Small Business Online Marketing - Attract Visitors With A User Friendly Website Design

Do you have a website for your small business? If you do have a website you are ahead of many other small businesses in your area.

How much control do you have over your website? What type of website is it? A static e-commerce website, one on which the content rarely changes? Do you have the ability to make changes and updates regularly, or do you have to wait for your webmaster? The answers to these questions determine if you will attract visitors with a user-friendly website design.

Your Website is an Extension of Your Business Online

Regardless of the type of business you're in, if your business is at a physical location, you know the value of creating an atmosphere that makes your customers and clients, as well as potential customers and clients, feel welcome. It may the actual setting of your establishment, or it may simply be the warm, welcoming smile that they are greeted with.

The same is true for your online portal - the door that opens to your business online. Your small business online marketing strategy requires that your online portal or website attracts visitors and encourages them to stay on your site, and later return.

Create a User-Friendly Website that Attracts Visitors

Your website must be designed to attract visitors and make it easy for them to navigate from one page to the next so that they will enjoy the experience and want to return time and again. Furthermore, your website should reflect your brand, the brand you want people to remember after they've moved away from your site.

Here are some basic points to attract visitors with a user-friendly website design:

1) If you have a logo for your offline business, it would be wise to have that logo on your website for continuity. Your visitors will more readily make the connection between your offline and online businesses.

2) Your brand may be just reflected in a photograph with a warm smile or perhaps the lettering of your website's name, which would likely be the same or very similar to the name of your business.

3) Your concern should be about your customer's or visitor's experience when they visit your online portal. It should be a pleasant one, and one of the things that will help is to organize your tabs in a clear and consistent manner so that your visitor needs only the minimum number of clicks to get to a page or retrieve the information they're looking for.

4) Keep your overall design simple and uncomplicated.

5) Make it easy for your visitors to contact you. This may mean the difference between a one-stop visitor and one who becomes one of your best clients or customers in your local business. Although you are marketing online, your business is offline, therefore make sure that the physical location of your business is also listed on your website.

Domain Name - The Importance of a Keyword Rich Domain Name

1) Every website must have a domain name, and by selecting a domain name that reflects, to some extent, what you do or what you offer to your target market, you will be setting the stage to attract visitors to your website.

2) Another point to note is that your keyword-rich domain name may not necessarily be the same as the name of your business. For example, the name of your business may be "Tim, Your Friendly Handyman."

Your prospect will be searching in Google or one of the other search engines using keywords, and in order for your business to be found your domain name will need to reflect that. Also, because your business should be found in local searches, the name of your town or closest city should be included. In this case if you were in my town your domain could be simply handymanservicesportstlucie dot com or handymanportstlucie dot com. It's always better to use a dot com. For one thing dot coms reportedly rank higher in the search engines, and secondly, that's the most commonly used extension. You could lose business if yours ends with.info or.biz and people are typing in.com.

More and more local small businesses are recognizing the importance of having an online marketing strategy to increase their visibility and attract customers and clients. The first place to start is with a website, which will be the door to your online activities. There are many other aspects of online marketing that can have a positive effect on your local business.

5 Reasons Why You Should Do a Product Launch That Has Nothing To Do With Selling That Product

When most entrepreneurs decide to launch a product, they're mostly thinking about how many products they're going to sell or how much money they'll make during the launch.

Now while that's a great reason to have a product launch, it's actually not the only reason. In fact, I may go as far to say it's not even the most important reason. Let's take a moment and go through the top 5 reasons to have a launch that have nothing to do with selling that particular product.

1. You create visibility for yourself. Even a small product launch will create visibility and get people talking about you. After all, the point of a product launch is to create a buzz and get some of your free content to go viral. The sheer act of doing that builds name and brand recognition, which is key to growing a business.

2. You build your credibility. If your product launches include releasing free content (i.e. videos, special reports) or hosting a free call or webinar, how you present that information can go a long ways towards building your credibility. If you giveaway great content and people can experience for themselves how knowledgeable you are, your credibility will shoot through the roof.

3. You build your list. Offering free content or a free call or webinar is a great way to build your list. Even if you have a small list there are ways to structure your product launch to maximize your list building. (Note -- the end result may not be tons of sales but rather a big boost in your credibility and visibility not to mention more names on your list.)

4. You build momentum in your marketing and your business. Product launches take an enormous amount of energy to get off the ground. That energy has to go somewhere (remember the laws of physics -- energy is neither created or destroyed, just transformed) and if done right it's transformed into a huge momentum boost for your business. You'll likely find marketing your business much easier after a launch -- not just because your personal momentum is going but because your prospects are still "talking" about you and are more open to receiving your message.

5. You sell your other products and services. Remember all that visibility and credibility you created with your launch? Well, you likely got the attention of people who may not be interested in the specific product you're launching but they ARE interested in YOU. Don't be surprised if sales of your other products and services jump (this typically happens both during and after the launch).

Now, here's the best part. If you do a product launch for reasons OTHER than a big payday at the end of the day, think about how good it will feel when you DO sell a bunch of products? One of the biggest reasons why product launches are so stressful and so discouraging is entrepreneurs put this big number out there on how many they want to sell and when they don't hit that number, they're depressed -- EVEN though it may really have been a big success in other ways. So, if you flip it, you can relax during the launch, enjoy it more and be excited and grateful for whatever sales you make.