June 26, 2009

Making money because of Small Business Web Site

There is a fair number of Small Business companies without any sort of web presence. Some companies, one step ahead, are pretty happy with their beautiful web site where two-year-old information flows in a single direction only.

Don't take me wrong, having a website is better than nothing but, as beautiful sites are hardly ever for free, there are good chances they could have found better ways to invest money to promote their companies.

A website can't be a sign in a desert road waiting for somebody to pass by so it can deliver your message.

A few steps to web success:
1) Have good products or services (don't think it is a problem for you);
2) Have people talking about you (it's natural if you make your customer happy);
3) Make it easy to talk about you (use a slogan, a logo or any sort of symbol). See a case to picture the idea.
4) Now that people hear about you, they might want to find you. A web site can make it easier. To be found, you have to be where the costumer will search.
5) Make Google’s life easy. If you appear after the third page in a Google search you can't expect to be found. You will find a lot of information about it looking for SEO.


Find more:
Smallbusiness-it.blogspot.com
Tips for Blogging Your Way to Small Business Success
If I Were Launching a New Small Biz Web Site Today

June 25, 2009

Small Business and the web

How can Internet bring you more business?

North America alone has more than 250,000,000 users [1]. Suppose only 1% is looking for a product or service you sell. It is already 2,500,000 potential customers.

Just to give you an idea of how far it goes, take a look at this video...

Small Business and the Media Revolution
Small Business and the Media Revolution


Have I got your attention? Well, those are not the best numbers to be looking at, yet. The news become more interesting when we learn that the number of Web users in America has more than doubled since 2000.

So, are you interested now? Good! Very Good.

Next step,
How do I put my small business in the Internet?

[1] www.internetworldstats.com

Critical tasks in Small Business

Being a Small Business owner doesn't make you superman! So, believe me, there are things you will not be able to do.

Good news are:
Your business will be a huge success!!
It won't take long!

Now, the bad news:
You may not have time for anything but the company for while. How to manage such a situation?
I have three words for you: "Planning, planning and planning".

a) Know your business. Know what is important and what is critical. Plan when each critical task has to be done and what is necessary in order to complete it. Execute yourself the tasks you considered critical.

b) Know which tasks are important but not critical. Plan when they should be done before becoming critical.

c) Consider having somebody else doing what is important but not critical.

Remember, if you are wonderful at baking cakes and you don't know about Internet but you think it is important to have an updated website, a live blog, several followers in twitter and product pictures on facebook; it can be worth to think about having somebody else managing your Small Business "online life".

Back to Time in Small Business

See more:
Social Media Marketing Takes Time

June 24, 2009

Time in Small Business

Small business has a lot to do with doing yourself and, most of times, doing everything. It is important though, to learn how critical every task is and there is a difference between important and critical.

One thing is important if you have to do it. For instance, it is important to have good quality and, it is also important, to sell.

Now, when you have to do it now, then, it is a critical thing.

One way to save time is to worry only about the critical tasks.

Ways to save time in Small Business:
1) Reviewing business processes
2) Optimizing processes
3) Automatizing processes
4) Let somebody else to do it

How do I put a Small Business in the Internet?

Small Business should start an Internet life by building a blog.

Why?

Because it is easy, quick and... it is FREE!!!

The easier way to do it, watch the movie...


Creating a Small Business blog.

Later on you might want to learn how to customize your template so your blog will look more like a web site and less like a blog. But, right now, your small business is already alive in the Internet.

Want to know more? SmallBusines School

Congratulations!!! Go close some deals now!

Back to Small Business and the web.

June 20, 2009

How to do small business online marketing?

Small business online marketing! How could that possibly work?

The web is rather a people network than a computer network. As so, it is an excellent mean to send a message as long as you have a message to send.

If you don't have anything to say, the web wouldn't help you much. However, as it becomes more and more easier to say what you want, why don't you say something about:

1) What you have to sell (your products or services)
2) How good are your products or services (explain features, show value)
3) How to use them (people like it better when know how to use it)
4) The customers that are really happy with you
5) Why don't you have them talking about your products or services?

The web will not do anything by itself but it can do an amazing job on helping you to communicate with your customer. This way, you will be able to, not only sell more, but also to have better products, more customers, deliver more value, highier satisfaction level and, consequently, more sales.


Small Business online marketing Case Studies:

Life online

What does it take, for a small company, to have a web site?
Not much actually. As a matter of facts, it can actually be for free.

There are two things to be concerned about if you want to create a web page for your company:
1) Designing the web page
The design part is related to how beautiful the site is and which information will be in the site.

2) Hosting
Whoever has a website, needs a server to put the site files. When a potential customer types your web address, the server sends to him the site information. There are some companies that provide this sort of service.

3) Registering the domain.
Domain is you address in the Internet; for instance, www.google.com is the domain.
You usually need to register a domain and it costs you some money as well.

Now, how can it possible be for free?

Small Business IT

Business Intelligence for Small Business

How can a Small Business use Business Intelligence - BI?
BI can be quite simple (and quite complex sometimes). In our case, let's start from something simple:

Suppose, in a restaurant, you sell pizza and pasta. Keeping trek of sales, it is possible to know not only how much you sell but also what you are selling. That is the first step to determine your best product.

If you know prices and costs of each product and how many of them are sold, it becomes possible to develop an action plan to make your restaurant a huge success. The idea is not only to sell more (what is actually good) but improve the sales of the right products.

For instance, having in mind the top 4 products you could consider:

1) Implement a bonus program.
Consider compensations for selling the top products.

2) Product promotion:
2.1) Free trials
2.2) Coupons
2.3) Menu optimization
2.4) Press Release

If you want to know more about BI for Small Business, just stay close.

June 19, 2009

The cleaning services company web presence

The cleaning services company and the small business web presence - A case study.

John is on the train heading home, too tired to pay attention to anything at all. He closes his eyes and thinks about Anna (his wife) who is always complaining about the cleaning services.

He wonders why he is thinking about it now. May be because the two ladies next him are talking about a small company that claims to be able to clean a house up in less than an hour. The company's slogan is "Housekeeping in 60 minutes or it's free!".

John wishes he could ask the ladies the company's phone number but he is too shy for that.

Lucky for Anna! John remembered the company's slogan and found it at http://www.google.com/.



Conclusions:
a) It is very important to have people talking good things about your cleaning services company. But would you rely on overhearing train conversation to have new contracts?
b) It is not enough to have people talking about you. You need listeners to remember. A slogan can be very useful in this case.
c) Now that you have poeple talking about your business and a slogan to help them to remember, you use a website to link your slogan to a phone number, a e-mail address or other ways of contact.

As you see, the cleaning services small business does much better with web presence.

Link to:
How to do small business online marketing?
Making money because of the Small Business Web Site

Peter and the painting sign

Peter does a lot o things in construction. He is one of those people that can be called handy.

People love his work but it doesn't mean he will have work next month. This economy has been tough to everyone.

What is hard to believe when you watch the album he calls "My 10 best works". If only people had the time to read the 5 recommendation letters he keeps safe in a folder inside the truck.

It hasn't been this hard since 2001 when he decided to paint a logo and his phone number at the doors of his truck.

After reading this blog he decided to have all pictures in his "10 best works" album scanned. Those pictures will be in his brand new blog. The blog will also have an area with customer's comments and tips about how to fix small painting problems.

When his brother asked him which were the chances of this new blog been actually seem by anybody he said: "The chances are really small, that is way I'm also painting a small plate to put in front of my customers houses. The plate says "By Peter... see my 10 best works at www.peter's10bestwork.blogspot.com".

Peter is now planning on buying a digital camera. He wants to produce videos explaining how he works. He is dying to see his videos in youtube.com.

How to do small business online marketing?

Small Business and the Media Revolution

How can Small Business to profit from the web?

"
by kmcgovern on June 19, 2009
Some numbers to chew on…
77% of users search at least once a day
70% of online transactions can be traced back to a search
More than 80% of people are researching purchases online
Google’s 2008 revenue was $22 billion, 98% of that $22 billion was from AdWords advertising
Search ads to be a $44 billion market by 2011
40% of us are watching less TV than in 2004
"
Source: www.algofreaks.com


If those numbers are note enough, see if this movie can help you to consider the possibility:


The media revolution, a big opportunity for Small Business

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Small Business IT
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