BizSite Blog

Mistake #1: Lack of Online Strategy – She’s not talking about a 50 page business plan, but planning so you know what you can predict. Have to be realistic and know what  you can sell online. You can’t just “build it and they will come.” The web is like real estate, if you have a main street in your local community, you will get good traffic versus a dead end alley. Your web site starts in a dead end alley and you need to push people there and promote. Also, go after people you already know.

Mistake #2:  Focus on a single customer – If a single customer says “they want web to print.” Who is creating the strategy? The customer. You need to decide and strategize web to print.

Mistake #3: Built it Yourself. There is no faster ecosystem than the web…every time a browser changes, your product needs to be compatible. This problem alone will be problematic.

Mistake #4: Lack of internal resources – What’s critical to the success of a Web To Print Implementation is to make you “own” the platform. Make you you have a resource that becomes the resident expert besides relying on the vendor…so that you can determine your destiny. Often times, the customers become more experts that the resources with a vendor.

Mistake #5: Too production focused. When evaluating, make sure the customer’s experience on the web is tested. Make sure you find an outsider to try the system. The experience on the customer’s desktop is more important than what’s happening on your desktop.

Mistake #6:  Configuration paralysis. Don’t worry too much about “What color that banner is.” Get your first order through the door. That is critical.

Mistake #7: Purchase the future. Software moves so quickly but don’t get caught up on what is coming. Focus on what exists now. If you purchase the future, you may wait longer due to the software development process. Focus on present functionality in a product.

Mistake #8: Lack of ownership. Once you purchase, make the web to print solution part of your business. Own it and make it part of your culture.

Mistake #9: Too focused on technology. Sometimes we get glazed over with technology but stay focused on the boring

stuff of making money. Focus on the strategy and ROI.

Mistake #10: No sales involvement. Sometimes direct sales folks see this self service model and think, “I’m out of a job.” Sales reps aren’t selling print jobs now, they’re selling “ATMs” in your customers that pay you! Web To Print removes all the drag behind a buying decision and “inserting that ATM” machine does just that.

We said A-Z and we meant it. Here are 26 sure-fire ways to increase web traffic and site visitors to your website. Use some or all of them, and let us know which ones worked best for you.

1. Optimize your site (SEO).
   Win on the search engines when people search for keyword phrases related to your products or services.
   (More about search engine optimization.)
   
   
2. Get your site listed in directories.
   Submit your site to all the major web directories. This will generate traffic directly from the directories themselves and will also help to improve your link popularity. That helps you win on Google!
   (More about web directories.)
   
   
3. Get listed in search engines.
   Submit your site to all the major search engines.
   (More about search engines.)
   
   
4. Get links to your site.
   Get people with complimentary sites to link to yours. You offer rental kayaks on the beach. Ask the local restaurant owners to link to you, and offer to link to them. Ask the local tour guides, the real estate agents, the night clubs, and everyone else. Links lead to clicks onto your website and help to improve your search engine rankings.
   
   
5. Buy links to your site.
   Buy text links on other websites. That means more spiders stopping by, more people clicking through, and better search engine rankings.
   
   
6. Buy banner ads.
   Buy banner ads on other websites. It helps to build brand recognition.
   
   
7. Participate in a banner exchange program.
   It won't cost you anything, and will lead to a few extra visitors. Plus, you're spreading your brand all over the place.
   
   
8. Participate in a WebRing.
   Connect your site with other sites in your niche.
   
   
9. Pay for clicks to your site.
   Pay for clicks or inclusion on the search engines so that people will see your site in the sponsored links section of the search results when they search for keyword phrases related to your products or services.
   (More about pay per click.)
   
   
10. Set up an affiliate marketing program.
    With affiliate marketing, you can either pay per click, pay per lead generated, pay per sale, or pay per customer acquired.
    
    
11. Use smart public relations (PR).
    Get news coverage of your business and your site. Approach online and traditional media. This will often lead to others placing links pointing to your website, which leads to more clicks and also to improved search engine rankings.
    
    
12. Use E-mail marketing.
    Ugly, but effective for the cost. Blast out your special offers, but be nice about it.
    
    
13. Use off-line marketing.
    Promote your site. Put your url on all your license plates. Paint it on your car. Buy newspaper and yellow pages ads with your url. Put up flyers and stickers. Sponsor a little league team. Do anything and everything to spread the word about your website around your city.
    
    
14. Run regular promotions.
    Stage regular giveaways and spread the word about it.
    
    
15. Get published.
    Write articles for publication on other websites. The author profile will link to your site. The article will show that you're an expert.
    
    
16. Publish yourself.
    Write articles for your own site regularly. This will help you to win on the search engines and gives your visitors a reason to come back over and over.
    
    
17. Ask for reviews.
    Ask for reviews of your self-published articles on other webmasters' websites. Ask for reviews of your website, your products, your software, your services. These will usually include links to your articles.
    
    
18. Write briefs.
    Write daily or weekly news briefs focusing in on your industry or specialty area. This keeps your site "fresh" in the eyes of the major search engines and helps you to spread a wide net when fishing for top search engine positions.
    
    
19. Create a newsletter.
    Ask your visitors to sign up for your newsletter, and encourage them to send it along to people they know. Send a newsletter regularly with teasers or lead-ins to your in-depth new articles or with special offers and the latest products.
    
    
20. Post in chat rooms.
    Become active in bulletin boards and chat rooms focusing on your industry. Leave inciteful comments, and people will click on your profile, then visit your site.
    
    
21. Give away free stuff.
    Offer something people want at your site. Give them a reason to come back and get more. Offer free downloads and update them regularly. Offer coupons or discounts. Content content content.
    
    
22. Give awards for excellent sites in your niche.
    This builds more links back to your site and establishes you as a credible reviewer, an expert in your space.
    
    
23. Run a contest and promote it.
    Photo contests, essay contests, goofy contests, random drawings, anything. Example: Messiest Garage in America contest on OfftheFloor.com.
    
    
24. Join your local business organizations.
    Chambers of Commerce and other organizations will often add your site to their member directory. That's an added advantage over the obvious business-building and networking opportunities.
    
    
25. Create an RSS feed.
    Give people another way to interact with your content.
    
    
26. Be accessible.
    Build your site so that it is accessible to all browsers and to PocketPC and Palm Pilot users. Don't forget, people with disabilities buy things too. Make your site Section 508 complaint. Your competition probably hasn't.

After cleaning and rearranging some furniture in our house, the BizSite Solutions website is back up and running.

We improved the client pages and gave our portfolio page a new look  complete with client case studies.

Heads up - new videos are on their way from The WebSmart TV Series! Yes I said VIDEOS. We will be launching soon a WebSmart TV Series that will showcase our work and our clients along with expert opinons, discussions, testimonials, fun facts, tech toys and gadgets, a DID YOU KNOW? segment and more as we think of them

Follow us on Twitter: @bizsitesolu. Look for previews and flashbacks during this month!

Subscribe to our Youtube page: Youtube. (And watch some videos while you're there). We are also on Vimeo!

Like us on Facebook!

Sign up for our latest email newsletters, and get on our mailing list.

Tell your friends!

Thank you from Carlfred + the rest of the team, cast and crew.

Monitoring your social media presence is incredibly important - but many business owners and marketers are concerned it will take too much time.

You don't need a whole team devoted to social media monitoring - with some tools and these free tips, even one single person can keep an eye on your social media presence. Cover these 5 steps over a cup of coffee and you'll build social media into a healthy daily inbound marketing routine!

1) Check Twitter for chatter about your company ( 2 minutes ): Use tools like TweetDeck or Twitter Search to monitor conversations about your company in real-time.

2) Scan Google Alerts ( 1.5 minutes ): Check Google Alerts for your company name, products, executives or brand terms. To set this up, enter your search terms in a Google Alert and select to receive updates as they happen or once daily. Now, when people blog about your products, an alert will be sent to your inbox. You can read the articles and respond right away!

3) Check Facebook stats ( 1 minute ): Visit your Company Page's Faacebook Insights. This can be found under the page's main photo if you are an admin for your page. Scan your active users and interaction stats. Check out your wall posts or new discussions if you have them enabled for your page.

4) Answer Industry-related LinkedIn questions ( 3 minutes ): Search for questions on LinkedIn that you or members of your company can answer. You can set up an RSS feed for specific question categories to go to your Google Reader as well. When you find a relevant question, respond and include a link to your website or a relevant blog post that might be helpful to your audience.

5) Use Google Reader to check Flickr, Digg and others ( 2.5 minutes ): Also set up RSS feeds for searches on your company name and industry terms in other social media sites. Similar to monitoring LinkedIn and Twitter, your Reader will serve as a great place to centralize your other searches too!

log marketing can be quite complicated for anyone that has never even blogged before. If you are considering getting into small business blog marketing, you will want to first have a blog and see what that is like before you get into something more. Blogging requires dedication and patience. You have to update your blog on a regular basis in order to keep your readers happy. Doing so will keep them coming back for more and to see what you have new to say.

Small business blog marketing consists of blogging about your business. It definitely is a great tool that you should use to get your business out there and known by others. However, you will need to be patient because it is a long process that will require much of your attention. Just because you have a blog does not mean that someone is going to find it and read it. You are going to have to make it known. If you have a website for your business, you can link your blog to it and that will let the ones that know about your business and business website know about your blog as well.

Small business blog marketing is something that anyone can do. Having a blog and keeping it up to date with the latest information is not hard. All you need to have is a plan and you will be set to market any type of business from your blog. Whether you are selling a product or a service, it does not matter. A blog that is marketed the right way will be beneficial to any business whatever it might be.

So you are probably wondering how you are going to accomplish this small business blog marketing. When you are marketing a blog, you pretty much do it the same way that you would market a website. It is going to need keywords, and content. You can write the content yourself, or pay someone else to write it for you. That part is totally up to you. However you will want to be sure that the content is decent and something that your readers will want to read. This will keep them coming back. Make sure that the content is written from special keywords that you choose. You will also want to become familiar with SEO which is Search Engine Optimization. SEO will help you to optimize your blog to get a better ranking with the search engines.

Once you have chosen the keywords, and gotten some content published on your blog, you will be ready to get it out there some more. Link exchanges are wonderful for marketing your small business blog. You want to try and exchange links with sites that are relevant to yours, but not in direct competition. If you try to exchange links with sites in competition with yours, you are going to find that many of them will turn you down in fear of losing business to you.

Paid directories are a big part of small business blog marketing as well. You can pay some directories to list your blog URL in their directory under the specific category that it falls under. However, some of these even have specific qualifications that you must have to get in. Follow all of the application steps, and you should be ok. Just do not try to submit your blog to a directory that it does not qualify for, or fit in.

Another important thing to remember when you are into small business blog marketing is that if anyone leaves you a comment  on your blog, you should acknowledge it and respond. You can also comment on other blogs that are relevant to yours, and leave a link to your blog as well. This will help bring in visitors to your blog, and you will begin to see more and more traffic.

Small business blog marketing is not rocket science, however someone that has never marketed a single thing before in their life may have problems. Just be persistent, and don’t give up.

1. Your Business is Open to the World 24/7, 365 Days a Year
Unlike your company's office that may be open from 8-5, Monday thru Friday, your company 's website is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. There are many different time zones that may affect your business, which is why being on the web makes it time convenient for everyone.

2. It's Your Online Brochure / Catalog That Can Be Changed at Anytime
A website is easier, cheaper and quicker to update than print material. Its' capacities are almost limitless which allow you to provide users with more comprehensive information. This will save you money on printing and distribution costs as well.

3. Reach New Markets with a Global Audience
On the Internet, you aren't that local little business anymore. You have the potential to be seen by millions across the globe. Did you ever think your company would have the possibility of doing business around the world? Well, now you can. Without a doubt, the Internet is the most cost effective way to trade nationally and internationally.

4. Improved Customer Service
By providing answers to questions on your website, sales and information requests can be processed automatically and immediately, whether someone is in the office or not. Online forms can be used to allow customers to request quotations or ask further information. Save costs by allowing users to download invoices, proposals and important documents.

5. Present a Professional Image
For a small business, a well-designed web site is a great way of instilling confidence and looking bigger than you actually are. In this day in age, customers assume that you already have a website. By now, your primary competitors probably already have a presence on the Internet. If they do, keep up with them and find ways to make yours better.

6. Sell Your Products
Why pay expensive rent, overhead, electric bills, and all the other costs that go along with owning a bricks-n-mortar business? Selling in cyberspace is much cheaper and a good way to supplement your offline business. Providing secure online ordering is very affordable for even the smallest businesses.
7. Promote Your Services
Lawyers, doctors, financial consultants, entertainers, realtors and all service oriented businesses should let customers know that they have a choice. Millions of users are referring to the web and are using company's websites to make major decisions when they need a specialized service.

8. Gather Information and Generate Valuable Leads
You can gather information about your customers and potential customers by using forms and surveys. Rather than going out and getting leads, let them come to you. This is a great tool for prospecting targeted customers looking to use your products and services.

9. Provides Instant Gratification
People are busy and don't like to wait for information. Give them what they want, when they want it. If your product is suitable, offer them free samples or trials to download. This includes pictures, brochures, software, videos, Power Point slides, music and more.

10. Great Recruiting Tool
Whether you are looking for talent or posting job opportunities with your company, your website is a great recruiting tool for building your business.

More Great Tips!

The Do's & Don'ts For Website Success!
• Do invest in a secure online ordering system.
• Do keep your audience in mind and create copy that personally speaks to them.
• Do create a clear and compelling sales message.
• Do update your site content and keep it fresh and current.
• Do anticipate and answer your visitor's questions.
• Do check your site to ensure all forms and links are working.
• Do include a call to action on each page. You won't get business if you don't ask for it.
• Do include your contact information.
• Do offer links to programs like Acrobat Reader needed to view your site information.
• Do choose a Web host that provides exceptional service, minimal down time, and consistent site backups.
• Do carefully check your content for spelling and grammar mistakes. Errors are unprofessional and show a lack of attention to detail.
• Do title each page to be search engine (and bookmark) friendly.
• Do use a URL and domain name that accurately reflects your business or company name and is easy to remember.

...and

• Don't confuse your visitor with too many topics on one page. Organize information logically.
• Don't let your site become outdated. Your credibility will disappear if you offer Mother 's Day specials just in time for Father's Day.
• Don't include too many colors, fonts, or font sizes that distracts your visitor.
• Don't yell at your visitor by using all capital letters.
• Don't take your customer's privacy for granted. Create a privacy policy and stick to it.
• Don't insult your customer by selling his information to third parties.
• Don't ignore or delay customer requests. Return all customer inquiries promptly because you never know whom they may recommend you to even if they don't buy from you.
• Don't add a “visitor count” to your site. No need to brag how many or show how few visit.
• Don't include graphics that fail to add importance to your site.
• Don't use silly clip art unless absolutely necessary.
• Don't add unnecessary "extras" that will take a particularly long time to load.
• Don't ignore customer complaints, just because you're on the Web doesn't mean your business won't be affected by dissatisfied customers sharing their experience with others.

In the new world of work, your online profile plays a critical role in your ability to achieve your professional goals. Until now, there has no way of evaluating the strength of your online personal brand.

We developed the Online ID Calculator™ to help professionals assess their online identity. This extremely popular and first-of-its-kind tool was designed by William Arruda and Kirsten Dixson, authors of Career Distinction: Stand Out by Building Your Brand, a bestselling careers book (Wiley, June 2007). William is known as the personal branding guru and Kirsten is a leading authority on using the Web to advance your career. Together, they are partners in Reach, the pioneering personal branding firm with global presence.

Here is what "Carlfred Giles" Distinction is:

The graph above shows your Volume and Relevance of results and positions you in our Online ID four box model. Congratulations. You are digitally distinct!

See below for more information about your Google results.
This is the nirvana of online identity. A search of your name yields lots of results about you, and most, if not all, reinforce your unique personal brand. Keep up the good work, and remember that your Google results can change as fast as the weather in New England. So, regularly monitor your online identity. That way, if something negative, such as an anonymous ad hominem attack on your character on a blog, crops up, you can address it quickly, before it gets out of hand. Read Chapter 11 of Career Distinction: Stand Out by Building Your Brand for more ideas on how to continue to build your brand online.

In addition to Volume and Relevance, there are two additional measures you need to be concerned with: Purity and Diversity. Purity speaks to how many of the results are about you (not about someone else who has the same name.) Diversity speaks to the multi-media aspect of the results (how much content displayed was in images or video, etc.)

Purity

Your Purity Score is: Stellar
This means you either have a unique name or you have done an outstanding job building relevant, high ranking content on the World Wide Web (or both). Bravo! Keep up the great work!

Diversity

Your Diversity Score is: Stellar
Bravo! Your results include video, images and real-time content - perfection! Keep up the great work by continuing to post relevant images and videos at sites like Flickr (flickr.com) and YouTube (youtube.com) and continue to use Twitter (twitter.com) to connect with your brand com.