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How can local businesses compete with Amazon?\nLet’s be honest: Amazon is a brilliant company that has permanently disrupted the retail world. Even longtime conglomerates like Barnes & Noble, Sears, JCPenny, and countless others have become proverbial Davids to Amazon’s Goliath. And, many businesses haven’t survived.\nIf so many small and big companies alike are being challenged like never before by Amazon, how can any business expect to survive and even thrive with such fierce competition? Is it as simple as learning how to sell on Amazon? Does the company have a secret weakness to exploit?\n10 ways local businesses can compete with Amazon\nThere are no easy solutions, but there are steps you can take to help ensure your business's long-term success. Here are 10 tips to help your small brick-and-mortar or e-commerce business compete with Amazon:\nBe unique\nYes, this sounds like an obvious piece of advice, but it couldn’t be more important in today’s business environment. Amazon sells just about everything, but it doesn’t sell \neverything\n. To compete, you’ve got to narrow your niche and offer something that can’t be found anywhere else.\nPerfect your website\nIf your website is difficult to navigate or simply has an outdated look, users will get frustrated and leave. Research shows that more and more people are shopping online. In fact, in \n2021 ecommerce revenue increased\n by 14.1%, reaching 13.2% of all retail sales, up from 8.1% in 2016. It might require a little time and attention to improve your website and ecommerce offerings, but you can’t afford not to.\nMake buying online easy\nEven after finding the perfect item, online shoppers will quit the buying process if something gets in their way. For example, if you require would-be shoppers to login prior to making a purchase, chances are they’ll quit. Make the online shopping experience seamless from start to finish.\n \nOffer a shipping solution\nNo one expects you to beat Amazon Prime’s fast and free shipping plan, but you should offer a shipping solution that works for your customers’ needs. Consider developing a shipping strategy that rewards first-time customers and frequent customers. If you make it easy and inexpensive for your patrons, they’ll likely keep coming back for more\n. \nGrow your online brand\nIs your company active on social media? Do you have reviews on sites like Google and Facebook? If you aren’t paying attention to your online business identify, your company is in trouble. Research shows that 90% of today’s consumers use online reviews when researching a product. Whether it’s shopping for a local pressure washer, tax accountant, or a bite to eat, people look to online voices before they make a decision. You can use that to your advantage.\nFocus on great customer service\nIt’s been said over and over again: customer service is the secret to keeping people happy. This sentiment is especially true in today’s Digital Age. Whether your customers are shopping online or inside your establishment, customer service is exactly where your small business can outshine the big guys. Provide your customers with personalized attention, service, and value they can’t get anywhere else, and they’ll be happy to support your business.\nCreate a loyalty program\nWhile you’re focusing on customer service, don’t forget to create a loyalty plan. Everyone likes free, so treat your repeat visitors to something extra when they come back again and again. The more a customer comes back, the more value you’ll get from them and the more likely they’ll continue to patronize your business.\nEmphasize the “local” in local business\nToday’s consumers care about their communities, and more and more are embracing the “shop local” trend. If you’re not active in your community, get out there. Start participating in events, like sponsoring the local high school team or joining a cancer walk. Open your doors to your neighbors and they’ll come in.\nTreat any employees right\nIf you have employees and they hate their jobs, their disdain and frustration will ooze into every corner of your business. Treat your employees with respect and make the workplace somewhere they want to be. Happy employees will treat your customers right.\n \nLove your business\nLet’s be real: being a small business owner is tough, and it hasn’t gotten any easier. There are so many thing to manage, and you simply can’t be an expert in everything. But if you love your business, your passion will shine through in everything you do.\n \nAmazon is a juggernaut, but your business can survive and even thrive if you focus on delivering a truly unique customer experience. Take a few simple steps and see what happens. We’re rooting for you!

10 ways local businesses can compete with Amazon

In this article:\nDo I need a restaurant feedback system?\n3 easy ways to get restaurant customer feedback\nTexting simplifies immediate feedback process\nThe importance of online reviews\nRestaurant customer satisfaction survey\nHow to get useful restaurant customer feedback is an age-old problem for restaurateurs. The operative word here is “useful.” Every restaurant will have some grumpy customers who love to complain and make their opinions heard, and today these diners trumpet their criticisms through reviews on Yelp, Google, TripAdvisor, and OpenTable.\nWhile you can’t (and shouldn’t) ignore these detractors, you need a more comprehensive view of how patrons are experiencing your restaurant. So, how can you get inside your customers’ heads to know what’s working and what isn’t?\nYou don’t really need a specific “restaurant feedback tool.” Here are three easy steps you can implement to know what your customers are thinking.\n1. \nAsk restaurant customers to text you their feedback\nYour customers have opinions about what you’re serving up, and they want to be heard. But, are you getting the message?\nReceiving feedback via text is one of the lowest-lift, simplest ways to interact with your patrons. Consider this: Research shows that 92% of people will stop visiting a restaurant after just one bad dining experience, but 90% say they’ll return to that restaurant if they are able to speak with management.\nToday, most people prefer to communicate via text, particularly if they have anything that might be somewhat negative to say.\nThat’s why texting is a great way to get more restaurant feedback. It gives your patrons the unique opportunity to converse with you directly, which means they’re more likely to tell you exactly how they feel—the good and the bad—so you can improve the customer experience and keep more customers loyal.\nafrican american woman texting customer satisfaction review restaurant\n\n2. \nRemind restaurant customers to post online reviews via Google My Business, TripAdvisor, etc.\nOnline reviews can make or break a restaurant. In fact, research shows that 95% of people look at review sites when choosing a place to dine.\nBasically, online review sites are your new homepage if you run a local restaurant.\nOnline reviews are great sources of customer feedback, and the more you have the more likely it is that new diners will find your business.\nAnd, getting regular reviews is vital, so you need to find a way to encourage customers to share their feedback about your restaurant online. If you don’t have reviews, start taking matters into your own hands. Research shows that 70% of people will leave an online review if asked — so, ask!\nYou might also like: \n4 steps of an effective marketing strategy for your restaurant\n3. \nAsk restaurant customers to complete a feedback/satisfaction survey\nIf you want to delve a little deeper inside of your customers’ minds, creating a restaurant feedback survey is the way to go. Conducting a survey gives you the opportunity to pick a specific area that you want to examine—your customer service, your menu, etc.—and ask your customers questions about it.\nSurveys are also a great way to discover customer trends that you can use in marketing material and to help you make strategic changes. But, it’s not always easy getting customers to complete surveys. Here are a three keys to consider:\nMake it short and sweet.\n No one wants to spend more than a couple minutes responding, so make the survey short and easy to complete.\nMake it accessible.\n Provide a link to the survey on receipts, the menu, your website—put it everywhere. You can also send out an email or include a “leave us feedback” box on your website or app.\nOffer incentives. \nEveryone likes a free drink or dessert. Offer your customers a special reward if they complete the survey, and they’ll be more likely to do it.\nIn the end, customers want to be heard. If you pay attention to what they’re saying, you can improve your business and build a loyal customer base. 

3 easy ways to get restaurant customer feedback

In this article:\n10 best practices for small business email marketing\nWhy should every small business consider email marketing?\nHow much does email marketing cost?\nWhat is the ROI of email marketing for small businesses?\nAs we’ve written before, \nemail marketing\n is hands-down the most powerful, effective, and efficient marketing tool for small businesses. If you follow the email marketing best practices detailed below, you can increase customer loyalty and revenue, improve conversion of potential customers, and expand your marketing audience.\nHow much does small business email marketing cost?\nDespite what you might think, small business email doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. Websites like BEE free, Stripo, Chamaileon offer free HTML email templates, including simple drag and drop options. You can also elect to simply send a personalized email to your list from your business email account, using the default template.\nMany small businesses prefer to use dedicated business email platforms like MailChimp or Constant Contact, both of which offer robust tools for creating professional-looking emails and managing your lists. \nAccording to the sources we found, Constant Contact costs between $20 and $70 per month, depending on your number of contacts and the features you want. MailChimp offers free plans to get you started, the next tier is $10/month, and the “Pro” level plans start at $199 and up (an unlikely choice for a truly small business). Whether these are worth the cost of entry is up to you. \nIs email marketing worth it for small businesses?\nDespite a commonly held belief that email marketing is outdated or ineffective, it has been shown to have an unparalleled ROI of up to 42:1. \nOf course, this is not to say that you are guaranteed to make $42 for every $1 you spend on email marketing, but industry data supports that general figure. One report specifically for small business email marketing reported that users experienced a 183% return on their investments. So it’s clear that it’s worth your time.\nWhichever email service provider you choose, be sure to follow the best practices below to maximize benefit and minimize potential problems when sending promotional emails.\nLet's go over the top 10 email marketing best practices for small businesses:\n1. Get permission, and build your email list the right way\nWhile studies show 86% of customers actually want email from businesses they patronize, it is without question better to get permission before you email potential or current customers. \nGetting email addresses doesn’t have to be an awkward or involved process. It can be as simple as adding an email address field on your point-of-sale platform at checkout, including a “send me an email receipt” option during the purchase process or on your online or order form, or you can go truly old-school and leave a bowl for business cards or a clipboard near the check-out counter where customers can elect to write down their email addresses to receive promotions.\nYou should also encourage your social media followers to send you their email addresses to be included in special offers and promotions for your business.\nPopular business email platforms like MailChimp and Constant Contact allow “opt-in” or even a “double opt-in” process. A double opt-in requires a potential recipient to first agree to receive emails, but also requires that they then click a link in a welcome email confirming their subscription to begin receiving marketing emails.

You may get fewer email addresses on your “send” list this way, but remember the point of email marketing is to send timely messaging to your most profitable customer base, not to simply build an impressively large email list and blast out thousands of emails to people who really aren’t interested (and who will likely mark your emails as spam, which could get you in hot water with your email service provider and even with the FTC—see below).

So, while it’s likely not a huge problem to send occasional reminders or relevant offers to everyone associated with your business whom you have an email address for (as long as you follow the rules), you will almost certainly see better results if you are 100% up front about getting customers’ specific permission before you send them promotional emails.  \nMaking sure you have a solid “opt in” process in place will set you up for greater success as regulations change.\n2. Learn the regulations and follow them\nSending unsolicited emails is illegal in quite a few European countries, and consumer privacy laws are being tightened in the U.S. as well. \nYou need to familiarize yourself with the FTC’s Compliance Guide on the CAN-SPAM act, and which types of email are subject to these regulations, \nhere\n.\nMake sure to comply with regulatory directives regarding spam and unsubscribing. Include an unsubscribe link in every email and make sure to promptly and correctly remove any addresses that request to be unsubscribed, to avoid landing in hot water. \nPersonal email service providers like Gmail are very wary of “spammers,” but as long as you are emailing people who have opted in to receiving promotional emails, or you are emailing your actual customers rather than a purchased list of random contacts, you should be perfectly fine (as long as you comply with the CAN-SPAM act and follow correct unsubscribe practices).\n3. Avoid common “spam” techniques \nSmall business owners are often tempted to emulate the promotional emails they themselves receive… but this can be a big mistake. \nWhen crafting your subject lines, headers, and content, you should avoid generic subjects, caps lock, lots of special characters or EXCLAMATION!!! MARKS!!!! or anything even close to resembling “OMG!! TRY THIS ONE WEIRD TRICK TO SAVE $$MONEY$$!!!!” \nemail marketing best practices 3\nMany popular email service providers will automatically scan such emails and send them to the spam folder, and you may be flagged as a disreputable sender, which will defeat the purpose of sending emails to build loyalty.\n4. Be brief, interesting, and accurate\nUse the appropriate format and messaging expected by your industry and audience. This might include newsletters, offers, sales, birthday wishes, “thank yous” for purchases, reminders, holiday hours notifications, discounts, product announcements, or whatever else you think your customers might want to hear about.\nMake sure your company name or brand appears in the “from” line correctly, and keep your subject lines to 8 words or less, and <40 characters, including spaces. Include a compelling reason for people to read your email in the subject line.\n5. Make it worth customers’ while\nThink of ways to incentivize signing up for your email list. Can you give 10% off today’s purchase when they sign up? Can you promise 5% off all future purchases for everyone on your list? You should ask yourself, “What’s in this for my customers?” \n6. Make sure your links and any embedded content actually work properly\nBefore you send an email, double check that everything displays and works the way it should: videos play, links actually function and redirect to the proper websites, click-to-order takes you to the correct product or offer on your website, email contact links open the appropriate email software and populate the address correctly, HTML emails display content correctly on desktop and mobile, etc. Send yourself and/or your employees test emails and ideally check function on multiple platforms and browsers.\n7. Keep images small\nAny images you include should be optimized for web and should be kept below 100K in size—50K or below is preferable. This helps the email load quickly and fully. You only have one or two seconds before today’s impatient users will give up on your email and delete it. (Pro tip: this also applies to your website pages.)\n8. Proofread your copy\nIf you aren’t the best writer or editor in the world, hire or beg the services of someone you trust to proofread the “copy” (words) for typos, grammatical errors, clarity, and brevity. Professional-looking emails will be free of common mistakes, text formatting issues, etc. \n9. Consider including a text-only version for people who prefer not to open HTML emails\nSources disagree on which format produces the best results (HTML or plain text) but it’s a good idea to cover your bets when possible. So, you might include a plain-text version of every HTML email you send. \nWhy? Some people won’t even look at plain text emails, and some won’t look at HTML emails. When you build an HTML email in most of the common email platforms, there will be an option to also create a plain-text version that will be displayed for recipients who have their preferences set to display plain-text email only, and vice versa. \n10. Try drip campaigns\nWhile a more general email blast to all customers on your list can be effective, more sophisticated users might consider creating “drip” campaigns. \nDrip campaigns are series of emails intended to accomplish a particular goal for a particular group of customers. For example, you can select only those customers who have made recent purchases. A simple after-purchase drip campaign might look like this:\nThank you email —-> offer special pricing on a similar purchase —-> reminder —->\nIf you have a website where customers can purchase from you, you can send a drip campaign specifically to customers who have put items in their virtual shopping cart but then left the website. A drip campaign in this case might look like this: \n(cart abandonment) —-> nudge (“item left in your cart”) —-> purchase confirmation —-> thank you —-> (start a post-purchase drip campaign)\nNaturally, you can create drip campaigns for any group of customers, such as those who have purchased several times in the past but haven’t visited within the last year. \nSources:\n
\nhttps://www.constantcontact.com/blog/email-marketing-best-practices/\n
\nhttps://mailchimp.com/help/best-practices-mailchimp-email/\n
\nhttps://www.fundera.com/blog/email-marketing-strategy\n
\nhttps://www.betterbuys.com/marketing-automation/reviews/constant-contact/\n
\nhttps://ecommerce-platforms.com/compare/mailchimp-vs-constant-contact\n

Top 10 best practices for small business email marketing

As a small business owner or operator, there are endless initiatives you could be focusing on to market your goods and services. \nSocial media, blogging, search engine marketing, billboards, influencer marketing, event marketing — the list goes on and on. In today’s hectic business environment, how do you know what you should prioritize? \nOur proposition: email marketing is hands-down the most powerful, effective, and efficient marketing tool for small businesses\nIf you’re not leveraging small business email marketing, you’re missing out on enormous opportunities to reach, delight, and serve your customers. And bring in a boatload of sales.\nYou might be thinking: what about social media? And it’s true — social media gets a lot of attention. Facebook boasts 2.2 billion users. Instagram grew over 13% last year. And over 500 million tweets are sent on Twitter \nper day\n.\nBut these social networks are dwarfed by email. There are over 3.8 \nbillion\n email users worldwide. And unlike a social network, which is owned and managed by one company (we’ll let you decide if that’s a positive or a negative), email is decentralized in an open market. You can use any email client you want — you don’t have to be subjugated to one provider. \nConsider this: 281 billion emails are sent per day. That’s 562 times the number of Tweets per day.\nWhy email marketing is king for local businesses\nWhat do we make of this? \nYour business is built on email\n. Social networks come and go, but email is not going anywhere and therefore it’s worth investing in.\nBut emails get ignored, deleted, and filtered out by customers, right? \nWrong. It depends on the email. \nBad\n emails get blocked and tossed, yes, but high-value emails that deliver insights, interesting stories, and good information are not only opened and clicked-through, they’re eagerly awaited by your customers. \nFor example, news media startup Axios opened its doors with a purely email-based business model. They refused the typical revenue model of content companies (programmatic advertising) and entrusted whole-hog their business’s success to… email newsletters. And it’s worked marvelously. Axios touts a 45% average open rate and charges anywhere from $8,000 to $150,000 depending on the newsletter, according to \nan article by Adweek\n.\nAnother successful business started from a mere email chain: Product Hunt, the online product discovery and community platform with now over 8 million users and multiple millions in venture backing, started with the founder simply sending emails to friends about interesting products he had found. \nThe ROI of email marketing is astounding. For every $1 spent on email marketing, it returns $42 in revenue, according to one study. VentureBeat wrote a post about how successful email marketing works: \n“In a survey of companies regarding email use, enterprise companies saw 117 percent return on investment, SMB firms indicated their return was 183 percent, and midsized companies reported a whopping 246 percent ROI.”\nStill not convinced? Keep reading.\nThe story of how Benjamin Hardy used small business email marketing to make $21,000 in one week\nBenjamin Hardy, an Inc. contributor, author, and Medium’s number one writer of all time, built an email list of 300,000 subscribers in two years. \nOne of his mentors told him: “Email your subscribers and tell them you’re offering coaching. Then get those who are interested on the phone for a 15 minute strategy call to determine fit.”\nHardy spent the next week on the phone with 150 people for 15 minutes each. Out of this group, seven people signed up for coaching at a price of $1,000 a month for a minimum commitment of three months. Doing the math, Hardy sold $21,000 of business in a week! And it all started with one email.\nOkay\n, you might be thinking, \ngood for them\n. Axios, Product Hunt, and Benjamin Hardy can all be successful, but what about me, a super-small business in a town NOT located in or around Silicon Valley?\nFollow these strategies and tactics to make an email strategy that works (well!) for you.\n4 tips to make small business email marketing work for you\nSet up a routine that makes email marketing easier for you. If the idea of sitting down and writing an email to your subscribers opens your mouth in a yawn like the Cave of Wonders, or you just have too much on your plate, make it easier on yourself by setting up a routine. Pick a consistent day of the week and a time (studies show subscribers prefer weekly regularity!), establish an outline and a template for the email, and let it flow. A weekly practice like this will reap massive financial rewards down the road.\nMake your email about the story, not the click. Provide value in every email. Avoid over-selling or promoting your products or services. Make it personal, relevant to the times, or interesting, not salesy. Our brains our wired for stories, so tell a story in your email. Don’t just focus on getting subscribers to click through—this is a short-term mindset that won’t last in the long run.\nAvoid common email formatting mistakes. Triple-check your links to make sure they work! Keep your emails short (~150 words) and avoid huge walls of text that are tough to read on a mobile device. Make sure everything is spelled right and correct all typos. Test your emails with a few teammates and get their feedback before sending to your main list.\nAutomate your email marketing. There are two sides of the spectrum you want to avoid: one, sending \nzero\n emails and two, sending \ntoo many\n bulk and generic emails. The key is to land in the middle—sending well-timed, personalized emails. \nLastly, one of the most powerful emails you can send your customer is a well-written thank you email after a customer shops at your store. \nOne final thought to leave you with: happy customers often don’t come back to your store. According to a Bain & Company study, 60-80% of customers who describe themselves as satisfied do not go back to do more business with the company that initially satisfied them. Why? \nOne Forbes writer says\n it’s because there is a lack of connection. \nCustomers forget. It’s natural. \nFor small business owners, email marketing is the best way to create a lasting connection that keeps customers coming back with smiles on their faces and cash in their hands. 

Why small business email marketing should be your top priority in 2022

In this article:\nBefore you start: what do you need to know about designing a website?\nHow to build your website\nBest practices for designing an effective business website\nAdditional resources for your online marketing strategy\nDesigning and building a website is an essential part of marketing your business online, even for super-small, one-person concerns. Think of your business website as an extension of your business or a 24/7 sales representative that is constantly feeding your information to potential customers. \nIf you don’t have a business website yet or want to create a new one, you’re in luck. We’re going to walk you through the basic steps of planning and designing your website. We’ll also provide additional resources to help along the way. \nBefore you start designing your website\nThe planning process is almost more important than actually building the website. Before you ever start designing your site, you should have a good idea of what you want it to look like, how you want your pages laid out, and what kind of content your site will have. \nWhat pages do you want on your website?\nContent is king. You can’t have a good or useful website if you don’t have relevant content that helps guide your visitors down the sales funnel. So what kind of content do you need? What pages will you have?\nThe kind of content that you have can really help guide the design of your site, too.\nCommon pages for a basic business website might include the following:\nHome \nAbout\nServices or products\nFAQ\nContact\nLocations\nBlog\nDetermine what kind of content you want on your website and start writing it up before you start designing your site. This will make the design process go much smoother if you have content to actually place on your site as you build it. \nYou may also like: \nImportant market research questions to ask your customers\nAs you think about the pages that you want, also be thinking about how to organize your site. What pages will you place in the main navigation? Will you have interlinking between pages for customers to have multiple ways to access a page?\nIf you’re not sure what to put on your website, check out other websites for businesses within your industry. \nWhat do you want your website to look like? \nIt’s always a good idea to think about what you want for the layout of your website before you start building it. This will guide you in the process and make it easier, rather than testing out every different option that your website builder has available (there are likely tens if not hundreds of different configurations to choose from). \nLook at other websites to see what elements you like. Do you want a big home page banner with a large image or video background? Do you like the accordion layout for an FAQ page? Do you want a contact form on your contact page? Do you prefer rounded pictures or straight edges? All of this will play into the look of your website. \nOne key thing to consider here: always keep your brand at the forefront of your design. Your website should feel like an extension of your business, so make sure it looks that way too. \nThink about the color scheme that you want that matches your brand. \nWhat materials/assets should you gather before putting your site together?\nBesides your written content, there are several other assets you may need to get together before you start building your website. \nThese include:\nLogo\nHigh-quality images\nProduct information\nVideos\nPDFs and other resource-type documents\nForms\nInfographics\nCharts\nAny other media you might want\nPick out your domain name\nIt’s always a good idea to at least have some domain names picked out for your website before you get started, even if you haven’t purchased them yet. \nSome website builders will let your purchase a domain through their platform with a subscription to their hosting fees. Or you may want to go through a third-party domain registrar like GoDaddy or BlueHost. \nTo see what domains are available, visit one of these third-party registrars or the website builder you intend to use and search for the domains that you want. They will show you what is available and provide alternatives if your first pick is not available. \nHow to design your simple business website\nOnce you have your site planned out, it’s time to start the design process. \nFirst, you’ll want to find a website builder that fits the needs of your business. There are several different options available here, but some of the easier (and cheaper) options are \nSquarespace\n and Wix. \nWant more options? Check this out: \n5 best DIY websites for small businesses on a budget\nA website builder is a platform that generally has prebuilt templates that you can choose from to build your website. Most templates are easy to customize to fit the design that you are looking to create. \nFor most website building platforms, you don’t even have to call anyone to get started. You just sign up on the platform you want, choose your template, and start designing. You’ll be able to easily add the sections that you want into your website and create new pages. \nWant a deeper look? Go here: \nHow to build your own business website (step-by-step walkthrough)\n  \nWhen you are done putting together your website on the platform that you choose, you may need to sign up for a subscription or pay for the web hosting and domain fees. So be sure to have your credit card handy in order to get your site launched quickly. \nBest practices for designing your own website\nWe have a few best practices to help guide you along your web design journey.\nKeep your domain name simple\nA long and hard-to-spell domain name is not going to provide a very friendly experience for your customers. Try to find something simple and easy to remember. This will also be useful for your business emails. \nMake sure your brand is prominent\nYou want your customers to recognize this new website as your business, your brand. Make sure your logo is loud and proud on your home page (it doesn’t have to be huge, but keep it prominent). \nAlso make sure that the colors, fonts, and other styles on your website are reminiscent of your brand. If you don’t have branding guidelines, now might be a good time to implement some. \nWrite unique content\nDon’t copy and paste content from other websites. You wouldn’t think we should have to say this, but you’d be surprised how often this happens. Unique content will help you develop the tone that you want to set with your customers. \nGoogle can also detect when you have content copied from other websites, and that could hurt your search engine visibility. If you’re not comfortable writing your own content, find a freelance writer or employee to help you out. \nUse high-quality images (and other media)\nMedia will help diversify your website and keep your audience engaged with your content. Images to click through and videos to watch help increase the engagement on your site. \nThat being said, make sure that you are using high-quality images. Blurry images and slow-loading videos are a sure way to lose some credibility with potential customers. You might want to make sure to have your site reviewed by a competent web developer to make sure it’s loading as quickly as possible.\nIf you can’t afford a professional photographer, that’s okay. Most phones can take images that have good quality for websites. And you can also look through free stock photo sites like \nUnsplash\n to find beautiful images. \nCheck these articles out for more info:\n7 free stock image sites for small businesses\n3 ways to get (and use) professional photos for your business\nKeep it clean and simple\nRemember that less is more. A busy website with too much information, or flashy images and videos, or—Zeus forbid—\nsounds\n on one page can quickly become overwhelming for your visitors. \nKeep your website well-organized so that your visitors can quickly find the information they are looking for. \nPay close attention to how you set up your navigation bar. Ask several people to try to find a particular part of your site during the design process. Pay attention to any hiccups or anything people find counterintuitive. \nMany times, website designers create great-looking sites but the user experience is so confusing as to make the entire website pointless from a business perspective.\nInclude a prominent CTA (call to action)\nWhy do you have a website in the first place? To provide more information for your customers, sure, but also to get more sales!\nMake sure that you have call-to-action prominently placed on your home page and contact page (at the very least) to help guide new customers down the sales funnel. \nThis could be a phone number in your header, a “call now” button, or a “book appointment” link that points to the contact page or your online scheduling app, or even “order now” if you have taken the time to \nset up your online store\n.\nAdditional resources for your online marketing strategy\nA website is just the first step (and a very important step at that) towards improving your online visibility. \nThere are several other things that you can and should be doing to help grow your reputation online and show up in the search engines. \nHere are a few resources that can help you get started:\n\nLocal SEO: 15 free tips for better search rankings\n\n\nHow to get more reviews\n\n

How to design a simple website for your small business

In this article:\nOptimize your Google Business listing\nImprove your local ranking on Google search results \nGet more attention from customers\nRank higher on Google Maps\nNews flash: even if you haven’t created or claimed your Google My Business listing, you probably already have one. \nThis is because Google (and other business review sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, Facebook, and Foursquare) allows customers to post reviews and info about your business \neven if no official profile exists\n. \nIn other words, until you officially claim your pages, \npeople other than you\n have 100% control over how your business appears online.\nYet, despite the increasing importance of a robust online presence for even small, local businesses, at last count only 44% of Google My Business listing pages had been claimed. Unbelievable.\nIf you want to know how to make sure more people find your Google My Business listing, we recommend you start with these 5 steps.\n1. Claim and update your Google Business listing with current, correct information\nThe critical first step in learning how to improve your local ranking on Google My Business results is to—you guessed it—actually \nown\n your Google Business listing. As noted above, \nless than half\n of businesses have officially claimed their pages. Plus, research shows that businesses that claim their listings on multiple online business reviews sites make 58% more money!\nThe good news is, it’s free and relatively straightforward to claim yours. Click to read our detailed article on \nhow to claim your Google My Business listing\n.\nAfter you’ve claimed your listing (and we recommend you \nclaim your business pages\n on \nall\n the relevant review sites), be sure to complete all of the basic business info, including an accurate physical address, phone number(s), email address, website, and hours of operation.\nAlso, set a daily or weekly reminder to keep your info up-to-date. This may sound like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised how many times we’ve found that this basic, yet critical online customer touchpoint is outdated or missing—phone number out of service, website down, email bouncing, location listed incorrectly or not at all, outdated reviews, and more.\nThere are few things more frustrating than when customers search a business online, decide to purchase, and go out of their way to travel to the place of business, only to find it's moved across town or it's closed for the day due to out-of-date information on the Google Business listing. \nWe’ve all been there. It sucks. Some of our staff have vowed never to patronize a business again after suffering such an inconvenience. We know—first world problems, right? But customers are fickle. Don’t give them that chance.\nNot to mention, when your info is complete and you keep your listing up to date, you improve your local ranking on Google search results and rank higher on Google Maps.\nNote: we said “website.” Sorry, but yes, you need a website. Squarespace or Wix make it pretty easy. You don’t need to have an online shopping basket or checkout process (although “order online, pick up in store” is trending very high and a growing number of retail stores and restaurants now use it). \nAs long as your website has some (correct) basic info about your business, some pretty pictures, and valid contact information, that will do until you have some more time and money to spend on a more robust website. Basically, people just want to see that you HAVE a website to make double sure your company is “legit.”\n2. Edit your Google Business listing to include quality photos\nA good Google My Business listing will include several high-quality photos of the exterior and interior of your business (if applicable), as well as relevant product photos if possible. \nThink about businesses that stand out to you when you conduct local searches. They almost certainly have eye-catching photos included. \nIf you’re not a shutterbug and you don’t know any teenagers going through their “photography” phase, consider hiring a professional for half a day (this is also a good opportunity to get some quality photos for your website). \n\nHigh-quality images of your location, products, or services can help you stand out in online searches.\nAsk for clear, high-resolution photos with size, composition, and color optimized for online thumbnail display. In addition to interior and exterior shots of your physical location, these might include photos of customers getting a haircut, autos being serviced, mouth-watering photos of your restaurant’s food and beverage offerings, happy pets being groomed, a display of the large selection of products you offer… you get the idea.\nMost people respond well to catchy visuals, and a small investment here can pay off in more engagement and better search rankings for your business.\n3. To outrank your local competition on Google My Business, add “next level” info\nIf you want to stand out online against your local competition, you should add “next level business info” to your Google listing. What we mean by this is to go beyond the absolute necessities listed above.\nNext level info might involve \nadding a current menu for a restaurant\n, completing the “optional” fields/descriptors such as “casual atmosphere,” “lots of parking,” “free WiFi,” “family friendly,” and any others, as well as including links to any online or scheduling options for salons, auto shops, groomers, restaurants, etc.\nThe more details and info you can include, the more ways there are for the web search engines to find and rank your listing well. In general, Google business profiles with an abundance of info look more appealing than bare-bones listings, even if the bare-bones ones also have a solid star rating.\n4. Your Google Business listing should include a short, inviting business description\nCurrently, Google allows space below the displayed reviews for businesses to post a short message or boilerplate.\nThis is your chance to play marketing copywriter or VP of Business Development. Try to condense all of your business’s qualities into two or three very clean, descriptive sentences. \nYou might refer to your “elevator pitch,” or your business’s mission statement or company vision. Ask someone you trust to proofread it and give you feedback.\nAdding a well-crafted description of your business, products, or services is an effective way to introduce yourself to your potential customers looking for you online, and can help improve engagement and accurate search results.\n5. Add replies to customers’ Google Business listing reviews\nIf a potential customer searches your business, Google displays your basic business profile, including any information you (or your customers) have completed. Google also displays the top three or four relevant reviews for your business as part of the basic profile display.\nThis can be a good thing, if the displayed reviews are 4 or 5 stars, or it might not be so great if you haven’t gotten many excellent reviews yet.\nThis highlights the vital importance of taking control of your business’s online reputation, even for small, local businesses.\nThe “star rating” is almost the first thing anyone sees when searching for businesses like yours in your area, and that rating is calculated by your Google reviews. Click to read our primers on \nhow to get more reviews\n.\nHowever, this goes one level deeper: if you click on the Google map included in your basic profile, or if you click on any of the reviews displayed there, you get a more in-depth listing of the reviews, \nincluding any of your replies to those reviews. \nThis is a fantastic and little-used opportunity for you to show your current and potential customers that you take their feedback seriously and are actively engaged in maintaining a beneficial dialogue with customers online. (Click to read our in-depth article on \nhow to respond to reviews\n.)\nIf you take the 5 basic steps outlined above, you will be well on your way to improving your local ranking on Google, ranking higher on Google Maps, and attracting and retaining more happy customers. 

137 articles found in “Growing your business”

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