Importance of a Website for Small Business Owners

SEOmoz

This article is based on Ray Shore's presentation notes used during the January 2009 Mo-Kan Coin Laundry Association general meeting. It contains important points regarding the need for a small business website and the basic steps on establishing a presence on the web. A special thanks to Brad Griggs of Lenexa Coin Laundry and Dry Cleaning for the invitation to present this material to the association.

Internet is the New Yellow Pages

Most people turn to the Internet (instead of the Yellow Pages) to search for local businesses now. It’s normally easy to find companies in your area through a simple Internet search.

Statistics: Over 60 percent of consumers search for a local business on the Internet, and only 33 percent use the yellow pages. [Source TMP Directional, 2007]. Click here for a representative article.

Your Competition Will Likely Have a Web Presence

And if they don’t, they probably will. It is important to get your business established on the Internet ASAP. It takes some time to get your website established. The earlier, the better so you can get your business in front of those potential customers that are searching for your type of product or service in their area. Even a simple website can be very helpful in getting your name out there so it can be found. If you choose not to have a website, at least list your company in key directories (e.g., local business directory in Google, Merchants Circle, etc.).

Communicate as Much as You Want About Your Business

There are no limitations like with the Yellow Pages. Going through the normal channels (with a web host), you will have tons of server space available to create your message and establish your brand out there. I will provide information later on getting your website started with a web host. Point: it will likely be much cheaper to pay yearly fees for a web host than to list in the Yellow Pages. And the number of advantages in terms of marketing your product or service are tremendous with your own website.

Market Your Product or Service on Your Website

This may include a new service, current specials, or a call to action. You can list hours of operation, map & directions, contact information. Furthermore, you can provide images and video of your product or services to help site visitors (and potential customers) become familiar with your business. There is no limit to the marketing opportunities with your website.

Final Point

Based on the current trend of searching for local services online, small business owners should take advantage of the powerful marketing opportunities that exist with owning a website. The cost is very reasonable especially when compared with the cost of a small Yellow Pages ad.

Basic Steps of Developing a Website

This section is a high-level view of the steps required to develop a website. Detailed steps can be found in my "Develop Your Own Website Series".

Choose a Web Host

The web host is a company that provides the server space for your website.
They invest in the servers, maintain them, and provide customer support.
You pay a yearly fee for the use of their servers.
Bluehost is the service that I use and endorse due to their reliability and customer support.
Choose a domain name & check for availability.
You will need to choose a domain name that represents your business. Try to include a keyword if possible.
Keep it short as possible so it’s easy to remember and less chance of making a mistake
Include company name if possible so it will be easy to find if someone can’t remember your URL. It looks best in advertising also.
Try for a “.com” extension since it is most commonly used and recognized with legitimate businesses.

Register Domain Name (Through Web Host)

Bluehost will register your domain for free with your subscription fee. They will renew it every year when your subscription fee is due.
Choose to develop website yourself or hire a professional designer.
Some options for do-it-yourselfers: Joomla CMS (open source), Namo, Front Page, & Dreamweaver.
My free tutorial series can help: http://www.webbyshore.com/develop-your-own-website.

Joomla NoteJoomla is a web-based content management system that was developed by the open source community and is licensed to the public for free. There are numerous extensions available such as shopping cart programs, news programs, forums, image galleries, etc. Although it has a fairly steep learning curve, a very professional website can be developed without a strong background in web design. In fact, some claim that if you are good with MS Office programs, you can build a website with Joomla with no problem.

Overall Design

A nice clean, logical, user friendly design that is easy to navigate is very important for your site visitors.
You only have a few seconds to grab the attention of your visitors.
Make sure your message is clear and placed well on your page.
Site visitors will not stay long if they have to sift through clutter to find out what you do.
Optimize your website for the search engines.
Determine the proper keywords to use on your website.
Critical areas of your site to optimize: page title, URL, page copy, alt image tags.
Utilize Google keyword tool. Example to use: “dry cleaners lenexa ks”.
Optimize with keyword “phrases” rather than single keywords. For example: “Lenexa KS laundry” rather than “laundromat.

List Your Site in the Search Engine Directories

These are important for a couple of reasons:

More visibility in the search engine listings
It creates a backlink to your website which helps to increase your Google page rank.
Two ways of getting your site listed:
Submit it directly to each search engine. There is usually an area on their site for this
Just link to your new website from an already established site that is indexed by the search engine. When the search engine crawls the established site, it will find your site link and go to it. The search engine will likely index your site based on your keywords.

Ongoing Steps

Keep fresh content on your website (e.g., news, special events, sales, etc.).
Note the importance of a new content to search engine indexing, traffic, etc.
Establish back links to your site to help improve Google page rank (as mentioned above).
Besides directories, link exchange programs can be a good way of creating backlinks. One-way backlinks are best.
Always look for opportunities where you can get your website address published (e.g., community websites like Chamber of Commerce).
Monitor traffic logs for number of unique visitors, most visited pages, trends, keywords used to find your website, etc.
Monitor search engine ranking on important keywords. Just do Google searches on your keywords and see what page you rank on. There are tools available to make this process easier.
Monitor competitor’s websites that rank better than yours.
Determine how they are ranking so well (keywords used, how many sites are linking to them, general website optimization)

Resources

Local Areas We Serve

If you are in the Kansas City metro area, we can provide a closer one-on-one service. Here are some of the local areas we serve:


Overland Park, Kansas Leawood, Kansas Lenexa, Kansas Olathe, Kansas Merriam, Kansas Shawnee, Kansas Gardner, Kansas	Spring Hill, Kansas Stanley, Kansas Stillwell, Kansas Johnson County, Kansas Kansas City, Kansas Kansas City, Missouri Edwardsville, Kansas	Bonner Springs, Kansas Prairie Village, Kansas Lawrence, Kansas Eudora, Kansas Paola, Kansas All surrounding areas

And if you are outside of these areas, don't hesitate to contact us anyway. We can handle your web design project remotely! Contact Shore Galaxy Web Design today!