Small Business Design Resources

How To List Your Business Website in More Places

If you read my recent post on understanding and improving the Google PageRank for your small business website, you know a bit about the importance of inbound links. In addition to improving your search engine rankings, having your business website listed on many websites simply ups the odds that customers will find you. Here are a few ways you can get your website address out there on the Internet:

Claim your search engine listings. Google, Yahoo, and other search engines allow business owners to claim their listings. This allows you to make sure your website address is listed and control the way the search engines index your business. You can use www.getlisted.org to see how your business has been indexed by the top search engines and find out which listings you haven’t yet claimed.

Submit your website to business directories. There are many business directories on the Internet besides those operated by the major search engines. Major national business directories include InfoUSA and YP.com; you can check out GetListed’s Resource Center or do an Internet search to find a number of other good directory options. Many directories will list your business and website information for free. Also look for local and industry business directories that might more directly target your audience, such as the local chamber of commerce or your trade association.

Make your website address part of your signature. Whenever you sign your name on the Internet, also include the address of your small business website. Many places offer the option to create a custom signature–from member-based websites to your own email–and you should always include your website address.

Comment in online forums. As a business owner, it’s always a good idea for you to stay active in your industry’s online conversations. Find online forums that are relevant to your business and take part in the discussions, making sure to leave your calling card—your website address—behind.

Build social networking profiles. Social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn all have places for you to enter your business website. Link your profiles to your website, your website to your profiles, and even your profiles to each other.

Try article marketing. Write about topics relevant to your website and publish them on the Internet, with a link back to your website in the “about the author” section. Learn more about how to promote your website with article marketing and consider giving it a try.

Promote Your Website With Article Marketing

Small business owners have been using article marketing for decades, but the Internet and new Web 2.0 sites have really increased its potential and popularity. The principle behind article marketing is pretty simple: the idea is to promote your business and website by writing articles to be published as free content on other Internet sites. These articles promote your business by including a link back to your website and a brief bio about you and your business. Writing quality articles and submitting them for publication on other sites is an investment of your time, but one that can have real benefits for your small business website.

Benefits of Article Marketing

• Publishing articles on other websites will help you reach a broader audience—the more information you have on the Internet, the more likely it is that your target audience will find you.
• Writing high-quality articles related to your business is a great way to establish yourself as an expert in your field. People searching for information on the topic will read your articles and see that you know what you’re talking about, which will encourage them to check out your website for more information.
• Readers will come away from your articles with a positive impression of you and your business, since you’re providing them with useful and free information.
• Every article you write and publish will have a link back to your site, providing you with valuable backlinks that may improve your search engine ranking. Keep in mind that search engines like Google take into account the quality of the sites linking to yours; for this reason, try not to sacrifice quality for quantity. It’s probably to your advantage to focus on writing well-written and informative articles that high-quality sites will be happy to publish, even if this means you’ll end up with fewer articles overall.

Be Careful of Duplicate Content
Duplicate content is large blocks of text from different webpages that are identical or extremely similar. Google can penalize you for providing duplicate content by lowering your search ranking or completely removing your site from the Google index. These duplicate content penalties are part of Google’s effort to provide useful search results—they don’t want every search result to have basically the same content.

Duplicate content only results in penalties if Google believes your intent was to manipulate search rankings or deceive users. Submitting the same article for publication on multiple sites in order to promote your own website can be seen by Google as deception and result in penalties. Article marketing can be very effective in boosting your search rankings and increasing traffic to your small business website, but make sure to avoid duplicate content to ensure that your efforts don’t backfire.

Choosing the Best Web Hosting Provider

In order to publish your small business website to the Internet, you’ll need to choose a web hosting provider. There are many web hosts to choose from, with prices ranging from free ad-based hosting to expensive monthly fees. Choosing a provider can seem a bit overwhelming, but if you start by figuring out what you need to run the website you want, you’ll be able to evaluate different web hosts much more easily. We use Startlogic.com, which offers us exactly what we need to host Design Leap.

Think of choosing a web hosting provider for your website as choosing a hotel to stay at on vacation. Your website has to stay somewhere in order to have access to the Internet, but some hotels will be a better fit than others. Do you really need a huge suite with a minibar and 24 hour room service? Or will a single room and a continental breakfast serve your needs just fine?

One of the most important factors to consider is web space–most web hosts provide you with a set amount of space on their server. You’ll want to be sure you get enough space for your business website as it is now, as well as consider whether you might need more space for future expansion. Keep in mind that things like images, video, and Flash take up a lot of space.

Bandwidth or data transfer is another factor to consider. Bandwidth refers to the amount of information your website sends across the network every month. Every time your site is viewed, it uses bandwidth. When choosing a web hosting provider, you’ll want to make sure they provide enough bandwidth to cover the number of visitors you expect. Also check whether the web host charges fees for going over your monthly bandwidth–some advertise “unlimited bandwidth” but actually do have restrictions. How much bandwidth you need varies depending on the amount of traffic you expect.

In addition to these basic factors, there are many additional things offered by web hosting providers that you may or may not want:

• Domain registration/setup–Does the web hosting package come with domain registration and setup included? Many offer it for free as part of choosing their services, which is a great freebie if you need it (you don’t if you’ve already registered your domain name somewhere else).
• Email accounts–You’ll probably want to be able to create an email account for every employee, but most small businesses won’t need the ability to create 100 different email accounts.
• FTP access–FTP is usually the easiest way to upload new pages to your website.
• Programs and scripts–Interactive websites often require databases and the ability to use scripts like PHP. As with emails, you probably won’t need a huge number of databases; you can do a lot with just one.
• SSL (secure server)–If you plan to have an online store, you’ll want to provide a secure server for your customers. If you don’t plan to collect credit card payments through your website, a secure server probably isn’t necessary.

As you’re trying to choose a web hosting provider, remember to look critically at the services they offer. A great hosting package for one small business website may not be the best choice for another–it all varies depending on factors like what you plan to do with your site, how much traffic you expect, and how large your business is. Don’t be swayed by the promise of “unlimited” amounts of things you only need 5 of, and make sure the provider offers the important things you need to run your site.

5 Tips on How to Stand Out Among the Competition

Every business small or large has competitors and yours no doubt has them. Read my 5 tips on How to Stand Out Among the Competition in my post on The Entrepreneur Connection.

Targeting Local Traffic

The Internet is truly a global phenomenon, allowing you to connect with customers all over the world. With a business website, you aren’t limited to local traffic the way you are with only a brick-and-mortar location. That is a huge business advantage, but it can leave you wondering how to build your local presence on such a global platform. Luckily, there are several excellent resources available to help you target local traffic.

Yelp.com is a website where customers can search for local businesses and leave reviews of their experiences, and it also offers a number of free tools for small business owners. If you haven’t already, check Yelp to see if your business is listed; if it isn’t, you can list it for free. If it is listed, claim your page to take advantage of all that Yelp.com offers small business owners: communicate with your customers by responding to their reviews, promote discounts and special events, check the amount of traffic your Yelp business page receives, recommend other businesses, and provide detailed information about your business–including your website address. With more than 26 million visitors in December 2009, Yelp.com is a great way to connect with local traffic.

Google’s Local Business Center offers small business owners the opportunity to customize their listing on Google and Google Maps, with options like adding pictures, coupons, business hours, and more. You can also see behind-the-scenes information to find out things like who’s searching for you and what search terms they’re using to find you. You can even see where driving directions requests originate, so you will know where your visitors are coming from and whether you’re targeting local traffic.

The social networking phenomenon Twitter is another way to stay connected with your local customers, and Twitter is beginning to cater to small business owners. It’s a quick and immediate way to communicate with customers, see what people are saying about your business, and build relationships with customers and other businesses. Put a Twitter badge on your website and begin following local individuals and businesses, and before you know it you’ll have followers of your own. One of the really cool things about Twitter is that your conversations with customers are publicly visible and searchable, meaning they often attract attention from other Twitterers in the same locale or with similar interests.

Facebook, which began as a social networking site exclusively for college students, has expanded dramatically and now offers great opportunities for small businesses. When you create a free business page on Facebook, anyone can become a fan of your page and suggest that others do the same. You can provide detailed information on your profile (including your website address), post business updates, make photo albums, and converse with your fans. Facebook users can search business pages by location, and many are thrilled when they can become fans of their favorite local businesses. And since their friends can see what businesses they’re fans of, your local exposure increases exponentially with every fan you acquire.

These are four great websites that offer free ways to connect with local customers. They will help you target local traffic, learn about your customers, and provide your small business with a strong local presence even on the global Internet.