyable experience and the customer may bookmark your site or recommend it to others.
  4. Illustrations, graphics and photos make your content interesting. Update product photos. Provide galleries with interesting captions on pictures. Invite customers to contribute pictures and reward the best picture.
  5. News updates, feature articles, and newsletters with links back to your website archives and articles will bring visitors back to your site.
  6. Send out communication regularly to people informing them of changes, developments, and additions. This will keep you on people’s mind and keep the visits coming.
  7. Ensure that the website is technologically sound and down-times are indicated in an interesting, humorous and/or educative way.
  8. Ensure quick load times. Waiting forever for a site to load can be a frustrating experience, especially if you are searching for information. Also, dropped links can be very frustrating when they result in aborted transaction. Customers could just sign out and go elsewhere.

Top 10 Tips for Writing SEO Friendly Content

Wednesday, October 19th, 2011

In the matter of SEO writing, content is king, as the saying goes. Effective and compelling content should be the hallmark of any website. What users look for is original and easily comprehensible content. This takes on added significance as more and more industries and corporations are vying for top positions in SEO rankings, with the internet becoming the modern-day marketplace. So whatever it is that you are searching for, whether it is information, online shopping or just the latest news, you don’t have to go out looking for it, but can do so from the comfort of your own living room with just the click of a button.

Besides informative, user-friendly content, it is absolutely necessary to gain the interest of your target audience, by working your way through the hundreds of competitors, straight to the top of the SEO rankings. Writing content for websites is not at all a difficult exercise as long as it is done using effective search engine techniques. Until a few years ago, a lot of people were quite     unaware of the Search Engine Optimization process. However, nowadays no surfer will go through an entire website until and unless it is optimized effectively.

Here are Top 10 tips for writing SEO friendly content:

  1. Keep the article short, preferably within a 1000 words. Long paragraphs look boring. Put your ideas in brief points or write the articles in small units to make them user friendly
  2. When quoting factual information, give links. Mention the reliable sources you collected your data from. Don’t forget to cite original authors.
  3. Keep your content simple by writing in three parts: introduction, main content and summary.
  4. Before writing an SEO friendly content, decide on the keywords you want to target. And mention it right at the beginning as search engines are fond of this practice.
  5. Use the keyword in the title, section headlines as well as sentences. Don’t overdo it though.
  6. Position the Keyword in your article at least twice, at the beginning and the end paragraph. It is highly effective to let the keyword be the first word in the first paragraph and the last word of the last paragraph.
  7. Once the article is finished add interesting links at suitable places. And remember that your article is meant for your readers and should read well. If it is not a complete read for your readers, there is no use writing it in the first place. In this way you’ll receive more readers, diggs and subscribers.
  8. Write your article for your readers and not the search engines and you’ll keep the reader interested and engaged.
  9. In case you use HTML, give the maximum attention to the title. The title must contain the keyword. Put in suitable keywords in meta keyword. In the meta ‘description’, write a couple of sentences to briefly describe your article and inject the keyword once at least
  10. While writing make use of your own novel knowledge and ideas. Whenever you find something new about your article, update it,

With these tips in mind, you are sure to attract a lot of visitors to your blog or website.

How to Raise Brand Awareness

Monday, March 14th, 2011

How to Raise Brand Awareness

If you have just entered the market and want to build a successful business, you should promote your brand and raise awareness about your company, products and services. Customers are ready to pay for the brand they recognize and for products which occupy large shelf space in the market. Promoting your brand does not mean you are publicizing your company, it means you are making way to generate more revenue and increase company share in the market. The more popular your brand, the higher demand you will see for your products.

Marketing budgets for Brand Awareness

How much money can you afford to raise Brand Awareness? Remember, this is a marketing world and everyone is trying to compete with each other, but there are always limitations in terms of funds and investment. If you have a small budget, you cannot advertise on the television as it will cost you more than you can imagine. The internet is the best option for businesses with small budgets to promote their campaign.

Role of website designing in promoting your company

If you have a website, then you have a platform to meet and understand your customers as well as your clients. Before accepting any new product in the market, people want to read more about it. The content of your website should be informative and attractive. Your website works as a speaking tool to your customers. They can reach out to you 24 hours a day and night. Provide as much information about your products and services as possible so that they continue to visit.

Think creatively about your brand

Products that are similar to your product may be available in the market, so you need to make your’s stand out so as to convince people to buy it. Creating a brand for your product can help convince people that they will benefit from purchasing your product because of the unique and different features available in it.

Importance of logo

Your logo is the identity that represents your company in the market. Your logo should be related to your brand. Similarity is most important between the brand and logo. Some companies have an attractive logo, but people may not be sure about what is being offered by the company when they see the logo. You should be recognized by your logo in the market.

Target audience

Each individual has his own requirements. You cannot sell your product and services to everyone. You need to first identify your target audience. There are different ways of finding your niche audience like: promoting a campaign, doing surveys, talking to people etc. You cannot sell anything unless you recognize who wants to buy your product.

Advertising

Advertising is the best way of creating awareness about your product and services. There are both expensive as well as economical ways to promote your product, depending on your budget. Some effective ways to publicize your product: Blogs and articles, referral programs, generating leads and sending out promotional mails and messages.

Check out our offers and packages @ Small Biz Express

How to Monitor Company Reputation

Monday, March 14th, 2011

How to Monitor Company Reputation

If you want to control your company and its assets, you must monitor your company’s reputation. Unfounded rumors about your company in the media, negative comments and feedback on the internet can damage your company’s reputation and also affect sales. If you are not prepared to handle such situations and do not take quick action, it could do irreparable damage to your company’s reputation.

Controversial issues can harm your reputation

There are different categories of likely dangers to your reputation which have to be identified. Controversial issues provide fodder to the media on which they thrive. It’s in their interest to cover the facts and represent them in a juicy manner to make it more interesting. If you come across sensitive information like a worker’s strike, misbehavior by a staff member or any other incident that could harm your company’s reputation, its best to deal with it quickly and with the least amount of fuss. It also pays to keep a close watch on your company’s reputation in the market.

How to face media

In case any unfavorable rumors are being circulated about your company and it becomes newsworthy, a company representative should be able to face the media’s queries confidently. He or she will be in charge of issuing statements on behalf and in favor of your company. The representative must be privy to news marketing and should be able to handle any crisis positively.

Do your home work before facing the media

Before having any communication with the media, make sure all important points have been incorporated in your speech. Avoid unnecessary things which have no importance to the company. Talking points should be based on the company’s good reputation(past history), its success story, future plans, and how workers are going to benefit by the company’s development.

Hire qualified PR person

If you do not have any qualified person in your company to handle PR, you can hire a PR Company or person to maintain or improve your company’s reputation. Ask about their plans and how they have helped other companies with similar needs.

Importance of policy to your company reputation

Policy is important as it provides set rules on the order of steps to be taken in any given situation. If you do not have a constructive policy in your company this could damage the foundation of the company.

Easy and fast contact to your company

During times of a crisis, you should have quick and effective contact resources. Only you can provide accurate information to the media and your customers. This will prevent further rumors from spreading in the market. To manage your reputation, you should have answers and solutions to any and all questions.

Positive outcomes of press releases

Press releases are the best way of controlling your company reputation in the media and news generating agencies. If you hand out timely press releases, the media will not have an opportunity to create stories about your company (which may or may not be positive). Nowadays, most of the news agencies and companies rely on press releases as this saves them time and money.

How to Generate New Sales Leads

Monday, March 14th, 2011

How to Generate New Sales Leads

Before understanding how to generate new sales leads, it is important to understand why new sales leads are vital for the success of your business. The purpose of a sales lead is to promote your products and services and provide latest and updated information about your business to your customers. A sales lead generation system also gives your company a forum in which to establish a positive business image in the market.

Referral marketing systems to generate new leads

Referral marketing is a very efficient and powerful tool to create a balanced and regular flow of new clients. The results of the Jupiter Media Metrix Survey shows that more than 75% of internet users are inclined to visit new websites through referral marketing.

Most companies rely on referral generated leads, because customers gained from this system are loyal and reliable. One of the biggest advantages of these new leads is that these buyers deal in larger quantities and are fast decision-makers.

Advertising system to generate leads

Advertise your brands and services in a professional manner. Convey your brand idea in one simple and innovative headline that leaves customers wanting to know more. Adopt a follow-up system to receive maximum results through your advertising. Before placing your ads, make a list of target audiences to generate new leads.

Obtain lead lists from leads companies and brokers

Lead companies and brokers can help you locate new leads for your company, saving your company precious time. You can buy lead lists from brokers and companies who compile these lists by industry and requirement which gives you access to potential customers.

Targeting the best potential buyers

Every company has some regular buyers who contribute towards steady sales and income for your company. Before launching or promoting your products or services, you should keep dedicated customers updated about your plans. Not only does this encourage loyalty from them, it also increases the chances of a sale. Keep updated lists of your regular and preferred customers.

Social networking sites

LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter are some of the best ways to interact with new prospective buyers. Joining these sites is easy and campaigning is quick and simple. Contacts are connected to each other in a social network. Thus, when you provide information, it is not only shared with your contacts but also with the contacts of your contacts, their contacts, and so on.

How to Build an Internet Community

Friday, March 11th, 2011

How to Build a Community

Before launching a new product in the market, you must first understand the importance of community members to its success. If you really want to see your business improving and your products reaching out to millions of community members, there are several methods you can use to build a strong presence in the internet community. Once your relationship strengthens with the members of the community, prospects of a flourishing marketing campaign are open.

Be ready for customization

There are customers who may not like to buy your products if they feel the products do not suit their requirements. They would expect you to make changes in the products and provide different offers. If you have a strong relationship with them, you can understand their needs and ensure that they are satisfied. You have to remember that if one member of the community is satisfied with your product, hundreds of people will come to know of it by word of mouth.

Attending cultural events

If are looking for ways to interact with your community members, you would do well by attending as many cultural events and shows as possible where you can interact with them directly. You will have the opportunity to understand their traditions and customs and the changing market trends. You can become friendly with the community members and also build associations with other organizations.

Importance of community leaders in promoting your products and services

There are markets which are generally influenced by the opinions of the community leaders on the internet. Try to maintain a good relationship with community leaders by keeping in touch with them regularly. Discuss your campaign, offers and other facilities with them, and convince them that your product will be useful for the community. A successful relationship with the community leader can pave the way for easy and effortless contact with thousands of community members.

Significant role of online relationship

Internet is the second largest online market after television, where millions of companies and customers meet each other. There are several social networking sites where you can build a good relationship with community members by responding to their posts, messages and comments. Online relationships give you real time feedback. This means you will have up-do-date information on what your fans and customers think about your company.

This is the single-most economical place where you can not only extend your business, but also provide latest information about your company, products and services.

How media can help you build strong relationship with a community

Media can play a vital role in promoting your business image in any community. You can hire a public relation officer or even contact the local public relation firm to help your campaign and promote your brand to the community members. One of the most effective way to go about it is press releases. A press release is an innovative tool to attract the media’s attention as well as that of the masses. Information about your company should be covered as an article or feature, rather than as an advertisement.  A PR firm is the best way of implementing your strategies in the media.

Sponsor community events, games and sports

If you want to make your company stand out in a community, you can sponsor its events, games and sports. This is a great way of getting them to believe that you care about them. With a financial donation you can gain their appreciation and support, and can  positively change the way people think and feel about your company.

Best small business web design

Friday, March 11th, 2011

Best small business web design

Today, small business owners like you are surely aware of the far reaching benefits of a business website. However, you may be unsure of how to go about the process of web development. All you know is that you want a professional website at a price which you can afford.

Small Biz Express provides you the best small business web design. Professionalism, affordability and provision of end to end solutions are our hallmarks.

•  Professional web design

You may find that creating websites by just downloading templates from the internet is easy and cheap. But, at the same time, you want your small business website to have a professional appearance. Small Biz Express has experts not only in web design, but also in other areas like business and marketing. Our collective proficiency results in a very professional and creative small business web design. We will ensure that your website is planned well, looks attractive, is easily navigable and has relevant information.

•  Affordability

You may want a professional website but the exorbitant price may keep you from taking the necessary steps for designing a website. Small Biz Express solves this problem by offering you web design packages instead of designing websites from scratch. We have prepared web designs; each having features specific to one kind of small business. Small Business Web Design, Restaurant Web Design and Accountant Web Design are some of our web design packages. Building websites based on these needs helps Small Biz Express save on the costs and we are able to give you the best small business web design at a reasonable price.

•  The benefits of end to end services

Going to different vendors for various website related activities would be inconvenient. As a client of Small Biz Express, you would not have to worry, as we are a one-stop shop providing all online services required to help your business. Our expertise is not limited to web design; we host websites and maintain them . We submit your website to local directories and search engines. We perform search engine optimization and guarantee improved rankings for your website on prominent search engines. We also offer search engine marketing, social media optimization and online marketing services.

Call us for the best small business web design

If you are looking for the best small business web design, call Small Biz Express right now! Once we know the requirements of your business , we will do all that is possible to help your business win online. We will not even ask for any commitment from you, as we are confident that our services will exceed your expectations. Entrust the task of web site development to us and you will soon see your business grow.exceed

Web Analytics Checklist – Tracking made easy

Friday, March 11th, 2011

Web analytics is a powerful and important tool that helps a business understand and link website traffic, marketing research and advertising. The quality of data on your website is the key in promoting your business in order to reach potential clients.
Here is a checklist for your web analytics-

Page Name

Page Naming will help communicate to your readers the title of the page without confusing them. Your page names need to be easy to understand and clear in its meaning. Planning your page names carefully is a good idea because it helps your customers interact better with your site.

Page Tags

Page tagging will allow you to find how many people have visited your site. It is accurate and flexible and has become increasingly popular these days. It helps in checking the growth of the website by tagging a cookie in the user’s computer and hence regular website activity can be viewed from this data.

Content Grouping

It allows for many pages to be grouped together as one. They could all be pertaining to something similar like a line of products or services. Content grouping allows you to study viewers as they visit these pages and see how you convert these visitors into customers.

Internal Search

Internal Search is a vital navigational tool in any website and this will help your customers directly reach the page they were looking for and this will also inform you if your website is lacking anything. Search is an effective tool in satisfying your customers.

Tag Error Pages

Doing this will help you find out what your visitors want. This could happen when they were looking for something that does not exist on your website but could be important for your business and so these errors can help your build upon your website and help improve it.

Conversion Events

These are actions taken by visitors on your website that signify an event. Some actions that you could track are online sales, registrations, forms, downloads, signups etc. Web analytics could help you understand your customer’s actions and set you on the right track to achieving your business goals.

The above are a few key points that need to be kept in mind for good web analytics. Your business needs to plan and ascertain what its needs are and accordingly create an engaging website.

Posted in Blog, Web Analytics |

Affordable web design packages and services

Friday, March 11th, 2011

Affordable web design packages and services

Website Objectives

As the owner of a small business, you set up a business website with certain goals in mind. You want to expand your business, generate publicity and build goodwill. A website supports many functions like advertising and public relations and a website would surely help you to cut down on your advertising expenditure.

Every business irrespective of size needs a website. But small businesses have limited budgets and a small business owner like you would want the cost of designing a website to be reasonable.

Need for affordable web design

You want to utilize the power of the web but find the price of web designing exorbitant and as a result hesitate on the decision of having a website. Small Biz Express solves your problem by providing affordable web design packages and services.

Small Biz Express – Web Design Packages

We offer pre-created designs to customers in the form of web design packages. Each package of Small Biz Express is tailor made for one particular kind of small business. So we have packages like Accountant Web Design, Restaurant Web Design and Lawyers Web Design. We will build your small business website based on the package you select.

Having a business website is not enough and Small Biz Express will help you to utilize the power of your website to the maximum possible extent.

Website related services

Small Biz Express is a one stop shop that takes care of all your website related needs. In addition to web designing, we provide services like SEO, search engine marketing and social media optimization. These enhance the visibility of your site attracting in more visitors. We also provide online marketing services like e-mail marketing and ‘pay per click’.

If you are a small business and are looking for affordable web design packages and services, Small Biz Express would be the perfect choice.

Benefits from associating with Small Biz Express

You get high quality service at a reasonable price. At just $599, you get a professional website designed by experts. The overall cost of ownership works out to just $49 per month. Our SEO package costs only $500, a small fee, considering the benefits your business derives from an optimized website.

Our affordable web design packages and services help make your online endeavors and business a success.

Contact us for affordable web design packages and services

Our services have helped the small businesses of our numerous clients to succeed. Contact us right now and select your web design package! Become our customer and we will help you realize all your website and business goals.

Posted in Blog, Web design |

Top Google Local Search Ranking Factors

Friday, March 4th, 2011

Google disclosed their three primary types of signals for small businesses to rise up in local search rankings and these are: Relevance, Prominence and Distance.

Let us look into specific ranking factors that fall into these categories.

RELEVANCE – How relevant is your Small Business to user’s search in your location?

  • Business name match the user’s search keyword phrase;
  • Business Category (in Google Places) matching the user’s search keyword phrase;
  • Business Description or additional data fields match the user’s search query;
  • Business’s website – Keywords found on the Business’s website match the user’s search query;
  • Keywords on the Business’s website and Google Places fields indicate a match for the user’s search location;
  • Description text for the videos and images related to the Business include keyword phrases which match the user’s search query.
  • Common misspellings may be matched between the user’s queries and contents of your listing, website, and other data sources about your business.
  • Business Categories may be mapped to match related Categories. For instance, if the user seeks “Restaurants”, but you’re only listed as a “Cafe”, then Google would likely choose to display your listing due to thesaurus relativity.
  • Keyword relevance in internal links and external links e.g. – Various data sources which Google associates with your listing. For instance, keywords found in your internet yellow pages listings, newspaper articles, press releases about your services and products, and places where people mention your business — all of these could be matched up with the search keywords users supply when searching for local small businesses.
  • Information on Google Places – It should be noted that it’s likely that information on your website and directly in your Google Place page may be deemed to be more important and therefore more heavily-weighted in relevancy considerations than information on less-central pages such as internet yellow pages, articles, etc. However, having some level of keyword consistency among all the resources citing your business listing could additively help your overall relevancy scoring.
  • Keyword ConsistencyHaving some level of keyword consistency among all the resources citing your small business listing could additively help your overall relevancy scoring.

PROMINENCE –

Google assess your small business company’s overall popularity compared with other similar businesses based on some important signals .

  • PageRank – Pagerank involves the number of webpages linking to a webpage or website, and the relative importance of each of the pages which are linking.
  • Citations – Citations about your small business that mention your company name, address, and phone number could help to build up your signal weight for relative popularity.
  • Location – Your business’s location might itself can carry some weightage in local search ranking factors. For e.g. – A Restaurant tucked away on an off-street in a residential neighborhood might be assessed as less-popular than an otherwise similar Restaurant which happens to be located next door to a major tourist destination. While this may sound like a proximity signal, it’s really more about the relative popularity of places themselves which then may apply to a local business or organization. So, if your business is located next to a place which merits an article in Wikipedia, or in a highly-trafficed neighborhood, or next to a popular amusement park, you may reap the benefit of the popularity coming off of it.
  • Reviews and Ratings – Reviews and ratings help Google understand how popular your small business is in your local market. Although the quality cannot be measured here, we see there is some link between highly-rated/reviewed businesses and local search rankings.
  • Click throughs from Consumers have always played as one of the factors in determining how prominent is your small business in the location. So if your small business listing gets more click throughs than similar listings, it could be a ranking boost from Google in your location.
  • Social Media signals – Google recent updates definitely shows that the interactions through the social media websites have a high influence in real-time search, location-based and personalized searches. For example, the number of Facebook “likes” or the number of tweets of a small business and its associated pages should be a valuable signal to search engines. In future, further assessments of importance of social media mentions will also rely upon the relative importance/prominence of the person/account posting the mention.

DISTANCE

Distance has been one of Google Maps prime local ranking signals since inception. As mentioned earlier, if businesses move in prominent locations, their chance of moving up in local search rankings may increase.

  • Location – Earlier businesses which were located closest to city centroids had a major advantage over businesses located further out from city centers. Over time, Google has been adjusting the weightage of the various ranking factors so that proximity doesn’t have quite the overly-heavy influence it once did, but it still factors in. So, the main element of this has been the relative radial distance from city centroids. There really isn’t much one can do to alter your location, so the classic old business advice still remains valid in this respect: “Location, location, location.”
  • Zip Code – Google is now looking at the outlines of cities, ZIP code region outlines, or using something like heat maps of population densities in order to figure out location associations according to geographic position.
  • City’s name – It is now important to mention your location’s city name, neighborhood name, as well as various other location nicknames that people may be using to search for businesses in your area. For example, many denizens of Manhattan use the abbreviation “NYC” when searching online.
  • Finally, many service-based small businesses provide work in major metro areas beyond the borders of the smaller city region where their listing is physically located. For example, a Plumber located in Orange, California, might offer services to numerous cities in the greater Los Angeles region. For these types of businesses, it’s very important to mention the names of each of the cities where they offer service — mentioning the names on their Google Place page, website, and other citation sources.

Keyword Research for High Local Search Rankings

Friday, March 4th, 2011

In the past, doing keyword research for Local SEO has been somewhat difficult because many local search phrase combinations have relatively low volume, and the amount of data has been too small/granular for the limitations found in many keyword research services.

Keyword research is important because a site seeking to get high qualified traffic from consumers interested in a particular type of business as possible, must first know which phrase(s) to focus upon to achieve search engine rankings. The small business owners must answer the questions of whether consumers are searching for “plumbers”, “plumbing”, “plumber” or “pipes”. And for local businesses, it’s ideal to match for exact phrases that include local keywords. Do consumers search for “boston plumbers”, “plumbers, boston”, “plumbers in boston”, “plumbers boston ma”, or “plumbers 02118? (a Boston ZIP code) ?

There are complex cases where a vertical may have multiple terms used to find businesses (“accountants”, “accounting”, “tax preparation”, “CPAs”), and cities with multiple name versions and neighborhoods (“New York”, “New York City”, “Manhattan”, “New York, NY”, “NYC”, etc).

It is a serious problem for small business owners when there’s little recourse available for researching consumer behavior.

However, we now see various keyword research providers are beefing up their data so they reach to this local market demand. For instance, Google Insights will sometimes show us the relative search traffic for phrases in cases where Google Trends will not, such as for the “boston plumbers” example:

Boston Plumbers in Google Insights

The other keyword tools such as Trellian, Wordtracker and few others use data from ISPs and some search engines (typically some of the lesser search engines) which they compile. Since this is a subset of all internet usage data, it’s good to realize that searches with smaller volumes like our example can skew results a bit — so, one must interpret it with a critical eye.

Keyword research is particularly important for small businesses in local search optimization, because average searcher behavior across the country changes by regions. With the recent updates from Google such as real-time search, personalized and location-specific search, it is important to choose right set of keywords and optimize them in the website design and content.

Good keyword research requires some experience and intelligence, coupled with the ability to imagine how consumers attempt to find your business online. The small businesses have become somewhat biased by terms they consider to be important to their own industry insiders versus the keyword terms that consumers actually use to find them. Imagine the case of a prestigious tailor who desires to rank well for “bespoke tailoring” whereas he’s ignoring the many consumers who might find him if he targeted “custom suits” instead.

Below listed are some keyword research tools which do fairly well to help in local SEO. These keyword tools are working on their data to update very regularly to optimize the small business website.

1. Trellian

2. Word Tracker

3. Keyword spy

Let me know your thoughts about local keyword research.

Posted in Online Marketing |

Checklist before you Hire a SEO company

Friday, March 4th, 2011

It is imperative for any business today to be virtually existent on the internet these days. Having an appealing website opens up growth opportunities and links you to potential customers. Hiring the right SEO can give you the boost your business needs.
An SEO provides you with services such as

  • Online business development management
  • Technical advice on developing your website
  • Content Management
  • Content Reviewing
  • Structure Reviewing
  • Keyword Research

When launching a new site, there are few things to keep in mind and do before you hire an SEO.

  • Check the experience of the SEO
  • Go through their previous work for other businesses and check their standings
  • Check for suitability of the SEO regarding the industry of the business, location and city or country.
  • See if they have experience with developing international websites
  • Ensure they make user friendly sites or can improved on existing websites.
  • Be informed of various SEO techniques.
  • Ask them what marketing services they provide.
  • Ensure that they are flexible and that there is proper communication because it is based on your needs that the SEO builds the website.
  • Be wary of an SEO that tries to manipulate search engine results through unfair practices.

Other than the above pointers, you need to do proper research before you hire an SEO. There is no dearth of pretend SEOs who try to scam eager small businesses on the internet. Some of the illicit methods they use are creating shadow domains or doorway pages using illusory redirects and hidden links.

While hiring an SEO can be a boon, picking a wrong SEO can lead to a disastrous situation. Ensure that the SEO is not deceiving you. If they are transparent in their work, they should go about changes to the website in the most direct manner possible.

How to Set Your Website Apart From The Rest

Friday, March 4th, 2011

As an emerging small business, the power to attract customers is extremely important. This can be achieved only when you show promise to your customers and by being different from the rest. A great place to start would be creating a website that not only is attractive but shows that you are unique.

Here are a few points that you need to look into when setting up that perfect website-

Customer’s needs- When a person comes across your page, it should appeal to him. Whether it’s just information they’re looking for or looking to buy something or looking for solutions to problems, your website should be able to address their needs. Understanding what your customers are looking for and being able to meet those needs will give you an edge over your competitors.

Build trust- People are always unsure of shopping online unless they are from reputed sites. Your site should have everything a customer is looking for such as products and shipping information, refund policy, privacy policy, your contact details and address. Also, include a page about your business introducing yourself to the customers. When the customers have all the proper information about you, they will feel safer buying your products online.

Engage your viewers- Simply stating information and showcasing products is not going to be good enough. Give them something to do such as signing up for a newsletter, polls, queries, and a page to contact you. Engaging your customers will build a link and make them more aware of your business activities.

Presentation- Your website should suit your business. Design a website that suits your products and services and helps highlight your strengths. If you cater to corporate clients, a professional website is required whereas if you are a casual clothing business, a vibrant display of colours for your website will help attract customers.

Focus- Focusing on your customers needs will direct you to make the perfect website. Once you understand what your customers are looking for, it is easier to make a website that sets you apart from your competitors.

Posted in Blog |

Why 70% of small businesses are looking for a website

Thursday, February 17th, 2011

Did you know that over 50% of small businesses now have a website? And that 13% of small businesses that do not have a website plan on having one within the next 12 months?

Now you may ask yourself why so many small businesses are searching for small business website design? Well in this article we will help you understand why having a website for your small business is key to success.

We list down few reasons here why small businesses are going for a website

1. To win more customers online

2. Secondly your competition is going online which means if you do not have a website, you are loosing out on customers.

3. Your small business needs a website to show your products and services to customers 24/7. When you have a website your product or service is featured 24/7/365 and is accessible to anyone on the web. You are essentially winning new clients while you sleep.

All the reasons above conclude that you should have a website running to help your small business reach customers. I would advise any small business owners to start searching for small business website design as soon as possible. Gain New Clients with Small Business Website Design.

For few years now, Small Biz Express has been helping small business owners by creating websites according to their requirements.

Creating a well-designed website for your small business requires expertise. If you entrust the task of developing the website to a web design company like SmallBiz Express, you can simply concentrate on what you do best-running your business.

SmallBiz Express provides web design services for small businesses. We have a variety of web design packages like Restaurant Web Design, Accountant Web Design and Ecommerce Web Design. These are available at affordable prices. We also provide web hosting services to maintain your website.

While we design your website in such a way that it converts visitors to customers, people who do not even know about you need to be first drawn to your website. To help you in this, we offer SEO services, search engine marketing and social media optimization and Additionally we also provide services in content creation, web analytics to help you grow your small business online.

Posted in Blog |

What should you look out in your website design?

Wednesday, January 26th, 2011

A company develops a website with the goal of business expansion. When you create a website for your business, you should keep this in mind at every stage of designing the website.

First of all, the look of the website should be professional. If your website looks shabby and if the web pages are filled with clutter, the site visitors would be put off. You need to go about the web design process in an organized manner.

Create the site map indicating how many pages your website will have and what should go into these pages. Remember that your website should have some provision for the visitor to interact with you. So a “Contact us” page is a must for a business website.

Also keep in mind that ultimately it is content which would convert a visitor to a customer. Make sure that you include relevant data pertaining to the company, your products and services and so on.

While you would want your website to be attractive, many make the mistake of going too far and using fancy fonts and colors which make reading the content a difficult task. Simplicity is the key when it comes to font and color usage in a website.

When a visitor clicks on a website link, he wants the web page to open immediately. If the website takes a long time to download due to heavy usage of graphics or for any other reason, you may lose a potential customer.

If you are going to create your own business website, you would have to keep all the above points in mind and would have to spend considerable time on the design. In spite of all of the trouble you take, you may still end up with an amateurish looking website.

Creating a well-designed website requires expertise. If you entrust the task of developing the website to a web design company like SmallBiz Express, you can simply concentrate on what you do best-running your business.

SmallBiz Express provides web design services for small businesses. We have a variety of web design packages like Restaurant Web Design, Accountant Web Design and Ecommerce Web Design. These are available at affordable prices.

While we design your website in such a way that it converts visitors to customers, people who do not even know about you need to be first drawn to your website. To help you in this, we offer SEO services, search engine marketing and social media optimization.

Be our customer and we will help you harness the power of the Internet to expand your business.

Posted in Blog |

Top 5 tips to Website Redesign and Redevelopment

Wednesday, January 26th, 2011

Does your business have a website which you either feel is outdated or is unable to help you achieve the objective for which it was created in the first place?? It is time then for a complete overhaul of your website. Website Redesign and Redevelopment is what you need.

Here are the top 5 tips to Website Redesign and Redevelopment:

  • Focus on the reasons for redesigning: If you have felt that your business website needs to be redesigned then there must be reasons for the same. Your staff or customers may have brought some points to your notice and you yourself may be aware of some of the site’s shortcomings. List them out first and work on each of these reasons.
  • Design a user friendly website: Redesigning doesn’t mean complicating things. To be user friendly, a website needs to be simple. The potential customer should be able to easily navigate from one page to another and find the information he is looking for. Go about the process of redesigning in a systematic manner. Prepare the site map first and then redevelop the website.
  • Aesthetics and Content: Let the website have a pleasing look – neither dull nor flashy. After deciding on the look, focus on the content. A website cannot achieve its purpose without relevant content. Research keywords and use them to make your business website SEO friendly.
  • Test the new design and layout: Your opinion of the new website is not so important as the opinion of the target audience. Let a small sample of your target audience have a look at the new design and layout. Based on the feedback received, make any changes if required.
  • Entrust the work of redesign to professionals: All the above points will be taken care of if you follow this tip. A business website should be designed by professionals and getting the website redesigned and redeveloped by a professional web design company would be the best option for you.
Posted in Blog |

How to turn your visitors to customers?

Wednesday, January 26th, 2011

Every business knows that a website is not an end in itself but only a means to grow. A business may manage to draw visitors to its website through Search Engine Optimization, but what a business really needs is that a high percentage of these visitors get converted to customers.

The following play a role in influencing a website visitor’s decision to do business with you:

  • Home page: A website opens on to the home page. A badly done home page will make the visitor lose interest in the website. A visitor will decide to do business with you only if he has formed a good opinion about you. So ensure that your home page has a professional look.
  • Easy navigability: The home page provides only an introduction of the business. A visitor interested in the product or service you offer, will venture deeper into your site to know more about you. If he is unable to move with ease from one page to another, you will lose the chance of making him your customer.
  • Relevant content: Meaningful data in the website can turn even a casual visitor to a customer. Information about your product, how the customer can benefit from what you offer, your professionalism will all be conveyed by the content of the website. The details of your product or service should be presented not in a bland manner but in a way which makes the website visitor wish to be your customer.

Though designing your business website on your own would be the least expensive option, it may not succeed in converting your visitors to customers. For this to happen, your business needs a website which has been developed by the joint effort of technical, business and marketing experts.

SmallBiz Express is a company which specializes in website design of small businesses. You may be running a grocery store, a restaurant or even a law firm; the website we create will surely succeed in converting a large chunk of your visitors to customers. Select a web design package most suited for your business and you will get a well designed website at an affordable price.

We also offer Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing and Social Media Optimization services. To fulfill your online marketing needs, we can create and execute an e-mail marketing campaign for you. Our Pay Per Click Management program drives qualified leads to your business.

Posted in Blog |

Do you have content that will achieve your objectives?

Wednesday, January 26th, 2011

A business organization develops a website for itself with the objective of promoting the business. The owner of the business will want more people to know about the business, will want the number of customers to increase and will also want to build goodwill for the business.

The design and the look of the website need to be good, but what matters most for the casual visitor as well as the potential customer is content. The websites of many businesses are unable to achieve their business goals as they are weak on content.

While selecting content for your site, keep the following points in mind:

  • Your website introduces, informs, advertises and sells.
  • People may visit your site looking for some information. You have to conduct in depth key word research to find out what the potential customer want to know and include them in your content.
  • Content should not get too technical. The terms used should be followed by the average customer. At the same time, don’t keep the product information so brief that a potential customer is unable to make out the product details.
  • Just indicating the features of your product or service may not fulfill your business objective. You would want your website to convert visitors into customers. Explain the benefits which a product will offer to the customer.


Posted in Blog |

Take the Time to Keep Your Small Business Website Fresh

Wednesday, August 4th, 2010

“I told my wife that a husband is like a fine wine; he gets better with age. The next day, she locked me in the cellar.”

Many Small Business website owners feel that they do not have the time to keep their websites fresh. They spend the time initially to be sure they get what they want in a website design. Then, after the site is published on the internet, rarely even think about it. This is the equivalent of locking your website in the cellar. The search engine crawlers are programmed to touch a website when changes are made. Without change, your small business website will fall lower and lower on the search engine rankings and we all know that no one has the patience to click through more than a couple pages when performing a search to find the products or services that we need.

The best way to keep your website fresh is to create an area on the home page to serve as your “Announcement, Specials this Month, or What New at…..” Yes, this will require that you come up with good ideas for this area and at least on a monthly basis. You will reap the benefit of better ranking and if your monthly or weekly blurb is interesting and maybe even humorous, you may gain a following as well.

Another ways to keep your website fresh is to create a Newsletter page with current information about the industry, happenings at your business or some local interest etc.

Of course, the blog is an excellent way to keep your target audience and prospective customers interest with advice and relevant useful information. Adding a blog page to your small business website design can have great results for both SEO and for creating a following.

Keeping your website fresh is going to take a bit of thought and work. Think of it this way…..If you had a store window, would you keep the same items in that window all the time or change it out to produce more interest? Of course, you would keep it fresh with relevant products and news about new services and possibly some seasonal decorations. Your small business website design is no different.

Posted in Blog |

Home Page Dilemma

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

“Before I speak, I have something important to say.”
Groucho Marx

Don’t you just love the small business website designs that have so many things going on that you become confused as to what it is they are actually selling? Often times, this leads to loss of business.

Your home page is the window to your business. So, you need to think about it as though you were window shopping and wondering if you would like to enter this store. (I am referring to all small business websites here and not just e-commerce web designs) So…What do you need to know to make the decision to walk in or not? Here are some points to consider:

1. Well, typically when I am shopping, I look to see if there is anything in that window that I am interested in at all.
Small Business web design translation: Your products/Services need to be prominently displayed and large enough to catch the eye.

2. I also want to know if I do like the stuff, can I afford it??
Small business web design Translation: Home page should offer some idea of the cost of your products/services even if it is a starting point.

3. Ok, so now I am interested in knowing more and now I am wondering if anyone else has used this product/service and what they thought of it.
Small business web design translation: Even a couple testimonials on the home page of a small business website with clear definition of the product/service that they used is helpful.

4. Now I am thinking that I like what I see but am not sure if it will fit my purposes. So I want to go in and take a look at the store and talk to someone.
Small business web design translation: There should be a clear and obvious tab for “About the Company” and a clear and obvious email address and phone number on the website home page. Because using a “Contact” tab can be just too much clicking around for some users.

This is the first in a series of design articles aimed at helping the small business owner understand the importance of first impressions on the internet. I hope that you find it useful.
General Manager Small Biz Espress

Posted in Blog |

Managing your new website.

Tuesday, June 29th, 2010

As a small business owner, you have heard that once your website is built and published online, you will need to make frequent changes and updates to keep it fresh and worth revisiting. Making frequent changes to your website will also help to increase it’s ranking online as each time that you change your website, the search engine crawlers automatically crawl the website.

Posting newsletters and creating blogs and putting announcements on your home page can take loads of time and effort especially if your are not versed in the platforms and now face a learning curve. Many WordPress companies will have you thinking that managing your website is not time consuming. However, it really is and can become a frustration for the business owner juggling more than enough as it is.

It may be more cost effective to hire a company to take care of the necessary changes and additions to your website while you run your business. Your changes and additions will have a professional appearance that you can be proud of as well.

Small Biz Express offers this service to our customers starting at just $49.00 a month. Our busy customers are very happy knowing that all they need to do is submit their request and within 48 to 72 hours, the changes and additions are completed.

Posted in Blog |

So, now what? Plain language for the small business owner with a website.

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

Many small business owners feel that once their new beautiful website is published on the internet, the world will come to their door. Unfortunately that is far from the reality that is the internet. As a small business owner you are far too busy to research and understand why it is that your website appears on page 50 in Google after you spent all that time and money putting a lovely site together.

Small Biz Express naturally optimizes every website that we development including the keywords in both the body of the site as well as the titles and build a site map for further drawing traffic to your website. That said, where you appear when a user performs a search for your products and/or services really depends on what your competition is doing to get ahead of you online.

Publishing a website on the internet can be like hanging a sign in front of your store that is located down a dark alley. Therefore, you really should be prepared to spend some of your marketing dollars on internet marketing to be sure that your website is getting the visibility you need to be sure your business is successful online. The dollars that would have formerly gone to direct mail and newspapers advertising can now be utilized to funnel traffic to your website through such methods as paid search, large scale search engine optimization and email marketing.

Don’t rely completely on the internet for your marketing. Do get your business cards made with your website address and email clearly appearing on them. Tell everyone you can think of that you have a new website. Get involved in some organizations for networking where you can drive traffic to your website.

Posted in Blog |

The Small Business Owners Website Design Keep it Simple

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

Many Small Business owners have done some research before deciding on a design for their website. Often the choice is based on aesthetics. There are some very beautifully created websites that while quite eye-catching, lack functionality and can sabotage the business owner’s purpose.

Your home page needs to speak volumes about your business in the most efficient way possible. The most important aspects of a home page are these three key components: 1. A professionally created page 2. All of your services in clear bullet points 3. Clearly located tabs to your other pages including a prominent ‘Contact’ tab.

Posted in Blog |

Small Business Owners and Website Design: The two don’t mix

Monday, May 17th, 2010

Only a third of small business owners have a website. It was this data that propelled us to start Small Biz Express focusing on inexpensive website design and online marketing. We spoke to several business owners and found that the barriers were

No web education: Business owners thought that website design was all “techy”

Expensive: Professional website design through a local agency can be expensive

As we launched, we expected most of our customers to be business owners without a web site. Surprise! Almost half our customers had attempted some sort of website design. Many of these sites did not look professional. So they ended up coming to us.

Players in the industry have attempted to make website design easy through templates and other tools. But there are a number of skills that one needs:

- Website Design skills: Even with templates, business owners try to change the color to meld with the logo or change the layout around. Website Design is ?design?- there is art involved and web designers spend years learning it.

- Copy writing skills: Most business owners we know hate writing copy. We started our website design business trying to get business owners give us copy and soon realized that we would not launch anything if we waited for them to write the copy. Our standard website design process now involves an interview ?with owners for 20 minutes and have copywriters write the copy

- Technical skills: To use the internet for business, you need some tools that will make it useful for the clients or even for yourself. For example, as a part of all the small business website design packages, Small Biz Express routinely offers an application called “Refer a friend”which will help customers refer your business to their friends and let you know so that you can thank the referees (verbally or in form of a discount). Our photographer website design packages offer the ability for photographers to post pictures (with watermarks) and enable customers to order them online. To make website design business centric with applications requires some technical skills.

As much as players are trying to push the ‘do it yourself’ website design, most businesses are better off using professionals. At $25 per hour, Small Biz Express actually charges less for website design than what your local handyman does and we know there are others (free lancers mostly) who are as good and as cheap.

Here is a website of a restaurant in New York City we recently launched and I think it is apparent that having a professional,design and develop a website makes a difference.

Posted in Blog |

Four ways to deal with falling sales

Monday, May 17th, 2010

Economic conditions have been brutal. Almost every small business and small business owner I know has been dealing with sales far lower than expectations.

NFIB released their monthly survey this past Tuesday which showed some interesting results. Actual sales changes,which is net percent of small business owners with higher sales, minus small business owners with lower sales, the last three months compared to prior three months is at -34%. This is the worst ever score since NFIB started doing this monthly survey since 1986.

So if you are a small business owner seeing falling sales you have a lot of company. As an online marketing company we get asked by small business owners on how we can help. Unfortunately there is no magic wand. Here is what some of what we’ve done.

There are four options:

  1. Lie low and tide it out: Don’t make dramatic changes. Keep up the good customer relationships you always and stick to the knitting. This shall pass. Look at low cost options that can help build the relationships further. Maybe this is the time to create that online newsletter that you always wanted to do. An e-mail newsletter to your customer is not expensive. We do some work with customers there and the costs are end to end including copywriting are less than $150.
  2. Cut costs aggressively: Survival is the key. People are predicting an imminent turnaround of the economy. But timing a recovery is difficult and you need to first remain in business to take advantage of the predicted eventual recovery. We’ve looked at this aggressively in our company. Internet has been very helpful in looking at deals for everything. In fact, we’ve done so much of it that we’ve decided to use our own research to create a new site called SmallBizExtras.com where we list all the savings we see- which brings us to the next point.
  3. Growing through new products and services: There are services that you can add on to the business at very low cost. You may be 90% there and then just need to add a few bells and whistles to get extra revenue. SmallBizExtras is a prime example. We are already scouring the internet very heavily looking for deals. Using internal resources and very little cost, we are creating a small business savings website – SmallBizExtras.com which will help other business owners and generate some revenues.
  4. Growing through new markets: While the market here in the US has been hit hard, elsewhere things are not as bad. There are markets like India and China that are growing, albeit more slowly. So if you can look at a low cost entry into these markets, this may be the time. Online marketing helps you offer your products across the globe. We’ve done the same launching SBXi.com as a site to offer services in India.

So this is what we’ve done. We will lay no claim to spectacular success except that we are not giving up and doing something about dealing with the economy.

Posted in Blog |

Lawyer Web Design

Monday, May 17th, 2010

Our first attorney who was an expert in company law did not have a website. He had started on his web design but was not quite sure what to do with it. He through having a static web design was pass and was not sure what he could add regularly to his website. As we started working on lawyer web design packages at Small Biz Express, we’ve had this question come up often

Small Biz Express takes a different approach to web design for lawyers. To us, web design is always the last step in the process. Business needs come first. Here are three strong business reasons why we think lawyers need a website

Better conversion of referral business

Like most small businesses, lawyers get a bulk of their customers through referrals. These prospects will look up the referred lawyer up Google, look at the website and then decide on contacting the lawyer. The easier it is to access the information, the more likely the person will get to the lawyer. So having a site that is optimized so that your website comes up when someone searches your name on Google is really a must. Small Biz Express as a part of lawyer web design package with do submissions to Google and other search engines to ensure that this happens.

Managing Customer relationships

Instead of emailing large files back and forth, internet can be a great tool to manage documents. Small Biz Express as a part of the lawyer web design package offers a file share system that enables the lawyer and client to share documents. The client can access the folder and just deposit the documents. The lawyer gets an alert email. Different clients? documents are in separate folders with secure access. Our lawyer clients love this aspect of our lawyer web design package.

Underlining your expertise

Your website gives you the opportunity to demonstrate your expertise by posting your views. You could also have prospects ask questions and answer some questions to build engagement with your audience.

In this era where everyone is online, lawyers can ill afford not to invest in a website for themselves. But rather than getting a website for the sake of it, get a web design that meets your core business needs as a lawyer.

Posted in Blog |

Small Business Web Design: Cracking the code!

Monday, May 17th, 2010

Fact1: Consumer usage of internet is growing dramatically.

Fact 2: Small businesses are woefully under- penetrated in using the internet.

These are the two simple facts that drove us to launch Small Biz Express focusing on small business web design services.

Small Business website design has been a tough nut to crack. The approach that we saw most providers of small business web design take was “do it yourself” model and assume that small business owners would design their own websites based on templates. We spoke to many business owners, realized that this was far from reality and launched the “do it for you” small business web design model where Small Biz Express takes care of all aspects of website design.

Since then, we’ve realized that the tough part about small business web design is getting the price-service equation right. Small businesses do not want to spend a lot of money on web design. There are lots of players, the services get confusing and so price is one parameter that business owners use to decide on their web design provider.

On the other hand, you get what you pay for. So even among our competitors in the low cost “Do it for you” small business web design business, there are severe restrictions on how much you can change things. The problem with this approach has been that many business owners are dissatisfied with their website, never really own it in their minds and end up shutting it as soon as things become a little tough and they are looking for expenses to reduce.

SmallBiz Express take on small business web design was to use pre-existing designs as starting point and then make whatever changes business owners wanted. We would be lying if we said this process of small business website design is a profitable practice. It has afforded us a lot of learning but spending many weeks for a $399 small business web design project gets to be very unprofitable.

But we’ve learnt from this approach to website design. We think the industry of small business web design has focused on ‘web design’ and less on ‘small business’ and what the web can do for them. Folks in the website design industry understand websites and technology more and the business itself less. Small Biz Express learning has been to focus on the business. We increasingly are coming to understand that focus on just small business web design is focusing on the skin. Web design for small businesses needs to focus on functionality- on what services and sales support the website can help small business owners deliver to their customers.

So we get into building functionality that really helps business owners as a core part of small business web design. But how do we then keep the costs low? We have been working hard at it. One answer is re-use of functionality. Small Biz Express builds one application and then rolls it out among many business owners to reduce costs. What about differing needs of differing business owners? Small Biz Express is trying to address this through functionality based on different vertical segments.

Posted in Blog |

E-Mail Marketing- the less understood side of small business online marketing

Monday, May 17th, 2010

E-Mail is an application is the most used internet application. There are claims that messaging beats email but in terms of breadth of usage, there is no application that beats email. It is easily understood because of a strong parallel in the offline world which has now almost vanished snail mail or regular mail. That unfortunately also impacts email marketing.

Small Businesses understand direct mail. They receive lots and lots of it. They also use it at some point of time or the other. So online marketing immediately translates to e-mail marketing. And that is where small business owners start going wrong.

There are important differences between direct mail marketing and e-mail marketing. Here are the three most important differences:

Use of lists: It is a common practice in direct mail marketing to buy a list of names and start mailing these folks. With email, the practice is illegal. CAN SPAM laws dictate that you can only email to extend a relationship not spam people. What about all the spam you receive. Much of this junk is generated by folks with servers outside the US and therefore is difficult for the authorities to prosecute

So email marketing required a lot of preparation for setting up sources of emails. Collect emails through newsletters, So the next question that small business owners often ask is where can they get an email list?

Posted in Blog |

Small business SEO Services: Important but underutilized!

Monday, May 17th, 2010

Most people navigate the internet through Search Engines. Even when someone knows the domain name, they type the domain name into Google. So one would assume that small business owners invest as much time into Search Engine Optimization services (SEO services) as they do into website design.

The reality is different. Use of small business SEO Services is highly underutilized. Most small business owners getting a web presence spend a lot of time on website design. But among thousands of sites that get launched, we see very few small business owners who start using search engine optimization services.

The reason is twofold-

Fatigue: Website design project is exhausting enough for most small business owners. Once they are done with it, most business owners want to see how the website helps them before starting off using SEO services.

Complexity: While website design can be difficult, SEO services are a lot more complex for small business owners to understand. So the idea is to get the site out there and see how the website performs without using any SEO services is even more appealing.

This approach to SEO services is self defeating. Without any search engine optimization, the only visitors to the site are those typing the domain name in. So the investment in website design is wasted for want of investment into SEO services.

At Small Biz Express, our website design packages come with some basic SEO services. We ensure that the pages have the right titles and tags to make the pages SEO friendly during the website design process. The basic SEO services offered as a part of website design packages also include submission to the top search engines.

Our regular SEO services are a lot more robust and are focused on getting our client’s pages in the top ranks of Google. And as a part of small business SEO services packages, we have now even launched a results based SEO package, where our compensation is tied to website showing up high on Google rankings.

Apart from Small Biz Express, there are many other providers of small business SEO services – business owners would do well to do a comparison and use the player that best meets their needs.

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