SEMbyDesign

September 26, 2008

Developing your Small Business Web Site: 3 things I wish the client understood

Filed under: Building a web site — Tags: , — admin @ 11:01 pm

Business owners: Your web professional wishes you knew these concepts!

Your web site is an extension of your business and should be a part of your marketing plan. So many small business owners don’t put much emphasis on their web site – they just don’t see the benefit, or they don’t know what it can actually do for them. Furthermore, they don’t understand that they probably have more potential traffic than they realize they could get coming from their web site.

The second concept is: If you build a site, you will not automatically get traffic to it. Traffic takes work. This is a form of advertising, and you must be prepared – a budget, a plan, and someone who can leverage both is a great strategy.

The best for last – I complain about this one the most – it probably should have been the first one. CONTENT DOES NOT WRITE ITSELF! ok. nor does it come free if you want your webmaster or designer to write it. It also takes time and research. You can’t give someone a logo and expect an interactive 30 page web site next week.

Now, this post is kind of a rant, but these are legitimate points that you need to consider as you plan your site.

September 19, 2008

You wrote a business plan, but did you write a Marketing Plan?

Filed under: Marketing Your Site,Small Business Issues — Tags: , , , , — admin @ 10:04 am

Most small business owners understand the importance of a business plan (statistics favor the fact that a business has a much better chance of success with a well thought out business plan, by the way). But what about your marketing plan? Have you thought about how you will market your business, and more importantly, have you invested time in putting a plan on paper?

Some important elements to address in your marketing plan: What are the particular aspects of your business to advertise? What kind of budget do you have? When will you advertise – time of day, seasonal, etc? How do you maximize your budget’s reach? What kind of returns on your advertising investment do you anticipate? How do you plan to handle an influx of business from your marketing efforts – do you have enough staff? Where are your ads placed and what demographics do they target? Do you, as the small business owner, have the time to assemble and implement your plan, or do you need help from a professional firm – this could be anything from graphics design to media buying and placement. Most importantly(in my opinion), how do you track your return on your advertising capital?

All these questions must be addressed in order to put together an effective advertising campaign, whether it is an online Google Adwords campaign, or a local television or radio spot. When you think through the possibilities, problems and expenditures, you will likely save yourself a lot of money for the little time that you spend putting together a plan. You should plan for at least a year in advance on most major advertising expenditures and budget for them.

Just as with your business plan, you still must remain flexible – there is a good chance that not all of your campaigns will be successful, but a plan will certainly lessen the risk. Remember – if you fail to plan, you plan to fail!

If you would like a consultation, my team can put together a marketing plan for you – you will be happy you made the investment! Steve at 402.210.3283 in Omaha!

Have fun out there! SEM

September 16, 2008

Small Business Hiring Practices – to use or not to use Myspace as a Reference

Filed under: Small Business Issues — Tags: , , — admin @ 11:10 am

Ok…Again, this post is not exactly on the topic of the blog as a whole – but it does bring to light some issues that small business should be taking into account when they hire and where they get their information.

I was sitting in line today, when I struck up a conversation with the director of IT for a local bank. We got to talking about the social marketing aspects of the net and how they had impacted the business over the years. I asked him, just off the cuff if they had any influence on his department’s hiring practice – ie. did they use Myspace to research potential hires? He said they did not at this time, but the question had come up for the bank as a whole. So, my next question to him was, do you think it is fair to use this information? I mean, is what a person does on the web and in their spare time any indicator of how they might perform their job? This is largely a question to get employers thinking – I think it largely depends on the position and the company, but a crazy/derogatory/or otherwise socially unacceptable social networking page could ultimately reflect poorly on the company, its sales or in some way affect its bottom line. How much? As a small business owner you need to decide this and use the information accordingly when you are hiring.

Now, I am not a lawyer, although I do know a few, and I think that they would agree with me that information on the net is fair game when it comes to hiring practices – bad or good information, for that matter. Hiring managers and Human resources specialists can pipe right up! I would certainly like some input on this topic if you have it.

September 15, 2008

Business as Usual – or do the Unusual

Filed under: Marketing Your Site — Tags: , — admin @ 9:58 am

Marketing is not an exact science, and what works for one business can be dismal for another. It takes a good eye and some experience to put together a great marketing campaign. When I put together a Google Adwords Campaign for someone, I spend a lot of time doing research on what verbiage in the ad, key words and calls to action might work well for them. I also take a look at their landing page to make sure we are sending customers to the exact information that they are searching for. This results in a couple of good things – more effective ads meaning higher conversions, and lower cost ads, meaning the relevance of the ads is high, so I don’t have to bid so high on it to compete in the Adwords structure.

If you would like to put together an online marketing campaign, SEMbyDesign can help – and it doesn’t have to be expensive for you. Give us a call today! In Omaha, 402-210-3283

September 11, 2008

Your Domain Name – the keys to your (online) mansion

Filed under: Marketing Your Site,Traffic Building — Tags: — admin @ 10:50 am

I have talked in the past a bit about the importance of a good domain name, however, this post may even be a bit off subject for this blog. Keeping your domain name in your possession.

Recently, I have taken on 2 new clients who hired someone several years ago to build their site, and then let the site just sit there(a whole other blog post). Long story made short, we are looking at revamping their site, changing servers, etc, and they can’t get to their domain name to make the required changes.

One of the domains has page rank, has been around for a while and is getting very good traffic. We are looking to add ecommerce to it, and the current host can’t do what we need it to do. Getting in to the domain to change the name servers is proving to be a tricky task since the web guy who originally registered the domain for this client is difficult to get ahold of.

Business Owners, you should know that keeping track of your domain is very easy, and if you don’t have control over it, you should do so immediately. If someone besides you has control, you could have a difficult time getting to it the next time you need to, and think of all the items associated with the domain – your advertising, yellow pages, and most importantly, your email address. You don’t want to spend your time having to inform customers and associates of a new domain name – this could result in uncountable lost business.

September 9, 2008

Webmasters – earn money from your web site

Filed under: Marketing Your Site — Tags: — admin @ 8:31 am

Here’s a nice little way to get a monthly deposite in your PayPal account – Ads for your website. How this works is, you apply to post an ad on your website, and once it is reviewed and approved. Once you are approved, you can add urls for other sites, the company www.freebies4webmasters.co.uk pays you for each accepted url. Give it a try – you will be happy you did! This is a good way to add a little value to your blog or other site that you are having difficulty monetizing.

September 3, 2008

Valuable WordPress Manual for Newbies

Filed under: Building a web site,Content Development — Tags: , — admin @ 10:55 am

So you want to start a blog – perhaps I have recommended one for search engine optimization, perhaps you want to do it yourself, or you are not sure where to begin. Certainly I recommend WordPress, whether I set it up, or you want to do it yourself, for several reasons. One is that it is pretty good with the search engines, and it is relatively easy to customize and update.

One of my customers decided that they wanted to attempt it themselves so I recommended this e-book, Sites that Soar, an ebook — written by an artist. Written by Aisling D’Art – it makes the task of setting up, configuring, and customizing a new wordpress website less intimidating.

If you have problems you can always hire me! I love to help make your ideas come to life on the web!

September 2, 2008

Google Adwords and your business

Filed under: Marketing Your Site — admin @ 10:22 am

Google adwords is a great low-cost way to begin marketing your business on line. I have been using the Google platform for a little over a year now, and find that most small businesses could use it effectively to advertise. Reasons to use Google Ad words – 1. You have a product or service that many people search for or research on the internet before buying; 2. You want to drive traffic to your site in an effort to build brand awareness; 3. You have tried traditional, expensive advertising methods like newspaper or direct mail with limited success.

If you have a service that lots of people research before purchasing, be the authority resource on that topic, and drive people to your site with a targeted ad that displays when these key words are used for a search. This is a great method, because you receive the benefit of the traffic being very targeted in that the visitor is searching for the exact information you are putting in front of them.

By being the authority, you will also benefit from the natural ranking that Google and other search engines give you when you have great content, and you will keep visitors coming back for more if you have excellent information that is updated regularly.

Thanks! If you would like to learn more about the Google adwords program, please feel free to contact me. And, as always please feel free to comment! All comments are dofollow after a user has left 3 or more!

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