All too often I meet with very sharp small business owners that do all the things you would expect when it comes to building a successful small business. These business owners are developing strategic relationships, monitoring their sales and marketing goals, keeping tabs on expenses and ensuring that forecasted cash flow is going to meet expected demands. While this list could go on, I am sure you get the point.

Why is it that these same business owners seem to disconnect their brain when it comes to their website design, performance and overall role in the business?

Why is it that many of these business owners fail to understand that their website presence is a very real and viable source of new prospects, sales and business opportunities?

There are countless small businesses that have a website presence that is nothing more than a destination driven marketing tool. To make things worse it doesn’t even fill that role when the sales team is actually in the physical presence of a prospect, because at that time they are handing them a brochure. Please don’t take that last statement out of context as I am a huge proponent of having printed materials to pass on to prospects, clients, and especially referral partners.

However, my point with regards to the above statement is that other than company employees, the only traffic that many small business websites receive is simply because the site visitor was prompted to visit the site because of some type of direct contact.

In my world that is a pretty sad statement.

Why is it that more small business owners are not outraged at the fact that their website is not actually creating new business for them? When did it become acceptable that, a primary channel for new prospects and business, perform so poorly, if at all?

In the above scenario, the company website has become little more than an electronic version of their company brochure. The website link is passed on to prospects through emails, over the phone, through a business card and/or included in other marketing materials. From a convenience point of view that is great because even when it is not possible to meet in person a new prospect can get an idea of what your company is about, details on products/servers, and maybe even put a face to a name.

The real power in a small business website shows when that company acquires a new customer that was not first contacted through the sales and marketing efforts. Now you are answering the phone to find that you have a new prospect calling you to ask about your products and services. Better yet, you may have a new client walking in your door asking to make a purchase. And saving the best for last, you are receiving commissions or revenue via your website, never having spoken to this new customer.

Let me ask the question that I started with; what kind of website does your business have?

The difference in the two scenarios that I have described above is the difference in a website that is nothing more than a destination website verses a website that is attracting new prospects. So, the real decision you have to make is do you want an attraction website or a destination website.

The great part about this entire subject is that you get to make the choice. Yes, it is your choice!

The difference between the two websites is very simple.

Destination website (Online Electronic version of your marketing materials):

- Make the decision regarding what information you are willing to share via your website.

- Get a designer that can and will ensure that your website design matches your branding.

- Launch the site and send prospects, referral partners and clients to the site whenever required.

- At this point you’re pretty much done.

Attraction website (A sales/marketing tool that works for your company 24×7):

- Take the above steps and ensure that your site is Search Engine Optimized.

- Install Google Analytics to enable you to monitor your website performance.

- Keep your website content fresh and updated.

- Initiate a company Newsletter that is closely integrated into your website.

- Make adjustments, enhancements to your site based on performance data.

Before leaving the above comparison, let me state that these lists are in no way comprehensive and could have countless variations based on a company’s needs.

As you can see from the comparison above the website that is going to generate new prospects, revenue and business opportunities, is not a website that you publish and forget. For many small business owners the additional time and effort required to have a website that plays an important role in your overall business growth is simply not that challenging.

How many new clients per month and in some cases per year would it take for your website to have a significant impact on your bottom line?

Your prospects are online and in many cases searching for exactly what you are offering. If you are not going to make the effort the position yourself such that they can find your business website, your competition will. For many small businesses the amount of new business that they are losing because of the poor performance of their website, could easily equal their current revenue.

To Your Success!

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Closely related to my last article on search engine optimization, “Search Engine Optimization, Keywords, Meta Tags & the quick fix”, strategies to increase blog traffic is a very popular topic when talking with clients and colleagues.

If you have a blog, have thought about blogging or wondered if blogging is right for you then this is the article for you. With that said, let me set the stage before diving in.

The amount of content that could be written about blogging, driving traffic to your blog and any topic that you may think of related to blogging would fill countless books. Needless to say my goal here is to to cover what I consider some of the most important strategies you will want to consider. If after reading you have some other words of wisdom that you can share I would highly encourage your comments.

Hosting Your Blog
One of the biggest mistakes that I see made on a regular basis is the simple decision with regards to hosting of your blog. Hosting your blog on your own domain with your primary website will search engine rankings, trust, links, publicity and ultimately your business. All too often I see sharp business owners that decide to host their blog on a hosted solution like Blogspot, Blogger, Blog.com or WordPress.com. This is the worst decision that you can make.

While there are a number of blogging software solutions that you can choose from, WordPress is by far my favorite. WordPress is easy to install, has a very well documented system for creating your own custom design, there are countless templates to choose from and WordPress is highly extensible.

Continually Monitor Your Analytics
Visitor tracking software like Google Analytics will tell you which posts your audience likes best, which posts aren’t being viewed and ultimately how your visitors are finding you on the search engines.

Additionally, you will want to know the average number of pages viewed, the time spent on your site, where your best quality visitors are coming from and the list goes on. Google Analytics and all that is provides is worth a lot more space than I have here, so come back soon as I will spend the time to give you the additional information that you will need.

An often overlook strategy is that by watching your analytics you identify posts that get search traffic for keywords that are not necessarily used very effectively in your post, paragraph titles, post title or tags. When these posts are generating large amounts of traffic for these keywords, this presents an opportunity for you to spend a few minutes updating the post to make more effective use of these keywords. Think about it this way: Your post is generating good traffic without having been optimized for these keywords and with a little time spent on search engine optimization you can significantly improve your traffic.

Tag Your Content
Tagging content is very valuable when it comes to moving your site toward getting traffic from big sites like Reddit, Digg & StumbleUpon. While it is not smart  to submit every post that you create to these sites learning how to properly make use of this strategy can be huge when it comes to generating traffic to your site. Technorati is a great place where you can begin tagging posts. There are a large number of people that would recommend having the tags right on your page, pointing to the Technorati searches that you’re targeting. Some of the other sites that you will want to consider are  del.icio.us and Flickr and Blogmarks just to name a few.

Start solving problems
You visitors will become regular readers of your blog when you start providing content that is wanted, needed and highly valued. The majority of your readers are going to be reading your blog to find answers to problems they are having, genuinely search out new information about their chosen profession/hobby, are searching for additional training on a particular subject or pure entertainment. As such avoiding off-topic posts like what your pet cat is up to today, will go a long way towards building repeat traffic and the great part is that it doesn’t take any extra time on your part. Time spent writing is time spent writing, so use your time effectively.

Effective Linking
There are a couple of different topics to cover here with linking. Creating smart and effective links between various posts within you site can create a number of benefits. By linking from some of your less viewed posts, with keywords as anchor text, to your more popular posts you can actually increase your overall site ranking on Google for those keywords. Additionally, you give your readers a reason to spend more time on your site thereby increasing the average time spent on your site by your visitors.

Secondly, when linking out of your blog posts to other sites be sure that you are aware how these links serve to improve the content of your post. You don’t necessarily need to link out from every post that you create. However, I personally tend to be overly generous with especially when I know that there are good quality articles posted by other bloggers that will be of benefit to my readers. By all means if you chose to quote, mention or otherwise make use of other online resources it is considered rude to not provide a link to their work.

In closing remember to host your blog on your primary domain, spend the time required to leverage the information provided by your analytics, make use of effective linking, content tagging and always strive to solve problems for your readers. None of the things that I have mentioned here can be considered the magic bullet that is going to make your site an over night sensation, but used consistently over time your site will pull in large amounts of consistent traffic.

Have some great tips that you use to build traffic on your blog, please take a moment to share by leaving a comment.

Have a question that you need some help with? Please let me know by leaving a comment.

If you like what I have shared here, please take a moment to pass along via your favorite social media site. Your participation is GREATLY appreciated.

To Your Success!

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Inevitably one of the first things that comes up in discussion when talking to a prospect regarding their website, their website traffic (or lack of) and search engine optimization is Meta Tags. Unfortunately, if that is all there was to this daunting task of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) then my guess is that they would not be talking to me.

With major search engines such as Google, their database basically houses every page on the Internet that they know about. Furthermore, considering the fact that every website owner has their own agenda the major search engines like Google can’t simply trust that the Meta Tags of any give site are a objective representation of the content of that site. In short search engines like Google are primarily interested in having pages that are most relevant to any given keyword show up in their search results regardless of who may own that site.

Secondly Search Engine Optimization is not something that ever stops – Never! That is correct if you expect that your site will dive any substantial amount of traffic on a continual basis, then the task of Search Engine Optimization will never cease.  While it is often approached as a quick fix you should approach your search engine optimization as a long-term investment for your site.

Here are some things to consider:

* Make sure your Title tags, Meta Tags, Link anchor text and Alt tags all match with the visible content of the page.

* Ensure that your site is overly graphics based, as graphics cannot be read by the search engines. A common mistake that I see is a website that has been created with graphics that are nothing more than a graphical representation of text.

*Pay close attention to the keyword density of your website and be certain that you use clearly understood language and phrases that will get your website ranked well with the search engines.

* Thoroughly researched keywords and keyword phrases are worth their weight in gold and the key to Search Engine Optimization.

*Monitor your Analytics on an ongoing basis to understand what is working, what’s not working, where your traffic is coming from, how they found your website, your bounce rate, conversion rates and all that tells you if what you are doing is paying off.

* Be patient! More often than not it is going to be a good 9 months before you start seeing substantial traffic from Google’s organic search results.

Think about the simple fact that there are literally thousands upon thousands of new sites added to the internet on a daily basis. On the flip side of that coin there are literally thousands of websites that cease to exist on a daily basis. Then we have to contend with the fact that there is countless amounts of new information added to the internet each day. As a direct result of this activity the search engines like Google are constantly updating their databases and you guessed it: They are ordering that data in searches according to relevance.

The Importance of Keywords
Take a moment to think about the importance of keywords for example. There will always be new keywords and niches for you to find, optimize for and or monetize. Your SEO strategy should focus on and prioritize for the most lucrative target keywords for your website, products and services. However, with an active SEO strategy you will be continually making adjustments in your priorities based on factors such as: response rates, marketing material, prices, product ranges, stock levels and industry changes. With each shift in priority you will need to complete additional keyword research to find appropriate target keywords.

How about those all important Back Links?
First and foremost if you are hung up on link popularity – STOP. Let’s take a novel approach to this subject and think about your target audience and what it is going to take to get them to your site. What we are talking about here is really nothing more than good old fashion marketing – plain and simple. You have a business that you happen to be marketing via the internet and your website. Additionally, we are going to assume that you are better than your competition, but it needs to be marketed and yes that may cost money.

If you have been sold on the idea of simply obtaining back links to your website for the explicit purpose of SEO, then you are approaching the task from the wrong angle. While an effective Search Engine Strategy is going to take some time to work there are a number of things that can be done to drive traffic while your SEO has time to take effect. Today more and more Social Media (blogging, Twitter, Facebook, Forums, etc) websites are playing a more prominent role in driving traffic. However, don’t forget the tried and true methods of newspaper, magazine, TV ads and other forms of advertising that mention your website.

End the end, the more visibility that can be created for your website, the more traffic your site will receive. With the correct planning and traffic being driven from sources where your target market can be found the better the quality of traffic, the lower your bounce rate will be and the higher your conversion rate.

Don’t forget that even PPC ads such as those offered by Google can help, because they put your site in front of people looking for what you offer. The primary objective is to get your website in front of your target market as often as you can, but regardless of how you market your site, don’t expect your website to become an overnight sensation.

A Quick Note on Social Media
There is little doubt that Social media marketing (SMM) on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Stumbleupon and Digg has exploded in the past year. But what exactly is it? And what’s in it for you? How does it work?

Here is an example of what can happen:
Someone making use of a social media discovers your story, likes it and then decide to share with their friends.  This simple act can cause your story and your site to ‘go viral’ and be shared with even more people. This is how sites will quickly receive hundreds of thousands of visitors, countless inbound links and launch a website or new product overnight.  Those inbound links will directly bring your site visits and indirectly help your SEO.

If you are planning to use social media marketing the overall quality of your content is critical, the better your content the more likely the chances of it being passed along.  However, please keep in mind that even the most brilliant content will need a push to get going, the bigger your network on these social media sites the better. You really need your network to help you give your content that initial push, thereby increasing the odds of your content going viral. Please, Please, Please remember that people do not want to be sold to, and that your initial social media marketing should be more of a conversation than the sale.

What has been your experience with Search Engine Optimization?
Having success with Social Media Marketing, take time to share with us what is working for you.

To Your Success!

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As it is so readily pointed out by Google “Local customers already search Google for the products and services you offer”, so I often wonder why more small business owners don’t leverage the revenue generating power of these listings. Have you created your business listing so that your customers and more importantly prospective customers are sure to be able to find you?

If not take a few moments to read on to find out just how much business you may be missing out on.

First of all let’s define Google Local Business Listings and how they are different from your typical organic search listings. Google Local Business Listings are different than organic or pay-per-click listings and typically only show up when the user types a service oriented business followed by the city for their search. At this point a Google Maps appears alongside up to ten URLs with a phone number by each.

For those that need more than ten listings you have the option to click the “More Results“ option and you’ll be taken to a map with alphabetically lettered red pegs for each register business on Google Maps. There is no secret that being listed on Google Maps and/or Google’s Local Business Listings is becoming even more important since they are being displayed more often in searches with up to ten listings even before the organic listings start.

There are a number of very simple steps that can be taken by the small business owner and entrepreneur to get additional traffic to their website and new prospects buying products:

Be sure to get free listings in as many local directory websites as possible. I very rarely recommend setting up reciprocating links as they often provide little to no value or paying for links in directories. However, if there are local directories that are offering nonreciprocal link options that are free you should definitely take advantage of the listing.

Always include your phone number whenever you write a description of your company on a third party website. Research suggests that Google may use your phone number to improve your local business listing rankings, similar to the way they use links for improving your traditional organic search engine rankings. For those of you using WordPress for your website updates like this are very easy.

Make sure your local business listing is complete. For instance, include pictures, videos, coupons, a full description dense with keywords, be sure to select the appropriate categories for your business, etc, etc.

Use keywords in your local business listing description and make it as long as Google allows.

If you have local competitors that are ranking well with the Google Local Business listings take the time to look at their local business listings.

A very important and often overlooked piece to the overall puzzle is having customer reviews associated with your Google Local Business listing. So, how do you go about getting customer reviews? Simply add a link from your homepage to the listing and encourage current customers or website visitors to review your company. You cannot have too many customer reviews!

As for your website, be sure to include your business name in your title tags, description and throughout your website. With WordPress you can accomplish this very easily in a number of ways depending on your installation and plugins available to you.

Additionally, you will want to ensure the following items are covered by on your website:

*Include your address and phone number on every page of your website. Often the bottom of every page is a great location to do so.

*Include your city and state in your website’s content, titles, descriptions and/or page headers.

*Do some searches on Google to find out which phrases local business listings show up for, and optimize your site for those phrases.

When mastered, local business search engine optimization has the potential to be very lucrative, generating large amounts of targeted traffic, within a short amount of time. Please feel free to comment with more tips and resources.

Have more questions? Leave me a comment and I will do my best to help.

If you found this helpful please pass it along…..Thanks

To Your Success!

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