Three Low Cost High Value Ideas for Growing Your Small Business

Managing or owning a small business is the single best occupation in the world when the money is flowing, the coffers are full,  and one can seemingly do no wrong.  Then you wake up one day and the sales pipeline is not as full, the weekend retail sales were off, service orders are down, and you are asking yourself how could this happen.  Here are three low cost, high return ideas for growing your business.

Idea 1:

Create or Support an Event

As a small business your focus is usually on a specific community or target market.  It is much easier to support a current event than to start your own event.  Do some research in your community for events in your field.  Look at trade publications for events in your area.  Your support can be as simple as providing people, knowledge, or anything else creative you can think of.  

To create an event you may have to think about other events that competitors or similar industries do and see if you can do it better.  Events are about bringing your business closer to your customers and do not need to cost a lot of money.  Some of the best events revolve around interactivity and getting your customers to do something hands on.  

Events that catch on can become powerful sales and marketing tools for your organization for years to come.  Remember to give yourself plenty of time to promote your event, spur of the moment events tend to lose staying power and without proper notice inconvenience your best customers.  

Events can cost as little as labor and time depending on your level of support.  Potential rewards can be building a long term relationship with the community and a perpetual way to market your products or services in an effective way.  

Tip:  Use your email marketing list, and get customer interest and input prior to joining or creating an event.

Idea 2:

Maximize Current Customer Referrals

Everyone talks about referrals being the life blood of many small businesses and the statement could not be more true.  Many businesses think that by creating an excellent experience or service the referrals will take care of themselves.  In reality you must ask for the referral, if not completely direct you should at least be asking customers if they would be comfortable referring your business to others.  Touching base with your current customers is a great way to drum up new business.  No matter what industry you are in, making a repeat customer out of a current customer or a personal referral from a current customer is much easier.

Ask yourself these questions.  Do you have a referral program?  Is it easy for your customers to use?  Does it provide something of value (intrinsic or physical) in return for doing something on behalf of your business?

Referral cost, can be as little as thanking the person or company doing the referring to having a physical reward such as free products or discounts.  The reward can be a perpetual sales pipeline built on word or mouth and goodwill.    

Tip:  If you use website as a marketing tool make sure your referral program is easy to get to and clearly defined.

Idea 3:

Partner Up

Maybe you have been in business for 30 years and have always done it alone.  Leaner times call for outside of the box thinking.  Finding companies or individuals that offer complementary products or services can lead to a rewarding cross selling opportunity for both parties.  If you can make your business an attractive partner you should make every attempt to forge new creative partnerships.  

In many businesses partnering up is standard operating procedure.  Being a real estate agent, it pays to know mortgage brokers, general contractors, and maintenance people.  Thinking outside of the traditional circles, maybe you the real estate agent should attend a Human Resources Professional seminar or function.  Human Resources for many companies are the source of information for employees moving to the area or the office resource for important decisions such as home ownership.  

Creating a partners program or setting up an affiliate program with established guidelines makes your company more attractive to partner with.  There are many resources online to help you on your quest to partner up.  Partnering up properly can make for an easy way to profit from the experience and customer base of others.

Partnering can cost money to setup or create an agreement between two parties.  The potential reward for your small business could be access to a whole slew of potential customers with little acquisition cost and a built in loyalty.  

Tip:  While doing research on the internet about your competitors and potential partners see if you can find links to their partner or affiliate program.

Selecting fonts for Web design

Article courtesy of www.WebsiteBytes.com

Fonts play an important role in Web design. Knowing which font is most suitable for a certain application will help maximise a website's professional appearance and readability.

There are two font typefaces available: serif typefaces and sans serif typefaces.

Serif typefaces (such as Times Roman/Times New Roman) are generally considered to make large documents easier to read than sans serif typefaces (such as Arial). This is because small strokes are used at the end of serif typeface characters, which makes them appear joined together.

Sans serif typefaces, in comparison, give the most professional appearance, and are therefore the most common choice in website design. They are also commonly used for headings and are easier to view at small font sizes, making them perfect for captions and diagrams. Sans serif typefaces, however, should be not be used for lengthy documents, in which case a serif typeface should be used instead to make the document easier to read.

When designing websites, you should always opt for using standard fonts such as Arial and Times Roman/Times New Roman. Although your computer may have a large number of fonts installed, it is likely that they will not be available on other computers. A website which has been designed for a non-standard font may not appear as intended on computers without the font installed.

20 Tips for Coming Up with Fresh Ideas

Article courtesy of www.dailyblogtips.com

It doesn’t matter if you run a blog or run a business, there will come a moment in time when you’re really stuck for fresh ideas. Fresh ideas can lead to new business opportunities, so brainstorming should be a process you adopt frequently if you want to stay ahead of your competition. I’ve compiled a list of tips and tricks that I use when I’m innovating, and each apply if you’re trying to come up with new products, services or blog posts. Spotting solutions and opportunities is just a form of mental exercise. The more you do it, the better you’ll get!

1. Be really grumpy! Keep track of the things that annoy you. This is a great place to start, as you know the problem intimately as well as being the first customer for any solution.

2. Listen to your clients, customers and readers. Complaints are a great source of insight as it’s a very quick way to find something that needs a solution. So identify the common problems that your customers are experiencing and consider possible solutions to their troubles.

3. Think like a child. Children have a fantastically simplistic and candid view of the world, something we lose as we become adults. Employ a strong sense of curiosity and simplicity when looking for solutions. So many things in this world happen due to convention or habit, so thinking like a child helps to break this pattern.

4. Talk to friends and family. Find out what annoys your friends and family. What do they moan about? What problems do they encounter? Do they say stuff like “if only there was a service/product that did XYZ”?

5. Watch and listen to the news. Keeping up with current affairs will help you to keep up-to-date with new legislation and new regulations. Any new constraint usually means that some kind of process needs to change. Where there’s change, there’s usually an opportunity.

6. Learn from your mistakes. When you do something wrong, do you work out how and why you made that mistake? What could have limited the impact of your mistakes? Is there something, that if it existed, would have stopped you from making that mistake?

7. Do volunteer work. Mixing with people from an entirely different background will help you to think from a different perspective. You can make new friends and get ideas for things you don’t usually think about. As a bonus, you help someone too!

8. Bounce ideas with a friend or business partner. If there’s someone who you work well with, spend time brainstorming ideas together. Two different minds can often lead to great ideas, since you’ll find you feed off each others thoughts.

9. Analyse your products/services. Look at your current offerings and identify the best and worst features. See if you can add any features to your existing offerings. Also consider different markets who would be interested in what you offer. You can do the same for a competitors products and services too.

10. Focus on the problem, not existing solutions. Rather than thinking about existing solutions, go back to the original problem. Given a blank canvas, how would you solve the problem? e.g. rather than re-invent the toilet, come up with alternative ways to dispose of human waste cheaply, conveniently and hygienically.

11. Go people-watching. Unleash your inner spy! Spend time watching people go about their everyday lives. What are they doing? How do they do it? Can you spot any obvious problems?

12. Distract yourself. Have a change of scene. Do something that you love doing that has nothing to do with your business or blog. Get lost in what you’re doing. Often we come up with solutions when we’re not even thinking about the problem in the first place.

13. Get feedback. Make the effort to find out what your colleagues, customers and readers think about what you do. Ask what you could do to improve. Listen to their feedback, good or bad. You’ll gain a great deal of insight when you ask people to tell you what they think your strengths are.

14. Refactor, reorganise and rethink. Consider services, products or concepts that are too basic or too complex. Sometimes just adjusting an existing solution will yield more ideas.

15. Critique everything. Question everything, and ask yourself “why?”! Intelligently analyse your environment and think of improvements. See what lessons you can learn about the good and bad things in your environment.

16. Read lots. Any kind of reading material can give you ideas. Find a range of materials that you enjoy reading (there’s no point reading something you hate!). Ideas can come from fiction, magazine articles, scientific journals, anything really!

17. Network, in real life and online. Listen to people who have similar interests to you and find out what they love or hate. What are the common or repetitive problems they would love solved? This is also a great way to find someone to brainstorm with.

18. Regularly read forums related to your interests. Forums often have threads dedicated to frequently asked questions (FAQs). You can borrow ideas from these FAQs as well as be on the look out for questions that pop up on the forums on a regular basis.

19. Look for gaps. Identify gaps in products, services or articles that exist between you and your competitors. Then consider what you can offer to address that gap.

20. Keep a notebook handy at all times. Inspiration can hit you at any time, and you can forget it just as quickly. Keeping a record of this inspiration is vital. Make sure you revisit entries in your notebook on a regular basis too! You might be able to elaborate on ideas you had in the past.

So there you go, 20 tips to help you identify opportunities. There’s a common theme among these tips, namely to analyse problems in as much detail as you can. When you get ideas, consider all ideas, regardless of how stupid they might seem. Then weigh up the pros and cons of those ideas as solutions.

43 Web Design Mistakes You Should Avoid

Here is a great list of things that your website should avoid and will help with your web traffic and website usability.

There are several lists of web design mistakes around the Internet. However this is a more detailed list that will help you in the design and usability of your site. Compliments of www.dailyblogtips.com.

YouTube Marketing

Article courtesy of www.tkg.com

Clients often tell us that their businesses just aren't interesting enough for YouTube. While it's probably true that a music band will have an easier time creating compelling videos than, say, an auto parts manufacturer, any business can use YouTube with a little creativity. If a blender company can become a YouTube phenomenon, then we have complete confidence that your business can have online video marketing success, too.

100 Million and Growing
Here’s why it’s worth the effort: YouTube’s numbers are pretty amazing – they average about 100 million U.S. viewers per month and over 14 billion video views. That’s about 1 out of every 3 Americans on YouTube! That also means that even if you only reach a tiny fraction of their viewers, the online visibility and traffic to your site could be pretty substantial.

An added bonus is that many businesses still haven’t embraced YouTube, which means there are still openings in the market for you to establish a presence and get an edge over your competition. YouTube is free, so you’re really only paying for your production costs.

There's a common misconception that online videos have to be gut-busting funny to succeed, but videos can be educational or informational, too; eHow.com has had lots of success posting how-to videos on everything from How to Make Jambalaya to How to Apply Eyemakeup. Videos that are interesting, entertaining, creative, helpful or even strange all have excellent appeal.

I’ve Made My Video…Now What?

Once you have your video made, you’re going to have to put some effort in promoting it. Just like you can’t just put up a website and expect boatloads of traffic, you can’t just put up a video and expect off-the-charts views automatically. Here are some steps to help get your video noticed:

Be a part of the community. Be sure to be active in the YouTube community by commenting on other videos and subscribing to other users' channels.

Embed your videos in your blogs and on your website. Promote your videos by embedding them in your blog entries, in blast emails, and on pages of your website.

Set up a thorough, detailed profile. YouTube, as well as many other video sharing sites, allow you set up profiles that tell users a little more about your company. YouTube even allows you to set up your own customizable channel.

Optimize your videos. YouTube videos tend to rank well in the search engines, so be sure to optimize your videos with your keywords.

Promote your website. The point of video for business purposes is usually to drive people to your website. Don’t forget to tell your viewers where you want them to go! You can do this in the video itself, as part of your profile, or both.

Beyond YouTube

There are plenty of other video-sharing sites to check out besides YouTube. Here are a few worth checking out:

Google Video
Yahoo Video
Vimeo
Daily Motion
Motionbox
Metacafe
Flickr Video
AOL Video
Blip.tv

Using social networking to promote your site

Article courtesy of www.WebsiteBytes.com

Social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace are growing in popularity and can bring new opportunities to you as a website owner such as providing a medium for establishing and keeping in contact with website visitors, maintaining "brand" recognition, and presenting yourself as someone who keeps up-to-date with the latest online "trends".

There are also various risks associated with relying on social networking sites as part of your online strategy ("online strategy" essentially refers to how you decide to present yourself or your business online), such as a lack of flexibility and control since a third party operates the social networking site; the possibility of placing too much reliance on a social networking site only to have it potentially close its doors in the future; little control over false, defamatory and negative content; potential lost advertising revenue when visitors go to your social networking profile instead of your own site; and the risk of there being too many distractions for visitors.

In this article we look at both the opportunities and potential risks that social networking sites can bring to you as a website owner. We also discuss how to combine social networking profiles with your site, and mention alternative solutions that provide similar features as social networking sites.

What are social networking sites?

Social networking sites are online communities where members create a profile for themselves and establish relationships with other members via their profiles. Members can usually add content to their profile such as pictures and comments, send public or private messages to each other, and in some cases engage in other "networking" initiatives.

Many social networking sites, including Facebook and MySpace, are predominantly aimed at the general public. Other social networking sites are more specialised and target niche markets, for example professionally-oriented sites that provide career and work-related networking opportunities. When deciding how to integrate social networking into your online strategy, in some cases these niche sites might be more appropriate for your requirements.

Is social networking right for your site?

Millions of people already have a profile (account) set up with at least one social networking site, and chances are that you do as well. However, you are probably using it solely for personal, social use.

The decision of whether to use it in a more "public" manner, namely using it in conjunction with your existing website where everyone in the general public can potentially see it, can be a major one.

In addition to the various considerations "for" and "against" using social networking solutions that we will outline below, one of the major factors in determining whether social networking is appropriate for use with your website will primarily depend on your site's "brand" and purpose.

Social networking profiles are generally set up for use by individuals. Profiles for non-personal (eg: business) use are not as common. If you operate your website personally and the site is about yourself (in other words, if you are the site's "brand"), linking to your social networking profile might be appropriate. In comparison, a business or company with many employees might decide on an approach that allows individual employees to optionally display a link to their social networking profile with the aim of "connecting" with clients instead of setting up a single profile for the entire business.

Advantages of using social networking sites

People often spend a lot of time using social networking sites. Therefore, by integrating social networking sites into your online and marketing strategies, you could substantially increase the opportunity to be seen more regularly by your customers and for longer periods of time. This is because customers will have your profile readily in front of them each time they use the social networking site, thereby increasing their exposure to your "brand".

Deciding what content to present

When you use a social networking site in conjunction with your existing site, a question that arises is how to decide what content should be added to your social networking profile and what content should remain on your main site. You probably don't want the same information duplicated on both. To address this issue, a possible approach might be to only use the social networking site to perform those tasks that your existing site does not (such as maintaining a list of members) and placing all other content on your main website.

How to integrate social networking profiles with your existing site

Integrating your social networking profile with your site can be as simple as adding a link from your website to your social networking profile and vice versa. Alternatively, if you are permitted to do so by the social networking site that you are using, you might choose to display your social networking profile in an IFRAME (a webpage within a webpage). If you are not familiar with how to create IFRAMEs, refer to the "iframe" entry in the HTML reference guide that is included with the BestAddress HTML Editor (http://www.mmaus.com/products/bestaddress.php - once you have installed the software, choose 'HTML and CSS Reference' from the 'Help' menu).

Protecting your brand image

If you are a business, it is important to consider that unless using a social networking site compliments your brand image, it could be detrimental to you. This is because a social networking site that is operated by a business could, in the opinion of some people, present an amateurish and unprofessional image and not everyone who visits your social networking profile might realise that you already have your own site.

Another consideration is that you might have no control over what information is posted about your business by others, including incorrect and defamatory material.

Privacy and confidentially

If you invite visitors to your site to join and access your social networking profile, take privacy considerations into account, particularly if it means that your social life and work merge. Ask yourself what the consequences could be from website visitors (which potentially includes the online general public) knowing large amounts of your personal details, including who your friends are and your communication with them. Likewise, be mindful that your friends might not be happy that all your website's visitors can see their details and read posts they have made to your profile.

Furthermore, people who join your social networking site might be your most loyal customers and your competitors might now have access to them.

Focus on your site

One of the risks of adopting a marketing strategy that includes the use of social networking sites is that there might be a shift of visitors from your website to your social networking profile, which in turn risks decreasing your site's popularity and overall advertising revenue.

After all, your goal is to promote your own site, not the website of the social networking company.

Time constraints

Ask yourself if you have the time to maintain a "work"-related social networking profile, particularly when website visitors use it to communicate with you. Large websites can attract large volumes of customer enquiries each day which can be time-consuming to answer, particularly if they are made to an individual person's profile.

Risks associated with relying on a social networking site

There are also risks associated with relying too much on a social networking site rather than your own site. With your own site, you have control over how it runs and where it is hosted. If you aren't happy with something regarding your own site, you can easily take appropriate action such as changing Web hosting providers.

However, with social networking sites, you are relying solely on another company. The social networking site might change in the future in a way that is unfavourable to you, your profile might stop working or even accidentally be closed, competitors might be able to advertise their products on your profile without your control, or even worse, the social networking site could go out of business, resulting in the permanent disappearance of your work and many business opportunities. Unlike your website where you have your own domain name that you can keep, the URL to your social networking profile remains permanently with the social networking site.

In addition, for larger operations, it might be difficult to integrate a social networking profile with your company's CRM (customer relationship management) system.

Understand the social networking site and set objectives before you begin

Familiarise yourself with how the social networking site works before you make it accessible to your website's visitors.

If you decide to utilise a social networking site, as with any marketing strategy, establish what objectives and outcomes you want to ultimately achieve, plan your approach and then work towards that goal.

Advertising on social networking sites

Using social networking sites does not need to be restricted to creating a profile for you or your business. Most also sell advertising space, which could be worth considering for reaching new markets if your budget permits. Given the extensive information they hold about their users, many social networking sites have the ability to precisely deliver advertisements to key target markets.

Alternatives to social networking sites

If you want to add more interactivity to your site, popular alternatives to social networking sites include discussion forums, provisions for visitors to leave comments on each of your webpages, blogs, and picture galleries. There are many free scripts that can be downloaded online for these purposes.

In conclusion

There is some debate about whether the hype surrounding social networking sites is a "fad" that will eventually fade over time or whether they will become a substantial component of the Web. It seems more than likely that the latter will be the case, and that they can therefore provide valuable marketing opportunities to you as a website owner.

How often should you update your website's content?

Article courtesy of www.WebsiteBytes.com


The benefits and potential risks

Regularly updating your website's content can have many benefits for your site, but also poses some potential risks.

Should I update my website?

As a general rule, it is beneficial to update webpages throughout your site on a regular basis. When deciding whether to update your site, you should consider various benefits and potential risks, including:

Benefits

Visitors to your site will be more likely to return repeatedly to your site if they know they will find new information that interests them on each visit. As a result, your website grows in popularity.

Search engines often give higher search result positions to webpages that are up-to-date.

You need to keep ahead of the competition. If you let your website's content get out-of-date, visitors are likely to visit a competitor's website instead.

Potential risks

If some of your webpages have been well optimised for search engines, making changes to those pages raises the risk of effecting the page's position in search results. You therefore need to weigh up the benefits and disadvantages of updated content.

If you remove content as part of an update to your website, visitors who return to your website at a later date will no longer be able to access it. A possible solution is to create an "archive" on your site where visitors can access information that has been removed.

How often should I update my webpages?

The ideal rate at which you should update your webpages depends on several factors including:

The type of website: Online visitors will have different expectations on how often content should be updated depending on the type of website they visit. For example, visitors would expect a news-related site to be updated daily, or perhaps even hourly. In comparison, a website for a hotel might be updated only every few months.

The webpage's purpose: Some webpages, such as those containing your contact details, might never require updating, while other pages, such as a list of products you sell, might require frequent updating. Some search engines determine a webpage's importance in relation to other webpages based on the frequency at which it is updated. In some cases, it might therefore be of advantage to you to update your "important" webpages, including your home page, often.

The competition: If a competitor is updating their website regularly, you might need to match or even exceed their frequency of updates to keep your own site relevant.

What content should I update?

The content you should update will largely depend on your type of website. It might include updating statistics, tables, graphs, images, adding new facts, deleting obsolete information, updating 'Related Links' lists that point to other webpages on your site, and more.

Promoting your up-to-date content

If you regularly update your website's content, making the changes is not enough. You also need to tell your visitors how up-to-date your website is, otherwise they might not realise it. For instance, you can tell visitors about new and updated content by adding a 'What's new' section on your home page or even place a 'What's New?' link on your site's navigation bar. Adding a 'Last updated' entry on each webpage is also advisable. Consider adding the date the webpage was last updated towards the top of the page instead of at the bottom; that way visitors will know how up-to-date the webpage is before they start reading.

Tips for keeping your content up-to-date

In addition to changing the content of webpages themselves, here are some ideas for easily keeping your website up-to-date:

Add a blog: Blogs are an excellent way to constantly add more information to your site. They are particularly useful in circumstances where you want to add information to your site but a new dedicated webpage is not justified. There are many free blogging scripts that can be downloaded from the Internet and add them to your site.

Publish news stories relevant to your site: Visitors like reading news related to your website's topic and some might even add your website to their favourites if they know they will be kept up-to-date with the latest information. Some news websites provide news feeds for website owners to add to their site. If you have a website related to sport, for example, you could add a sport-related news feed.

Add a forum: Let visitors add content themselves by providing a forum. Because visitors themselves contribute to the content of forums, you know that the topics being discussed are topical and of interest to the people that come to your site. As with blogs, there are many free forum scripts that can be downloaded online.

Add a poll: People like giving their opinion on topical issues. Adding a poll to your home page helps generate interest in your site. You can change the poll question every few days and display past results on a separate page.

Display the current date: It used to be popular for websites to display the current date using JavaScript code. The practice is less common today, but is still an option you might want to consider. The necessary code is available in the BestAddress HTML Editor's Code Library ( http://www.mmaus.com/bestaddress.html ). From the 'Insert' menu, choose 'Code from Library'. In the window that is displayed, open the 'JavaScript' entry, select 'Current System Date' then click the 'Insert Selected Code' button. If you have a PHP or ASP-based site, you could also display the date based on the current server time, but remember that time zone differences might mean that the date might not be current for all visitors.

Archiving content

If you expect old content to still be relevant to some visitors when you decide to remove it, you could consider moving it to an 'Archives' area of your site and linking to the material from the original page. This also decreases the risk of your website's rank in search engines declining because the original content will still be available.

In conclusion

As a general rule, your website will benefit from being updated regularly. After all, the Internet is not intended to be static, but dynamic and constantly changing. However, you should also consider whether there can be any negative issues arising from updating your site, and make your decision accordingly.

What is CMS and how it helps your business?

Content Management System as the name reveals allows the easy management of websites without knowing technical details of web Development.

PR Log (Press Release – Jan 10, 2009) – You might have heard the phrase “CONTENT IS THE KING”. Keeping this in view, it can be safely said that Content Management System is a King Maker. As the name implies, Content Management System or CMS as commonly known is a software/system that manages the content of your website. In simple words, a CMS will allow you to update your website contents easily and smartly. So if you are a non technical guy knowing not much about the html or about web designing, using CMS will allow you to update your website contents without much of a hassle.

Business owners normally want to update their websites for any of the following purposes:

News & Events
Latest Products/Services
Contacts Updates
Clients Showcase
Portfolio
Case Studies
White Papers
Articles

CMS can work in following ways ranging from simple website to more complex solutions. Some of them could include:

As a product catalog
Document Management System/Document Tracking
Corporate Intranet
Real Estate portals
Job Postings
E-Commerce Applications

Some of the salient features that all CMS provide:

Easy handling of users according to roles, eg admin role, editor role, viewer role etc.
Easy update of website content using backend forms.

So if you own a business and looking to have an online presence, a Content Management System is a smart choice.

Accel’s Rich Wong: Flash isn’t relevant in mobile | VentureBeat

Accel’s Rich Wong: Flash isn’t relevant in mobile | VentureBeat

This article makes me wonder how all those sites that are 100% Flash are going to fare in the future. Although the platform is cool and can make some really eye catching presentations and video, I have to wonder how web developers can pitch Flash to a client when they are going to miss out on millions of iPhone and iPad customers. Not to mention that it's 3/30/2010 and Flash is still nowhere to be found on most Android phones.

My take on the situation with mobile phones and Flash is for developers to migrate everything to an open platform such as HTML5. In the meantime anyone asking for Flash will get a similar lecture but as always the client will get what they desire (Flash Included).

Offline Marketing For Your Site

Offline marketing of your web site is JUST AS IMPORTANT as online marketing of your site:

Add your web site address to all literature and publications (business cards, letter head, newsletters, fax cover sheets, etc.) right next to your organization's "snail mail" address and phone number.

Announce the launch of you site, as well as major changes to your site (such as the addition of a directory of services, an essay from an executive director, etc.), in your printed newsletter. Your goal is to have something in every newsletter that highlights additions or a resource on your Web site.

Make sure everyone who answers your organization's main phone line and email address, and everyone who deals with the public in any way, shape or form, as well as your Executive Director, marketing staff, fund raising staff and volunteer manager (and at a mission-based organization, this is often all the same person) knows how to say the web site address, and knows what information is available via the Web site. It is particularly hurtful to an organization if all staff cannot do this and, instead, stumble over the URL of the site, or can't describe what's on the site.

Add the web site address to your organization's main voice mail message.

If you write an article for a publication, ask that your organization's web site address appears with your name or bio at the beginning or end of the article.

When talking to the press, remember to mention your web site address.

Add your web site address within the text of all press releases. For instance, on a press release announcing a new publication, add a paragraph that says (if applicable) "This new publication can be accessed via our Web site at... "

Your web site address needs to be on all t-shirts, posters, buttons and other items given to the public. Make the address LARGE and easy-to-read from a distance! (I cannot believe how many t-shirts DON'T do this!)

Put the web site address on all signs for the organization: the sign in front of the building where you are houses, the banner at trade show, etc.

Are you getting the most from your virtual real estate?

At the end of every email you send, you have space to put your name and other information. This is prime virtual real estate! Are you getting the most from it?
It’s very easy to create an email signature that automatically adds to the end of every message. Outlook users can easily set one up.

Make sure to put these things in your email signature:
your full name
your title
business address
phone number
fax number
email address
web site
link to enewsletter signup page (if you have one)
links to you on Facebook and Twitter
any info about upcoming events

Since you’re sending emails all day long everyday, make them do a little marketing work for you. And get the most from your virtual real estate!

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is the enterprise-class web analytics solution that gives you rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness. Powerful, flexible and easy-to-use features now let you see and analyze your traffic data in an entirely new way. With Google Analytics, you're more prepared to write better-targeted ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives and create higher converting websites.

Why do I need a website?

The Internet has become a vast resource of information for people, business people as well as students as they discover the advantages of getting online. With ease of use and the most cost-effective means of advertising the Internet is revolutionizing entire markets, allowing all businesses, large or small, the same opportunities to market their products, services and information on the Internet in an effective and appealing manner.

Compared with attracting new customers through advertising or conventional marketing, websites are amazingly low cost and the possibilities are endless. Search engines, referrals and the vast linking mechanics of the worldwide web provide volumes of "foot traffic" unimaginable in a "brick and mortar" storefront setting. From market research to product distribution, from customer services to sales and promotions -- having a proper website establishes a dynamic presence for your organization on the Internet limited only by your imagination.