For a website to function and work for the small business it has to be properly designed, optimized, and promoted but it also needs to UP! How many times do you go to a website and get that 404 page error?! Web hosting is just as important to the small business and too many business owners really do not understand or realize this. Recently the small web hosting company that I run, got an award for great service and support so I had to share it here! LOL

Yeah I want to brag some but I thought it would be a good opportunity to discuss web hosting.  So today interviewed Jeff Raybould of  Bluehost Coupon and  Best Web Hosting and asked him some of the key questions I get from clients regarding hosting.

Q. Jeff, tell us a little about yourself.
A.  Larry, I have been in the web hosting industry for a few years and my partner/cousin has been in for over a decade. Together we run several web hosting review sites with our primary goal of finding the best web hosting for each of our readers. The thing that separates us from others is that we understand what might be the best for reader A isn’t the best for reader B. That is why we do so many reviews and spend countless hours researching stuff.

Q. So, how do you define web hosting?
A. This is a question asked by many people when we tell them we are in the web hosting business. Web hosting is a service provided where a “host” stores user’s files on servers in a datacenter. These servers are configured to serve up these files when requested through the internet. There are many different types of web servers, but for most individuals and small businesses these are shared web servers that run on a Unix/Linux or Windows operating system.

Q. What  makes a good web hosting company?
A. The factors in determining a good web hosting company are many. These include cost, support types (email/phone/etc), support hours, and server uptime. The cost of a good host shouldn’t be more than $10/month for entry level hosting in our experience. Good hosts typically offer phone support with low hold times and should be available during the hours where you, the user, will be working on your site. This doesn’t mean you need 24 hour phone support as you might not be working on your site at 4 AM (this is usually done more by hosts with international focus). Server uptime is obviously a big one! You can search the web for user reviews or look for uptime charts on each host to see if they have reliable web servers.

Q. Why should a small business be concerned about web hosting?
A.  Small businesses need web hosting to expand their business reach/customer base. The internet offers a low cost way to reach millions more potential customers. In the old days it was good enough to be listed in the yellow pages, but the internet is now most people’s yellow pages. If you’re not on the internet, you’re not on their radar. A website is a good idea for all businesses – not just those selling products. People want to find you for contact info, hours of operation, history, etc as they don’t want to have to pick up the phone and dial.

Q. What are the key components that are in a web hosting package?
A.  The most common features that people look for and are provided by a good web host are things such as disk space, email accounts, databases, and FTP access. The disk space is important because this will determine how many files you can save to the server – unless you’re doing lots of photos/video – 50 MB is a good starting place. Email accounts – we’ll this depends on how many users you need to setup. Most small businesses use under 10 email accounts. A majority of websites are now using dynamic features driven by a database so this is increasingly important. Most sites can run on 1 database. FTP access is still the preferred method for file upload (including through programs like Dreamweaver).

Q. Does it matter if you use Windows or Unix server?
A. Some people have a preference for Windows or Unix, but the choice should be made based on your needs. Unix/Linux hosting can be much cheaper than Windows due to the licensing costs, but Windows servers can offer different tools than a Unix server. Unix/Linux servers usually run leaner and cleaner than Windows in that they don’t use up as much system resources so they can perform better for serving web pages. If you’re looking at using other Microsoft products such as ASP scripting and remote access features – you may want to opt for Windows.

So my company, Touchstone Hosting was awarded:

so if you need web hosting, let me know. Thanks again Jeff for your time

 

So how do you get to the top of the local search organic results? Well, obviously, it’s not easy, otherwise I’d be out of a job. LOL There is one thing you can do, however, before coming to a SEO expert for professional help.

But before I tell you what it is, I’ll tell you what not to do: please, don’t stick your hand in a grab-bag of trendy SEO techniques, such as link wheels, link farms, or autoblogs. More often than not you will end up doing your site more damage than good, making my job more difficult.

Here’s what you can do: make sure you are not sending the wrong signals to the search engines. If your site is about purple widgets, it should be obvious to Google that your site is in the purple-widget niche. That’s the whole point of SEO.

If your site is not obviously about purple widgets, then, needless to say, it will have a hard time competing in the purple-widget niche on local search.

This may sound basic, but surprisingly many business owners do precisely that, even engaging in article marketing and other intermediate SEO techniques, even though their website hasn’t been optimized correctly.

Their website might be optimized for their own name, which few people search for or some unrelated phrase from the CMS (content management system). To give you an extreme example, there are thousands of websites out there which have “read the rest of this entry” as the most dominant phrase, because that particular phrase has been built into the WordPress content management system powering those sites.

Question: How do you check the optimization of your site? Answer: Analyze the keywords by frequency and relative density.

There are a number of tools, scripts, and web apps that do this. A good one is Qirina. At first glance, it’s not clear what this site does. (Note to the developers:  would it hurt to put some documentation on your site? ) It’s useful because, in addition to analyzing keywords, it automatically tries to identify the niche your site is in.

For example, for LocalbizBits, Qirina identifies the niche as “local search,” which is correct.

But take this dentist’s site in Milwaukee. Qirina identifies the niche for this site as not “milwaukee dentist” but as “smile designs.” Why? This phrase, the brand name of the dentist’s business, and his surname appear far more frequently than the word ‘dentist’ on the front page of the website. While keyword density is no longer as an important a metric as it was in 2002, relative keyword density does matter, and that’s why drbadalamenti.com is relegated to Page 4 in the local search results for “milwaukee dentist” and Page 9 for “dentist milwaukee.” It gets negligible traffic.

In conclusion, make sure your content is projecting the message is supposed to be projecting. Merely optimizing the on-site content for the keywords you are competing for can make a considerable difference in your business’s local search performance.

Finally, I was also able to ask Nick Oba from Oirina a couple of questions.

1. Why should a small business use your site/service?

Firstly, to check the content of the business’s website for optimization, and second, to compare keyword usage to that of competitors in the same niche, as well as to find competitors. Last but not least, it’s free.

2. Who is behind the site/service?

Qirina was developed by LocustSwarm, a small outfit which has been producing websites since 1996 and web apps since 2005.

3. Why are keywords important ?

Keywords are what search engines analyze and evaluate when determing how relevant websites are to search queries. (Ordering those websites involves far more criteria such as link popularity, traffic, age, and so on.)

I have tried the site on my other site and does provide some good information, so give it a try, its free and if you can gain some more understanding about your site, it will be worth the time.

 

If you are a small business and want to “run” your own website, I would recommend using wordpress. When I discuss this with clients, I get a lot of curious looks. WordPress is simply a content management system (CMS). Now there are many options out there for CMS, so if WordPress is not your cup of tea, take a look at some of the other options.

The idea of using WordPress for a small business site is nothing new. A few other articles on the subject are:

Don Campbell’s  Why Use WordPress to Power Your Small Business Website and then a case study he report on.

Tim Conley’s 11 Reasons To Use WordPress For Your Business Website and his video tutorial.

If you read these articles, you should come away with the notion that using WordPress can help you control your website more and help with your local search marketing.  Bottom line.

I have used wordpress to build a number of sites for local small business, with good results. The main reason I have used it is so that. the small business owner can control his content. Using a CMS, definitely allows a small business owner with little web experience the ability to add, edit, delete information quickly and easily.

Another aspect that I like about using wordpress, it allows the visitor to leave a comment, question, rave, etc for the small business. Interacting with your visitors/customers/clients is a very important component in doing business here in 2009 and beyond.

The SEO aspect of wordpress is great. There are so many components that one can employ to help the site with search engine visibility, geotargeting, keywords, you name it.

A word of caution, do not think that if you build/use wordpress for your site, it will magically appear #1 in Google. You need to make sure you set it up and use it properly!  I can get you started off on the right foot but it is your responsiblity to follow up but adding content, responding to comments, questions, adding links etc.  It take a little bit of time but as I always say, time spent marketing online is well worth it!

 

An article I recently read Why SMB owners should care about SEO by Lisa Barone, summed it up nicely

“A lot of small businesses don’t fully understand SEO. They think it’s dirty, that SEOs are snake oil salesmen, that it’s out of their budget, or that it’s something they don’t need to worry about because they’re not a major brand. The truth is, the Internet has changed the face of business and leveled the playing field for everyone. By investing in SEO, you allow your company to show up for those targeted local searches, while also putting yourself in the position to compete with the big dogs.”

Lisa goes on to list some of the key facts about SEO, that you might not know about- make sure you head over there to finish the article.

Another component about SEO that many small business might not realize, is that you can have a search engine friendly website that has an attractive design.

9 SEO Tips for Attractive Search Engine Friendly Web Design by Justin Briggs is a nice piece on how SEO and web design can work together.  “I’ll be covering some design-focused SEO tips, to show how SEO and beautiful design elements can co-exist.”

Justin’s tip make a lot of sense and any web designer, who knows what he is doing, should be able to understand them. Justin is correct that having an attractive website is just as important these days but SEO cannot be ignored.  The two can co-exist.

SEO is the best investment you can make to your small business’s  online presence.

 

Ben was also kind enough to provide all readers a 15% discount on any service ordered at Logoinn.com.  All you need to do is enter this code MKT-01 while placing an order in promotion code section.  Thanks Ben for your post today.

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During these challenging economic times it is vital that you think outside of the box if you want your business to survive, let alone thrive.  You will need to come up with creative and high-impact solutions in order to keep your business ahead of the pack.

In this regard, you might want to consider the benefits that can be realized through the re-branding process.  Through this article you are provided some basic and essential information about re-branding, re-designing your firm logo and breathing new life into your business.

Re-branding:  An Overview
If you have a product or service that appears to have stalled on the market, that consumers no longer seem interested in purchasing no matter how much money you are spending on advertising and promotion, the time may have arrived for you to consider re-branding that product or service.

At its heart, re-branding can best be described as a strategy that is designed to reposition a product or service “ or the entire business itself “ to distance itself from an association with its previous brand identity.  Additionally, re-branding sometimes is used to move a product up-market “ in a direction that will make it more appealing to consumers who have more money to spend.  This type of up-market re-branding is becoming particularly useful during these challenging and difficult economic times.

In many instances (indeed, in nearly every case) the re-branding process is undertaken with a radical alteration of the business’s logo, image, brand name, advertising themes and overall marketing strategy.  In the end re-branding is not so much a company or product face lift but entire, comprehensive overhaul.

Re-branding:  An Affordable Marketing Solution
Through the re-branding process you will be able to better focus the money that you have available in your budget for marketing and promotion.  The fact is that changing the design of logos and making other types of essential and yet not complex changes can effect a transformation of a business or product without the expenditure of significant amounts of money.

Marketing budgets are very tight in this day and age.  Therefore, the only prudent course a business really can take to alter its market position is to take the course of re-branding.

The Importance of Logo Design in the Re-Branding Processing
When all is said and done, the logo associated with a business enterprise really is the heart and soul of the identity of that venture.  The brand and the logo in some very significant and definitive ways are connected.

Therefore, if you are intended on undertaking a re-branding process, you definitely will have to focus a great deal of your attention on ensuring that the new logo will meet your ultimate goals and objectives.

Towards this end you need to understand that not any old logo designer will do.  Rather, you will need to engage the professional services of a logo design firm that has specific experience on business or product re-branding.  You must have a designer that understands how to get from Point A to Point B in the re-branding process.  Obviously, you do not want to engage the services of a logo designer that lacks this specific depth of experience.  If you did make that mistake, you may end up unsuccessfully re-branding your project in such a manner that your market share will nose dive and you will end up in an irreversible free fall.

Conclusion
Understanding the challenging economic climate in which you are running your business, the time really may have come for you to take a close look at initiating a re-branding process.  As has been enumerated in this article, you definitely need to make sure that you have a logo design pro who understands re-branding on your team in order to ensure maximum results.

When all is said and done, through an appropriately facilitated re-branding process (with a talented logo designer on board) you will be able to reposition your business in such a manner so that you will be able to maximize revenues and profits not only in the immediate but in the long term future as well.

 

With the advent of local search, adding locally related material to ones web site is a smart move. There are a number of ways for the small business web site to do this.

1. Add your own local search engine-  Build Your Own Local Search Engine check out this article by Chris Silver Smith at Natural Search Blog
2. Create a directory on your site – Turn Your Small Biz Website Into An Online Yellow Pages & Get Qualified Traffic check out this article byAndrew Shotland at Local SEO Guide
3. Create a local blog – Local blogging? check out this article by Kirby Winfield at Local Point
4. Use Zvents to promote local activities
5. Add local rss news feeds to your web site

Do not try to cover everything. Cannot tell you how much would be too much…but I would not do everything I have listed, unless you are a local directory web site. The goal here is to provide some local, relevent information for your customers to give them a reason to return to the web site.

Finally, in an article by Stoney DeGeyter Content is Dead. Community is King Now he concludes by saying:

“I might suggest that the best ecommerce websites are not those that build content around their products but build a community around the product interest. By creating a place where shoppers can come and gain information, learn more about the products and discuss or share information with others and then make purchases as well, will do more for sales than simply creating a shopping website.

By building a community you not only sell more products but you build brand recognition and customer loyalty. And both of those are worth far more than a single one-off sell. So while content may not be dead (not by a long shot, really), there is a new king in the online marketing industry. Long live community. Long live the (new) king.”

Though he is not specifically speaking about local content, his point about creating a web site that will engage the shopper/visitor is what you are after.

 

A recent survey conducted by Nielsen/Netratings for WebVisible showed just how important website design really is. Peter Krasilovsky has a nice write up on the survey at the The Local Onliner . What really struck me is:

“Eighty-five percent of respondents agreed that the quality of a business owner’s website is an important factor in earning the consumer’s trust. Over 75 percent of respondents said they were more likely to make a purchase from an unfamiliar business with a quality website, than a poor website from a known business.

Eight-five percent!!! In Yellow Pages, we used to call this ‘completing the ad cycle’. Somebody would get recommended to your business or see your advertising and they would come to the Yellow Pages to get the number or learn more …and if you’re not there or if you’re not well-represented… you’re going to lose that customer.

Well, what’s old is new again, right? Check out how many referrals were potentially lost in one month alone by glancing at the analytics of this local search campaign good place to start a web marketing campaign is at the beginning… with a good design. Paying for a good design up front will save you thousands in marketing costs down the line.

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Today’s post is from our anonymous Internet insider, Mr. X.

 

A big cause for this is actually conventional web design and the ubiquitous use of  the ‘Services’ page. There are 2 big reasons for you to eliminate this page from your website: search engine visibility and conversions. Let’s take at these one at a time.

For starters, I feel quite certain that many web conventions were established before the proliferation of search engines and that sometimes we are slow to question an established way of doing things. The ‘services page’ must be questioned when it comes to your site ranking in search results and here is the reason why.  We didn’t type services, Augusta, Ga when we were searching for a house painter in Augusta, did we? Of course not and no one else would either because that phrase tells us nothing about which service we’re actually looking for and we would get lousy results.

But this is exactly the information you are giving to the search engine when you use a services page. So when it is given a query for a house painter it looks at these sites and “sees” a page about services” instead of house painting…. hmmmm.  No wonder there are no house painters in those results.

The second drawback to using a services page is that it gives your users less information about what they need to make a purchase decision and so will hurt your site’s ability to convert.  When someone goes through the extra trouble to type in a geographic qualifier into a search engine they are probably very near the end of the buying cycle and are looking for something they are about to purchase. So you want to provide them with the *benefits *of choosing you for this service.  Not just a laundry list of everything that you do.

So how do we get along without our services page? Simple. Give each separate product or service that you sell it’s own page.  On it list the features and benefits of doing business with you for that particular service.  And then use descriptive anchor text to help your visitors get to the page they need quickly.  This will also help the search engines identify what your site is truly about and return your page in the search results.

For example, if I were laying out a site for a house painter in August Ga, I would create different pages for interior painting, exterior painting and maybe power washing.  This will allow someone  searching for an interior painter to get the information they need without having to read about power washing, which at this point they care little about.  The other benefit here is that Google may return this page one someone does a search for interior painting August Ga, which is a search term that is deliciously close to the end of the buying cycle.

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Today’s post is from an Internet insider, who would like to remain anonymous at this time. After speaking with him, I must say he has an unique vantage point and can should provide LocalBizBits readers with some timely insights. He has agreed to be a frequent contributor to this blog.
Thanks Mr. X. -Larry

 

“Yet despite the popularity of rich media elsewhere on the Internet, the use of photos and videos on local sites is in its infancy….But as a group, local sites have not yet harnessed media to full effect, making it a fascinating category in which to be engaged, and one with many opportunities”

Chris is definitely correct about sites “not the harnessing media on local sites”.  One of the things I do, is help design web sites for local businesses. I continually remind folks that in addition to having a search engine friendly, easy to navigate, quality content web site, they need to engage their visitors with some form of media.

Chris goes over 3 types: video, audio, photos.  I will let you read his pro/cons. Here is my take on each of these 3 media types.

Videos: I think these add a nice touch to any website. They don’t have to be huge, but not many sites have videos so you definitely will catch their attention. Also I think the video should be hosted on the web site itself vs being at YouTube.

Audio: I have not used audio much. I have been playing around with the idea of podcasts etc. but I don’t hink audio has the same effect as that of pictures. Most time, I turn off the sound on my speakers when I surf.

Photos: I consider photos a MUST HAVE. People want to see what you look like, what your storefront looks like., what you are selling.  Recently I found out that one of my local business clients was getting more traffic from folks searching Google images than from the normal web search. Hey, however they get to the web site, is fine by me, as long as they get there.

So if you have not already, look to see where you can add video or more photos to your web site. If done properly, they can help engage your audience; make them stay on the web site, show them who you are, and what you do.

 

Small business owners, please be aware that most web designers are not search engine experts or marketers. Your website might look great to you but how does it look to the search engines? That is the key to good site optimization.

I bring this topic up, because Chris Smith wrote an excellent article, Using Images For Local SEO at Search Engine Land the other day. I learned quite a bit from some of the neat ideas Chris provided. There are too many to list here but I recommend you check them out.  Chris said:

“A lot of small business websites I see out in the wild are pretty thin on content.”

“Though, if they were more detailed in many ways, I wouldn’t have to call them, nine times out of ten a picture is worth a thousand words, so I see both SEO value and benefit to user-experience in beefing up local biz sites’ image usage.”

Everyone has images on their website-if you can help show off who you are and increase your search visibility, well then I say that is a win-win.  I never really thought about the images and the role they can play. Chris definitely gives you more options to “get the most out” of what you have in your website.