Small Business Design Resources

Small Business Website: Should You Use Your Own Name And Photo?

When working on your small business website design, one of the main questions you will need to answer is the question of your website’s identity. Assuming you are a small business, maybe even a one-person-shop, do you disclose this on your site, or do you pretend to be a bigger business than you really are?

This is one area where there are no hard and fast rules, and where either approach can work, so each business should do what feels right to them.

The “Human” Route

Establishing yourself as a small, family-owned business, for example, can have a big advantage when it comes to giving you credibility – especially in social media (which should be an integral part of your marketing campaign). Social media participants typically expect to have conversations – the last thing they want when they access their Twitter account is to find that the people and businesses they follow are trying to sell them stuff.

Now, of course you ARE trying to sell them stuff! You’re a business after all. But the more subtle you are about it, the more you humanize your online presence, the more receptive social media participants will be to accepting you into their networks. The more forthcoming you are about “hey, I’m here to sell,” the less people will be inclined to follow – unless your product is truly one of a kind, awesome and everyone wants it (in which case you’ve made it! Congratulations).

In the above scenario, using your name and photo on your website and in your social media accounts and emphasizing the human side of your business can be a very smart move. One of my clients, for example, chose to say on their website’s “About” page and in their Twitter bio “we are a small, woman-owned business.” This humanizes them and makes it easier for people, and especially for other women, to connect with them.

Of course, you shouldn’t lie about your true identity! If you’re not a woman, then you can’t say “woman-owned” and if you’re not a family-owned business, then you shouldn’t use that line either. But whatever your identity, you can find an angle that would humanize you and make it easier for people to connect with you.

The “Corporate” Route

Another option for small businesses who are trying to establish their online identity is to go corporate – to establish themselves as large (larger than they are), highly professional businesses and to mask the fact that they are in fact small. This approach can and does work, because the risk with the first approach is that people will not take you seriously, while the second approach – if done right – can make it easier for people to trust you as a business, even if they can’t connect with you on a more personal level.

If you choose the second approach, you should avoid using your name and photo on your site and on your social media accounts – use a professionally designed logo instead – and always use the plural form, rather than singular, when talking about yourself.

Conclusion

So, which approach should you choose for your own small business? As I said above, this is completely up to you, since both approaches can work. I would say it probably depends on your space – is your business in a space where being personal and human would result in higher levels of trust, or would a glossy, corporate look and feel create more trust?

Finally, you can certainly combine both approaches, going with a glossy, professional “corporate” look and feel for your website, but humanizing your business by using a name and a real photo on your blog and on your social media accounts.

How YouTube Can Benefit Your Small Business

Why Doesn’t Your Business Have a Website?

I find it surprising that some small businesses still don’t have a website. Typically, small business owners who decide not to have a website say something along the lines of, “My business is very small. It’s just me and three employees. I don’t want to sell my products online. Why do I need a website?”

My answer is always the same: regardless of the size of your business, and whether you plan to sell your products online or not, you do need to have an online presence, or you risk losing potential customers. Here are the four main reasons why even the smallest mom and pop shop should have a website:

Make It Easier To Get More Info About Your Business

Even if you don’t plan to sell online, you should have a presence on the Web so that customers, potential employees and business partners can quickly and easily find out more about your business. These days, when people search for information, the first place they go to is the Internet. More and more research shows that in almost every area, the first step in the decision making process is gathering information online. Not having an online presence will make some potential customers assume that you’re not a serious business and look elsewhere.

Your Competitors Are Online

For many prospects, if they have a choice between two businesses, and one business has a strong online presence with lots of info and the other has no website, they will feel more comfortable doing business with the site that has a website. A website makes a business seem modern, up to date and more accessible. A lack of website conveys the opposite – it makes a business look outdated and less professional.

Your Customers Are Online

This is easy. If your customers and prospects are online, you should be online too, and since these days almost everyone is online, regardless of what you sell or who your customers are, you should have an online presence. The same is true for social media, by the way – you don’t need to be on Twitter if your customers are not using Twitter. But if they are, you should have a regularly updated Twitter account and a prominent link to it from your website’s homepage.

Streamline Customer Service

A website is a great way to provide support for your customers and save yourself valuable time. Your website should include as much information about your business as possible, with the goal of minimizing the volume of phone calls you receive and the time spent on answering phone calls and emails. Include your address, directions, store hours, as much information about your products and services as you can, and answers to the most frequently asked questions you receive.

It’s important to realize that it’s not enough to just have a website. You should have a professionally designed site if you want to be taken seriously. A generic, low-quality website could actually hurt your business instead of promoting it, so it’s better to have no website than to have one that makes your business look bad. Small business website design is probably more affordable than you realize.

Website Critique: Relieve stress with Lavender products

Lavender Dreams 4ever offers Aromatherapy products that help relieve stress and tension. The video website critique of their website www.lavenderdreams4ever.com offers improvements to their homepage and suggestions for the navigation menu among other things that will make a user experience more welcoming.

Overall Improvements

• There should be contact information in a visible location on every page. Best to include a phone number in addition to email so users can trust you better.

• Add relevant images where appropriate to break up the long text.

Homepage

• Create a call-to-action so users can immediately know what to do when they arrive on the website.

• Give more attention to your “Free Sachet give away with every purchase”. Everyone loves free stuff, make sure they know about it.

Products

• Reposition the products navigation menu so it’s easily accessible.

• Restructure how all products are displayed on the main products page. The slider makes it a little hard to tell how many products you have to offer.

Other recommendation

• Add a blog with articles about stress issues and relaxation methods. Having a blog is great to have new content on your website, which search engines love to see.

More website critiques

Of course there are more things to dive deeply into making this site better such as search engine optimization, but this is a whole different subject and will require it’s own review.

If you’re viewing this review and want to add more suggestions, please add your comments below.

Disclaimer

The video website critique and suggestions are for you to review and take what you feel will better your business website. There’s no guarantee that the suggestions mentioned will improve your business. Design Leap is not held responsible for any negative outcome.

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.