Posts Tagged ‘protmotions’
Why Every Local Business Should Have a Website
Tuesday, January 29th, 2008
Even for a brick-and-mortar store, a website is a great, low-cost way to promote your offerings and bring in customers. Although, many local business owners are hesitant to set up a website because they think it’s pointless since they’re not trying to attract a nationwide audience or selling anything online. Local business owners should think of their website as a source of information for potential customers. Before driving across town to see what’s in your store, potential customers would rather take a look at your website first - to learn more about what your company offers. Online is where your customers expect to find you - and if your site doesn’t come up in their search, you can bet another local store’s site will.
Getting started with a local business website
1. Register a domain name and find a hosting company. Ideally this would be the name of your store, however, if that domain name is already taken, consider the name of your store and the town where it’s located. For instance: anytownpartygoods.com . Go ahead and register your name right away - even if you’re not ready to publish your website quite yet. You can register a domain name for under $10 at places like GoDaddy.com or http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/domains/ . Both GoDaddy and Yahoo also offer hosting packages - though, you won’t need to sign up for hosting until your website is ready to go live.
2. Create your website. Believe it or not, you can create a simple website all by yourself. Both Yahoo and GoDaddy offer simple website creation tools that will allow you to create a simple, yet professional-looking website. However, for a flashy website with videos or an interactive database, you’ll want to hire a professional. Prices vary with the size and complexity of the website, but you can expect to pay anywhere from $1,000 - $7,500 for a small to medium-sized website. For a local business, you’ll want to make sure your have the following information on your website:
* Homepage welcome - Brief information about what your company does (and why you do it better than the competition).
* Contact information - Your store’s phone number, street address and email address should be at the bottom of every page of your website. Visitors shouldn’t have to search for that information - and many times they won’t.
* Hours of operation - This could go on the homepage, about us or contact us page.
* About us page - This is where you can go into more detail about your company, how long you’ve been in business, your experience, etc.
* Products/Services page - Detailed information about the products you carry or the services you offer. If possible, add pricing information.
* Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) - This won’t be necessary for all local business websites, but for some it can really help to bring customers in. If you are always getting phone calls with people asking the same types of questions, this is the page where you can put the answers. There are plenty of people who just won’t make the effort to call a business, but they will go to their website and learn more.
3. Promote your website - Having a website is great, but if you want potential customers to find it, you’ll need to do a bit of marketing. Once your website is live, go to these sites and submit your website and company information:
* Google: http://www.google.com/addurl/ (free)
* Google Maps: https://www.google.com/local/add/login (free)
* Yahoo!: https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit (free)
* Superpages: https://my.superpages.com/spweb/products/business-listing (free)
* Dmoz: http://www.dmoz.org (free)
* Local.com: http://www.local.com/advertise.aspx (free or fee)
* Yellowpages.com: http://www.yellowpages.com/sp/advertise/ (free or fee)
* CitySearch: https://selfenroll.citysearch.com/ (fee)
* Best of the Web: http://botw.org/top/Regional/United_States/ (fee)
There are, of course, plenty of other sites that will help to promote your website, but the ones listed above are a great start. Be sure to also add your new website and email address to all your printed company information (letterhead, business cards, receipts, etc.) You want to get the word out about your website as much as possible - that way your customers can easily tell their friends about your business!
Tags: brick and mortar, Carrie Hinkel, local business, Marketing, Marketing Your Business, online marketing, protmotions, websites
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