​During the Corona crisis, many small business owners were forced to improve their remote order taking and delivery capabilities. In time, the market will recover, but the world has changed. More than ever, a strong online presence is the only way to move forward for many small business owners. Is your website up to the challenge?

Below are multiple recommendations small business owners should consider to increase their remote sales now, and when the economy finally recovers. Many of those recommendations are easy and free to implement. If money is tight, start with the low-cost options first.

By Alain Houle, Alco Web Design LLC

Make sure your website content is up to date. The Corona crisis might have forced you to modify the products and services you offer, delivery methods, operating hours, etc. Up to date content will let your visitors know that you are open for business and can be trusted.

• Your PRODUCTS & SERVICES pages should provide detailed information about each product and service you offer, the benefits to your customers, and why potential customers should do business with your company vs your competitors. In addition to inform your visitors, the natural presence of your keywords and search terms on those pages will increase your Google rankings and traffic. These are the most important pages of your website.
• Your ABOUT US page should convince your visitors that you know what you do, are trustworthy, and bring value. Be personal, be human, be humble, but don’t be bashful. Including local references about your company and your customers helps Google understand your area of operation. Include your name, address, picture. Don’t hesitate to talk about the community activities you are involved with, honors you received, your expertise, your company, and what you bring to the table.
• Your HOME page should summarize the products and services you offer, who are your typical customers, and what kind of company you are. Save time by reusing material from your ABOUT US and PRODUCTS & SERVICES pages.
• Your TESTIMONIALS, GUARANTEE, and FAQ pages should support the message of expertise, honesty, and value that will convince visitors to contact you. Take the opportunity to display your expertise and add local content while answering common questions from your potential customers.
• Your CONTACT US page should let your visitors know your operating hours, where your business is located, and how to contact you.
• Your BLOG is an easy way to periodically get in touch with potential customers and convince them to come back to your website. You offer new products or services? You expanded your territory? You have new staff? Let the world know about what is new and exciting about your small business. Search engines love fresh content and blogging is an easy way to remind Google that your small business is alive and kicking.
• Websites with original content rank higher on the Google search results. Do not copy from your competitors and come up with your own text so you do better than they do.
• Coming up with the right text for your web pages is easier said than done. Most small business owners I work with are better at running their business than at writing about it. Record yourself when telling a friend or relative about your business. Work with your spouse, kids, friends, business partners and take advantage of their writing skills.
• Typos and spelling mistakes immediately label you as sloppy and not worthy to do business with. Make sure everything is perfect before going live.

Having a website is pointless if nobody finds it. SEO is the art of bringing your website on top of the Google search results, so it can easily be found by potential customers.

• On-page SEO is the art of optimizing your web pages, so they are easy to understand and categorize by Google. It involves taking advantage of the invisible portions of your web pages with your keywords and search terms. It also involves making sure your keywords and search terms are present in the textual content of your web pages. Here is a little-known secret: Website content is the most critical step of a successful SEO effort.
• Off-page SEO are promotional activities designed to tell the world about an existing website and have little to do with the website itself. Examples of those activities are getting your business listed by internet directories, getting customer reviews, creating YouTube videos, participating in social medias, as well as purchasing online and conventional ads on TV, radio, and newspapers.

Many small businesses are running slow right now. When is the last time you had time to think? Take advantage of this idle time to review your business priorities, your website, and your online marketing strategies so your business is stronger than ever when the market reopens. Alco Web Design specializes in small business website design and SEO. Don’t hesitate to contact us, we are always happy to help.

BLOG POST CONTENT
​You heard it before, content is king. There is not point to write a blog post that nobody wants to read.

• Keep things simple: Most small business blog posts are 400-500 characters in length. Think SEO and make sure your most important keyword comes at least 3 times throughout the write up.
• Take it easy on the sales pitch: The primary objective of your blog post is to connect with potential customers, not to make a sale. Connect, establish relationship, demonstrate expertise, build trust, open the door. If you do a good job, the sale will come later.
• Use small paragraphs and short sentences: People don’t read on the internet, they skim. Use 5th grade vocabulary and grammar to make sure your visitors can quickly and easily understand your message.
• Work and rework the text of your blog post: Limit the distractions and use your favorite text editor to make sure your write up is perfect before you even think about publishing it.
• Post title: The post title will also be displayed on the Google search results. Use a catchy title that will get the reader’s attention and convince them to go to your post. Make sure your title contains your most important keyword.
• Post Highlights: On top, use bold characters to create a summary that tells your readers what the post is all about and convince them to read more. Include a reference about the author and a link to your website (Google likes incoming links).
• Use of picture(s): Appropriate visual elements will make your blog post look good and help reinforce the concepts you are trying to drive. Don’t copy pictures from the internet. This is illegal and some unscrupulous companies make a business at finding and fining violators. Use your own picture or purchase a stock photo.
• Post wrap up: At the end, summarize your blog post and politely inviting the readers to contact you for more details, information, or help.
• Mobile considerations: Mobile devices can only display a few characters per line. Remove un-necessary spaces after paragraphs and use a single space after sentences to minimize unnecessary line changes in the mobile version of your post.

CREATE WEEBLY BLOG POST
Weebly is the perfect small business website design tool. Here is how to create a blog post with Weebly.
 
Web browser consideration: When working with Weebly, I use Google Chrome because it includes a default “Paste as plain text” option that removes the original formatting when cutting and pasting. This feature eliminates double text formatting errors that are sometimes difficult to detect.
 
Create new post: Go to your blog page and click the “New Post” at the bottom right.
 
Build your post: Enter your post title, text, and picture(s) as described earlier.
 
Google optimize your picture:

• Google likes links so create a link from your picture to a page of your website.
• Reuse some elements of your post title and take advantage of the picture CAPTION and ALT TEXT tools to help Google understand what your post is all about. Make sure the CAPTION and ALT TEXT contain your most important keyword.

 
Google optimize your post:

• At the bottom left, click POST OPTIONS
• Assign one or more category to your post. Use categories that contain your most important keyword.
• Reuse some elements of your post title and create a permalink (URL) that contains your most important keyword. Separate words with a dash (-) character to make the URL easy to read. “Blog-post-cost-effective-small-business-website-promotion-technique” is an example.
• Reuse some elements of your post title and create a SEO post title that contains your most important keyword. (65 characters max)
• Reuse some elements of your post highlights and create a SEO post description that contains your most important keyword. (155 characters max)

 

• Publish your blog post:
• As part of the publishing process, Weebly offers the option to automatically include a note on your Facebook and Twitter accounts so your followers know about your new post are invited to read it. This is an awesome feature, take advantage of it.
• Once published, verify that your blog post looks good on a computer and on a mobile device.
• Make sure there are no errors and that all links are functional.
• Bingo you are done

​Periodically publishing a blog post is an easy and cost-effective way to promote a small business website. Writing for the web is a delicate balance between creating persuasive content that is also easy for Google to categorize. Our experienced blog post writers know how to craft a message that will impress Google and your visitors. For help or more information, call us at (920) 850-4642 or fill in this contact us form, we would be happy to help.​

The Benefits

• Targeted Exposure- In order to make significant online sales, every business has to get a sufficient amount of exposure. Just having an online presence is not sufficient and guest blogging is one of the methods of getting that attention.
• Qualified Traffic- The quality of traffic to your site increases when you have good guest-posts on it. You are able to leverage the existing loyal follower-base from other blogs and then direct them to your own blogs.
• Credibility- It’s very easy for any business on the internet to claim that they are experts as there really is no strong method of validating that claim. But the minute you have some authoritative guest posts on your site, it automatically increases your credibility as these blogs act like an endorsement.
• Networking Channel- Guest blogging is a great way of connecting with influential people in your field like industry experts, entrepreneurs and decision makers.
• Link-Building- Though this is not the primary function of guest blogging, it is the best way of bringing all those valuable links to your site and making visitors sit up and notice you. It’s a great way to impress Google as well.
• Social Networking- Most blogs share their content with their respective social media followers. Automatically, all the people who are following those blogs on the various social networks also get notifications about your posts.

We Handle it All
All of this simply means that guest blogging opens up a treasure house of new business opportunities for you. Alco Web Design knows and recognizes that it is very difficult for you to keep track of activities such as these, and we help with handling all guest blogging activities on your website. For more information, contact us or visit our website, www.alcowebdesign.com.

But things have changed and now most successful websites will make an attempt to reach out to their visitors and generate business by using a number of Internet marketing techniques.

This is where the ubiquitous Blog comes on stage. Blog is essentially an acronym for Web-log and is like an online journal. Any posts that are added to the blog will be displayed in reverse-chronological order and a continuous “autobiography” of a website is created. A blog is a very important engine for attracting more Web traffic. Add a blog to your site, update it on a regular basis and it will instantaneously add an interest quotient to your website. First time visitors will find a reason to revisit it and slowly but surely the trickle of visitors to your site will turn into a flood.

There are a few things you have to keep in mind when you blog. I always suggest that a mechanism for comments be included. This is the best way to up your visitor’s level of loyalty and the “conversation” becomes an attraction point for visitors. The comments can also be used as feedback and they can give you some important pointers about how you can improve your site or the services and goods that you are selling. If you are able to use that effectively and create a stronger presentation, it will appeal to a larger audience and drive website traffic. Those who publish blogs will also frequently approach many other bloggers and will request for links.

Another effective tactic is to add a conduit toolbar. This is a teaser link or a widget that you can add to the toolbar- a click will lead them to your website. What is probably most important for website marketing is that you keep your blog fresh and updated. A moss-laden blog will get buried in the www while one that is updated regularly will continue to hog the spotlight. In my opinion, adding frequent, interesting and relevant blog content that is crisp and catchy is the way to keep drawing traffic to your website.

For additional details about website designing and SEO, feel free to contact me or visit my website at www.alcowebdesign.com or contact us.