Make Your Business Open For Customers

Make sure your business is visible online
and exciting for customers to visit and feel welcome.

It's a source of astonishment to me that so many business owners have not twigged to the fact that their website not being highly visible online and well laid out, means their business is not highly visible and easy for customers to spend money with them.

That was my comment on a recent Smartcompany article that makes the point that your website is your business. 

Let's start at the beginning. We know that businesses have websites now. We can guess that most business owners and managers probably know that a business needs a website. Some may not really believe it ('We only have local customers so it isn't really something we need'.). Some like the idea of having a jazzy website with lots of Flash animation and sound track that blares when you load the page or maybe even a groovy animated video where someone "walks out" and tells you about the business. Unfortunately the reality of this is often that the fancier the website - the less useful it is. The more fancy the website the less visible it may be. The old saying has never been more true than it is for websites. Looks can be deceiving. 

First Job A Website Should Do For Your Business

Your website is effectively your business online. It represents you just the way a shopfront store welcomes customers to your business. 

So the first thing your website should do ... is be visible to customers who might have a need or a want for what you supply. Just like you decorate your shop windows, advertise where you are and what your specials are, your website should do that too. 

Search engine optimization is the way that you set up how your website is configured to allow the best possible positioning that can be achieved in search. To do this requires understand the current ways that search engines work and working within the guidelines to achieve the best result you can, and be as find-able as possible when someone is looking for a business to buy from. This is especially important for local businesses and there are ways to make this more effective. 

Social Media Should Do This For Your Business. 

While search engine optimization is important to get the best result you can on search, the other way that people find your business now is through comments and recommendations and following on Social Media platforms, like Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook and some other specialty sites. 

While you might think your business is not a fit to be on Facebook, that may not be the case. In any event there may be more appropriate sites to use for your business. You won't know what they are unless you are very much involved in social media in order to understand how this works. 

Social media has other benefits over and above getting your business in front of your target market and it is vital to understand the complexities of this new medium and to devise a strategy that lets you harness the advantages that this will give your business. 

Actions:
At the most basic level and before anything else is considered, 

• Ask friends to look for your business online - NOT using your business name. 
• Implement a plan to get your business visible for the right things. 
• Set up alerts to monitor what is being said about your business online

Related
Develop A Strategy For Social Marketing
Check Your Website For Roadworthiness
Think Social Media Is No Use For Your Business? Think Again.
How To Get Your Local Business Noticed Online
Purpose Then Strategy - Case Study Starting Your Website
  Quick And Dirty Business Review



  

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Social Media For Business. Now Open

 Another week and another slew of nonsense has flashed past my eyes.

"I can't use Skype because it changes  my website."

No it doesn't. 

 "I have a local business so I don't need to have a webpage."

Yes you do.

" I am going to this expensive seminar to be a Social Media Superstar! so then I will know what to do online."

No you are going to this expensive seminar because that is a money maker for whoever is running it and it doesn't follow that you will have any idea what to do online when you get back to your business.

"I have a marketing plan ... it's in my head!"

That's not a marketing plan.

"I can't afford a decent website."
 What you pay is no indicator of what is useful when it comes to websites.
 
"My graphic designer does all my SEO"
 Abandon all hope.

 "I'll get my teenage daughter to do a Facebook page for me."
Great idea if you have no interest in your business.

"I don't know why I'd need a blog."
That's a good start.

"I'm a professional so social media is beneath me, *sniff*"
Hold on to your hat. Not all social media is cat photos on Facebook.

If you do want to know how to find your way around online then a seminar isn't going to cut it.  Seminars can be one way to learn about the landscape. It is a dismal way to learn how to expertly present your business online. 

The online world is not hard to learn about but it does take time. It requires a certain level of understanding of how things work online and how your business can fit within that space for best results. And it is a moveable feast. What worked last month may not work next week.   It requires you to know the difference between issues that affect results and issues that are bunkum. Believe me, I have the hours logged to know.

If you would like to learn how to do this stuff in your local business without 'paying the tuition' in hours and hard graft contact me. Here are some details on how you can get on top of this stuff and start having some fun and making it work for your business. Social Media Training For Local Business.

You won't be a Social Media Superstar... but you will know why that phrase and others like it,  should sound a warning bell.



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Your Local Business In Today’s World

It would be nice in a way, to think that time stands still. That what worked in the past will work now and just doing what we always did will keep working for us. Unfortunately whether we like it or not some things change.

Just ask the people who made their business in manufacturing button hooks for lace-up boots that were once the rage. Maybe not since they are long gone, along with the sulky makers and the cars that needed to be hand cranked to get started. Remember audio cassettes and video tapes? Now there was an industry. Replaced by CDs and DVDs and now they are in peril from download.

Some things of course, don’t change. Being well organized in your business will never go out of fashion. Which doesn’t mean being inflexible, but does mean approaching your business with the respect that it deserves. It means taking the right actions for the right reasons. Nourishing the business as necessary, in the form of scheduled marketing, and repeatable quality standards in delivery of services and product, which means good procedures and policies – written down and followed.

Whether you have noticed or not, your market is changing. Your customers are changing and the way they do business, the way they want to do business, has changed. Time is precious for your customers and many of them do their shopping research online.

They want answers when they want them, even if it is 2am and when they look for someone to help them from their plight – whatever it is – they want to be able to find the local business that can help them to do that. If they are looking for something that is in your field, then you bet you want to be there online for them to find, and get all the information they need to satisfy their interest. You want to be found and you want to be sure they have all they need to be able to use your business if they can, to satisfy what is important to them at this time.

Your customers are looking online to find you on Google and guess what? That’s not the only place they are looking now. They are seeking advice from the people around them and online more and more that is the people in their social networks. Need a good mechanic? Ask your network. Need a new accountant or a pool repaired? Social networks, like Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, review sites, you name it, they are checking it out. They are finding who is there, and they are finding who has been recommended... and who has been rubbished for their lack of service.

But you probably know this already. As a business owner, you probably do the same thing yourself. The question now is how are you responding to this change in your market, within your business? What are you doing to meet your customers in the new marketplace? How do you let them find you online and what steps have you actively taken to meet their enquiries and respond to their needs?

The tools are available to help you monitor the word that is out there about your business, and to help you spread the good word about your business. It isn’t something to take lightly and it isn’t something to ignore if you want your business to be flexible and able to prosper in the new economy. Databases for marketing, social media, sms text messages and VOIP, inventory management and advanced point of sale technology, online identity and reputation management, recruiting methods are just some of these new tools.

If you have not taken steps yet to address this side of your business, and how that fits with the overall management of your business, then now is a great time to review your direction and plan for the future that is now.

If you have taken steps to move with the times, please do add your comments and share your thoughts so others in local businesses who may still be struggling with these concepts may learn from your experiences too.


@lindyasimus

Business Planning Now includes Online Business Development



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