How necessary are Twitter & Facebook for my small business website?
/01/10 Filed in: Small business website development
Websites for small business are getting increasingly complex. No longer can your web presence just be a postcard disguised as a website. Your small business website must be socialized, and quickly. You may be able to hold out another year, but not much longer. It can be hard to keep up, it seems like information technologies have sprouted a mind of their own. They're evolving at a warp speed. In America, the technology leads the culture.
Potential clients demand to chat with you. At the very least, they want to get your answer within minutes. They want to sign up for your Tweets and view your Facebook profile. They are getting more use to websites that have video, audio, widgets, a lot of interaction. I know it can seem a bit crazy, all this transparency and immediacy. You're a seasoned service provider--a professional contractor, not a gizmo-crazed uber-geek who has to keep up with every move your friends make.
But let's not pass judgment too quickly. The new technologies can benefit your bottom line too.
Consider the incredible potential in all this multimedia. You can answer an inquiry within minutes, giving you a decided advantage over your competition. Have a few days of no work between jobs? You may be able to pick up an emergency call on Twitter or Facebook.
Youtube can provide you with an excellent tool to showcase your skills and work history. These days, you can shoot decent footage with your phone (go figure) and the quality is good enough for the web. Take footage of your jobs as you do them. Take shots of the finished product as well. Build up a real-time portfolio.
LinkedIn and other networking sites like it can help you build a professional network to help grow your business. You can expand your network with other non-competing contractors, such as professionals working in complementary trades, or those outside your region.
Twitter can keep your current and potential clients keep up-to-date. They can view your special offers, your Youtube videos, your work schedule and your professional advice.
Facebook reassures your clients that you are a real person who offers quality work and takes responsibility for the work you do. This can give a significant edge to the honest tradesman over all the shoddy operations out there.
Socialize your web presence and increase your business substantially.
Site-O-Rific can socialize your website for a fraction of what other web designers charge.
Potential clients demand to chat with you. At the very least, they want to get your answer within minutes. They want to sign up for your Tweets and view your Facebook profile. They are getting more use to websites that have video, audio, widgets, a lot of interaction. I know it can seem a bit crazy, all this transparency and immediacy. You're a seasoned service provider--a professional contractor, not a gizmo-crazed uber-geek who has to keep up with every move your friends make.
But let's not pass judgment too quickly. The new technologies can benefit your bottom line too.
Consider the incredible potential in all this multimedia. You can answer an inquiry within minutes, giving you a decided advantage over your competition. Have a few days of no work between jobs? You may be able to pick up an emergency call on Twitter or Facebook.
Youtube can provide you with an excellent tool to showcase your skills and work history. These days, you can shoot decent footage with your phone (go figure) and the quality is good enough for the web. Take footage of your jobs as you do them. Take shots of the finished product as well. Build up a real-time portfolio.
LinkedIn and other networking sites like it can help you build a professional network to help grow your business. You can expand your network with other non-competing contractors, such as professionals working in complementary trades, or those outside your region.
Twitter can keep your current and potential clients keep up-to-date. They can view your special offers, your Youtube videos, your work schedule and your professional advice.
Facebook reassures your clients that you are a real person who offers quality work and takes responsibility for the work you do. This can give a significant edge to the honest tradesman over all the shoddy operations out there.
Socialize your web presence and increase your business substantially.
Site-O-Rific can socialize your website for a fraction of what other web designers charge.
Socialize your small business
/12/09 Filed in: Small business website development
Think of search results as your bread and butter online. If your Web site ranks highly, you stand a great chance of catching the eye of new customers, 24 hours a day. If your Web site doesn't rank well, people searching for your service won't even know about you.
Google and other search engines are focusing more and more on semantics in their search results.
What does this mean for you, as a small business owner?
It means 3 key things:
1. In order to be well-liked by Google, your Web site needs to socialize.
2. You need to post original content on your Web site.
3. Frequent updates. Nobody wants to linger at a Web site reading yesterday's news.
Site O Rific makes it easy to incorporate Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and Google Maps into your small business Web site design. Connecting with these social networking sites is a very good way to ensure that your Web site will be highly valued by the search engines, not just at this time, but for years to come.
DIY sites offered through hosting companies, such as flyer and business card companies, may be penalized for including elements and tags in the design that are duplicated thousands of times across the Web. Many people are not aware that these free Web sites are not specifically designed to rank highly in the search engines, or coded to help ensure that your business does well online. Instead, the focus is on getting customers to purchase hosting and marketing materials.
Site O Rific makes it easy for you to have a blog or vlog embedded into your Web site. Interactive, update-able features reassure your prospects (and the search engines) that someone is actually at home behind the wheel of your Web site.
Get the most affordable Web site design online and be ready for the socialized future of the Internet.
Google and other search engines are focusing more and more on semantics in their search results.
What does this mean for you, as a small business owner?
It means 3 key things:
1. In order to be well-liked by Google, your Web site needs to socialize.
2. You need to post original content on your Web site.
3. Frequent updates. Nobody wants to linger at a Web site reading yesterday's news.
Site O Rific makes it easy to incorporate Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and Google Maps into your small business Web site design. Connecting with these social networking sites is a very good way to ensure that your Web site will be highly valued by the search engines, not just at this time, but for years to come.
DIY sites offered through hosting companies, such as flyer and business card companies, may be penalized for including elements and tags in the design that are duplicated thousands of times across the Web. Many people are not aware that these free Web sites are not specifically designed to rank highly in the search engines, or coded to help ensure that your business does well online. Instead, the focus is on getting customers to purchase hosting and marketing materials.
Site O Rific makes it easy for you to have a blog or vlog embedded into your Web site. Interactive, update-able features reassure your prospects (and the search engines) that someone is actually at home behind the wheel of your Web site.
Get the most affordable Web site design online and be ready for the socialized future of the Internet.
Affordable Small Business Website?
/12/09 Filed in: affordable business website
Affordable small business website design is a rather nebulous term for many. What is affordable? I have built website that are a bargain at $5,000, considering they were built for a multi-million dollar company. That is pocket change to them. But a small town plumber is probably thinking in the range of $500- $1,000 tops. Our goal is to blow that plumber away with the option to get into a small business website for $150 up front and a reasonable monthly payment. I think we have finally got the balance right.