Welcome to the July issue of Biz Talk! This publication is a free, subscription-based resource from Five Sparrows, LLC, which specializes in new web site development, web site re-designs, and complete online marketing services for small businesses.

We welcome your questions, comments, or inquiries at editor@fivesparrows.com. Enjoy!

Do You Make These Mistakes with Your Web Site?

While it’s true that “nobody’s perfect,” I think the same goes for small business web sites as well – no web site is absolutely perfect. Even the best of the best often have room for improvement! But there are some basic web site mistakes that many small companies make that can end up hurting business instead of helping it.  Do any of these mistakes show up on your web site?

1. Not enough content.  Often, small businesses will put minimal information along with their contact information on their web sites and think that’s probably good enough. But today’s web visitors are looking for something more, and lots of good quality content is a great way to deliver value to your visitors and build credibility for your business.
   
   
2. Old or outdated content.  If you want visitors and search engines to pay attention to your web site, you need to keep adding new content and updating the existing information on your web site regularly.  If your site never changes, the search engines will ignore your site, and visitors will not have a reason to come back. It’s also unlikely that visitors will recommend your site to their friends and colleagues, too.
   
   
3. Not being search engine friendly. Speaking of search engines, what happens if a search engine spider visits your site, but can’t read your web pages? Nothing happens, and that’s a problem.  If a search engine spider cannot read your web pages, it just moves on to the next site, and your information is completely ignored.  Your web site must be search engine friendly in order to be included in the search engine databases.
   
   
4. Not monitoring your site in the search engines.  Even if your web site is search engine friendly, there are constant changes going on with the search engines and also with your competitors.  If you aren’t monitoring how your site is performing in the search engines, how will you know if these changes are affecting your rankings or if you are losing traffic? Monitoring your web site means that you can react to changes and take appropriate steps to make sure your site shows up in the search results and that web traffic keeps flowing.
   
   
5. The site is built using Frames or Flash. Not too many web sites still make this mistake, but there are still some small business web sites out there using one or both of these methods.  Sites built with Frames or Flash intro pages cannot easily be read by the search engines, and web visitors typically hate using them as well.  These are older web techniques that don’t reflect well on your business, they don’t perform well in the search engines, and today’s web visitors expect better.  

Making your web site the best it can be is a very effective and affordable marketing option for most small businesses. Of all the other types of advertising and marketing that you do each year, your web site has the potential to be seen by more customers, can continue to promote your company perpetually through links, is always accessible to customers, and can instantly reflect changes and provide fresh information to draw people in.  Avoiding basic web site mistakes will help your site perform better, making it a “perfect” marketing strategy for your small business.

Five Tips for Persuasive Press Releases

Many small businesses shy away from sending out press releases because they are just not comfortable with writing them.  They think “what should I say?” or “will anyone be interested in this?” instead of remembering that press releases are always welcome if they are well-written and timely. Here are five tips for making sure your press release is appreciated!

1. Make sure your press release is newsworthy. 
   Readers and reporters love to hear about new product releases, important additions to your staff, client wins, or local events in which you are participating.  They do not, however, want to hear about an upcoming sale, a change in your suppliers, or a thinly-veiled advertisement for your business. Make sure your press release covers something that is actually news about your company.
   
   
2. Include quotes from people.
   Quotes from human beings will help a fact-based press release become more readable, more interesting, and more personal. Be sure to add quotes from company officers or managers, as well as quotes from customers or others that may be referenced in your press release.
   
   
3. Send your press release to web outlets as well as wire services.
   Most of us know that press releases are typically sent out over the “wire services,” but did you know that there are also many web outlets that accept press releases?  Web press release outlets have the added benefit of contributing inbound links to your web site, and your press release will also be added to the news archives where it will have a longer shelf-life.
   
   
4. Send your press release to local news outlets.
   In addition to wire services and web outlets, consider sending your press release to local outlets as well. Local newspapers, Chambers of Commerce, and other community-based organizations love to publish news from local businesses as a public service to the community.
   
   
5. Make it relevant.
   Try to tie-in your press release with something that’s happening in your local community, in your industry, or directly to customers in some way.  By providing concrete details about your news, you make it relevant to the people who will be reading it.  Press releases that are interesting and relevant have a much better chance of getting picked up by media outlets and publishers.

Hopefully, your search marketing strategy is part of an overall marketing plan that involves regular testing and measuring.  It’s like eating vegetables when you’re a kid….you gotta do it because it’s good for you, even though it’s not your favorite part of dinner.  The same is true for monitoring your search engine positions – you gotta do it to know if customers can find your business in the search engines, and to know when to act or react to the changes that are bound to occur from time to time. 

Consider these numbers:

• More than 74% of all consumers check the web FIRST before they make a purchase (either online or in a brick-and-mortar store), so the importance of being on the web is pretty clear.
  
  
• Reports also show that more than 80% of all web traffic comes from search engines, because that’s where most people begin the research/buying process.

So if your business can’t be found in the search engines, how will people know about you? And if you don’t monitor your positions in the search engines, how will you know if you are on page 1 or page 1001, or if you show up at all?

Of course, there are many ways to help build your search engine rankings, like publishing lots of good quality content on your site, regularly updating your site’s content, sending out press releases on the web (for inbound links), listing your business in quality online web directories or on industry-related sites, optimizing your web pages for the search engines, plus many others.  If you are already doing these things but not monitoring your rankings, how will you know if your efforts are working?  

Optimizing your web site for the search engines is only part of the job; you must also track and monitor your search engine positions in order to have a healthy, well-balanced search engine strategy.  Because it is so important, you should include search engine monitoring as part of your regular marketing activity each month.  By keeping tabs on your positions, you can watch the effectiveness of your current search marketing strategies, and also take the steps necessary to stop any negative trends that could threaten your hard-earned rankings.  So go ahead and eat your vegetables, monitor your search engine positions, and maybe you can have some dessert.

Now Available! Free E-Book "Simple Strategies for Web Site Success"

We are pleased to announce that Five Sparrows has a new e-book titled "Simple Strategies for Web Site Success" now available as a free download from the Five Sparrows web site. This new e-book is packed full of web site advice and tips for building a great web site, promoting your web site for the best possible results, and even gives you information on some of the newer web technologies and what you should know about them. Download your copy today and find out how simple it can be to make your web site successful! You can download your free copy here (pdf file, 150K)

Biz Talk is a Free Publication of Five Sparrows, LLC

Five Sparrows offers a complete line of web site and marketing services designed especially for small businesses, including web site development and re-design, online shopping, search engine optimization, e-newsletters, email marketing, search engine reporting & monitoring, and more.

Because Five Sparrows specializes in working with small businesses, we understand their specific needs and challenges.  We offer a full range of products and services at a fraction of the cost of what traditional marketing and web site firms charge, all designed to help small businesses get a big-company presence on a small company budget.

Contact us today at editor@fivesparrows.com, or call us at 810.923.1874 to see how we can help your business!

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