Technivise Blog Article

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Consider the “Big Picture”

when Establishing Internet

Presence for your Small

Business

What should a small business first

consider about establishing Internet

presence and marketing?

Small businesses wishing to establish or improve their presence on the Internet have a lot to consider. Sure they want to have more inquiries, customers, and sales; however, budgets can be tight and investments shouldn’t be wasted. Internet presence might include a website, email, social media, directories, advertising, and online storefronts. Before investing in a particular service, think about the “Big Picture.” Technivise can help you answer questions that may come to mind: How much money and time is this going to cost me to start and each month? What’s the return on investment now, and over time? Lots of people and services want my money for this. Which are best? Which are of little value? Can one service do it all? Should I do it myself or hire help? Do I own my Internet presence, or am I going to be held hostage? Of course the answer to these questions will depend on the type of business you own and the amount of time and resources you have to address the challenge. Before we get to answers and depending on your experience and understanding of Internet Presence, first consider these trends on the Internet might frame how to market your business: Have you used a phone book lately? Have you seen one in years? Things are changing and they will continue to change. In the past the yellow page book was the resource your customers used to find your business. Yellow page phone books are now extinct due to the Internet. Your business must be found on the Internet and yellowpages.com isn’t the best place to look! Mobile Phone use is growing rapidly. People will increasingly find businesses on their smart phones. While desktop users cannot be ignored, customers will increasingly find your business on their smart phones. Your online presence must be available to a smart phone! Where do your customers spend time? Many are surfing the Internet for news, entertainment, and social interaction. If this is true about your customers, before considering advertising on television, the radio or print media like newspapers, establish a sound Internet presence and consider social media as part of that effort! Once your customers find you online, much is one click away. Upon finding you, your customers can do quite a bit. A phone call is only one click away, so make sure to your phone! Information is one click away on your website. If you have a physical storefront, navigation to your doorstep is also one click away! If those searching want to know if you’re reputable, reviews and comments about your business may be one click away. Manage your online reputation! Do you think about issuing coupons? They’re one click away and might even be the item for which customers are searching.

What are the first steps to establish a

Small Business Internet presence and

marketing?

Given these trends and a decision to create an online presence, what should a small business owner do about Internet presence and marketing? Technivise recommends you consider the following: Consider working with someone in which you can develop trust. This is your livelihood, so pick wisely. If they are local, will they visit with you in person? If they are not local, will they talk to you and work with you as needed to develop trust? Talk to the providers and see if they spend time with you. Large national companies and service providers that help in this area may be useful at some point, but they are most likely feeding their own huge infrastructure and not focused on your success. They will want as little interaction with you as possible to fill out a form or a set of standard information that fits their service – not customized to your business. That way they can quickly move onto their next customer. They will want your money to focus on something small – their service, not your big-picture needs. They will want to have recurring charges every month for things you may not need and are not even sure they perform. They won’t be looking at making your whole business successful. This brings us to: Think about the big picture of what you want to achieve. Don’t be rushed into taking action for just one element because of a sales call or email. There are many people and companies trying to sell small business a website, directory services, listing in phone directories, branding, a logo, search engine optimization, online adverting, email marketing, etc. They will promise you the top rankings on Google searches and many customers. They will say they have you 100 percent covered when they miss half the opportunities. Beware. While some of these providers may do very well in their specific service, you might be wasting money on the wrong thing. You don’t have to do everything at once. You can start small and add more as you go. Technivise can help you think about the big picture and which steps to take first that are right for your business. Think about where you want to spend your time. Do you have the time and knowledge to establish, improve, and maintain your Internet presence yourself? Will you have one or more providers do it all for you? Or, will you have a mix somewhere in-between. How should the approach change over time? If you’re not savvy about the Internet, you will need help to establish your Internet presence and marketing. You, your family, or your staff may want to be involved with parts of improving and maintaining your Internet presence including adding new content periodically and tending to social media. Why? Because you might do somethings better and you can save money. How will your provider deal with this? If you have time and inclination, will your service provide training so you can take over the helm of your internet presence? Technivise is flexible enough to address all these issues and pick an approach best for you and your business. Decide who should own your Internet Presence. Can you be held hostage? Be careful that you actually own and can access everything you purchase regarding your Internet Presence. Some providers will not give you all the information, files, and access associated with your online identity. Some directory services will require large monthly maintenance payments forever, and if you stop using their service, they can remove your established online identity. Do they protect your online identity with different passwords and secure techniques? Insist that you own your online identity and can access every part of it whenever you want. You may not need to access your online identity regularly or at all; however, you should have the ability to do so at any time you wish. You should own the accounts or be able to obtain them at any time including a listing of all accounts, usernames, and passwords to specific resources. Technivise insists that our customers securely own their online presence and identity. If you own your online presence, you can choose to manage the accounts yourself or move to another provider at any time. Technivise does not hold you hostage! Suggestions for your choice in all the above issues cannot be fully answered here because they depend upon you, your business. There are some high-level answers that I have seen from my experience. Consider these: • Choices can depend upon multiple tiers of SEO service. How many tiers we define can depend on many factors, but let’s keep it simple here with three tiers: o Basic SEO -- Creating a presence with simple, non- technical knowledge and a basic understanding of simple SEO. ▪ Hire someone or do it yourself but the risk here is that you do something dumb that actually gets your website penalized by Google. For instance, don’t pay someone off-shore to create hundreds of junk backlinks to your site that results in your site being penalized by Google. ▪ Such businesses should obtain SEO help to set up and perhaps have the knowledge and time to help maintain that basic SEO over time. They can also invest a small amount each year to have help maintaining the basic SEO. ▪ Good for: • Very small and “hyper-local” businesses that don’t have a business model with a large need to grow and have small volume. • When there is a small budget for SEO and advertising. • Markets that are not competitive. • SEO results that can grow over time. • When the owner can maintain some SEO such as social media and some aspects of website content. ▪ Bad for: • Larger businesses that need and can afford better results. • Highly competitive markets where competitors are using higher levels of SEO. o Moderate SEO -- Applied by a person or company that knows all or most details about SEO both technically and operationally. ▪ In moderate SEO, you trust in an informed approach but don’t pull out the big guns and don’t take extraordinary efforts in SEO, but you have a substantial investment in SEO and advertising. No mistakes should be made and you’ll get good results over time. Some tools are used of tracking progress and measuring results. ▪ Good for: • Very small to medium businesses that are “hyper-local,” “local,” and even national with a business model of little to moderate growth and small to medium volume. • When you can moderately adjust your SEO and advertising budget based upon the results you want. • Markets that are somewhat to moderately competitive. • When the owner wants help with the SEO and maintaining website content. ▪ Bad for: • Large companies or companies with an intent for high growth and high volume. • Very competitive markets with no option but strong SEO. • Very small companies that cannot afford or do not need extra SEO effort. o High-end SEO - Usually applied by a SEO company or a “expert” working full-time SEO and constant effort to better your business online. ▪ In High-end SEO, practitioners use expensive tools to track and measure progress. Teams of individuals may work on your SEO. They take extraordinary measures to purchase domain authority from various sources to quickly grow and maintain top search results. ▪ Good for: • Large businesses that have a business model with high growth and high volume. • Businesses that have a large budget for SEO. • Highly competitive markets with no option but strong SEO that must be adjusted weekly to daily. ▪ Bad for: • Very small or small to medium businesses that don’t need or cannot afford high-end SEO. These are important high-level considerations for establishing Internet presence for a small businesses. Of course there are many technical steps associated with this process; however, taking time to think about the big picture of your Internet presence is the first step. While you’re at it, also think about how to use the Internet for your business operations. Contact Technivise to discuss your big-picture Internet and online presence needs for marketing and operations! More about Website Design & SEO