Bright Ideas for Business

Advertising Ideas for Mainstreet - Where to spend Marketing Dollars

In this post-financial collapse economy, business owners must do more with less to capture the attention of more clients who will likely spend less than in past years.  This means that for the business to survive, it must cast a wider more efficient net to attract a larger number of clients.  All businesses want more clients.  That's just the start. 

How to do it?

The Internet is a favorite catch-all venue for extending your marketing reach.  That's a good place to start, but the trouble is that everyone knows this (or should know this) by now.  Knowing that your business is not alone on the Internet is a step towards understanding that your business must seek to differentiate itself from the competition and overall background noise on the Internet these days.  Even being different might not be enough, you'll have to be special. 

What does it mean to be special on the Internet.  Assuming your business is not a pure e-commerce dotcom company, then being special on the Internet means a few things:

• Online Presence- Your clients need to be able to find you online.  That means the site must be searchable, indexed, feed compatible and properly constructed to maximize search engines.
• Personal Service- The rest of your business provides high-touch personal service to each of your clients, so should your online presence.  That means a client can login to your website and receive more than just info on your company and a way to order online.  The site needs to be able to help them buy your products or services. 
• Web Enabled- Your online presence is an extension of your business.  Everything your company does can also be done online.  Your sales, logistics, management and operations can all be virtualized online to give clients a seamless experience.  This process of becoming web enabled can also significantly reduce overall operational costs by providing your business with tools to automate many of its core business processes.

It sounds like a lot, but the important thing to realize is that you must start now.  Start with one step at a time, one piece at a time.  Develop a budget and get started soon.  Remember, your competition is gearing up for this now.  It's only a matter of time before the gap between you and your successful competitor is too much to overcome. 

Wall Street and Advertising

With the economy in its current condition the Wall Street recommends that small business and medium business to advertise MORE.

"The Internet is helping small businesses alter the way they sell themselves... [some] are using Internet firms ...which help small businesses create affordable commercials and buy air time for those ads in local television markets."

The internet has become the greatest medium for advertising that we have ever seen. All business should be taking advantage of the low prices of advertising to such a large audience.

Is Myspace a good place for Business?

It is pertinent to take advantage of all the free marketing the internet has provided in the last few years. Myspace being one of them. Feel free to design your own free Myspace page for your business. It’s free and relatively easy to manage. It’s a great networking tool as well. You can meet people that may turn out to be your competitors or your new clients. Make your Myspace page similar to your website layout so that it will be easily recognizable as your companys website and your MySpace page. Blog on other peoples Myspace pages so that they will in turn come to your page and see what it is you do.  Be friendly Myspace is a great way to meet people and market what you do. Be sure and have plenty of links back to your website and links to your Myspace on your website as well.  There are many ways of marketing your business online. Be sure and take advantage of all of them, Myspace especially.

Marketing in Houston

With Houston being the 4^th largest city in the country and with The Greater Houston area including The Woodlands, Spring, Tomball, Conroe, Katy, Stafford, Sugarland, and all other surrounding areas, it makes up the largest metro area in the U.S. People have no option but to go to their internet for research. Every company can therefore take advantage of the world wide web by making sure that they are easily searchable by all their potential clients. There are so many easy ways of accomplishing this.

 

Even if the company isn’t selling anything online or even if their products have nothing to do with the internet people it is pertinent that people are able  to research all companies with the ever reliable, and easily manageable internet. Be sure that your search engine optimization of your website is up to standards and is constantly being updated. It is important that of your competition you are at least on the top 5 pages. Otherwise, it is unlikely that people will continue to search further through the pages of your competition before getting to your company.

 

Another thing is to make sure your website is easy to navigate, doesn’t take too long to download and suits the company’s stature. A website that is not easy to navigate is less likely to have customers poking around their website and learning about their business , than a website that is easy to navigate and easy to use. Make sure your website doesn’t take too long to download. Many flash pieces throughout the site looks nice, but most people feel they don’t have the extra minute and a half to wait for your site to download and they will move on without ever seeing your site. It is also extremely important that your website fits your business. It is all in the design. This is something that will most likely require a Graphic Design firm (like IEV Media) to do because it takes a certain designer aspect to accomplish this. You wouldn’t for example have the same looking site if you sell toys or children’s items as your would if you were a corporate lawyer, for example. Leave this aspect to the professionals.

 

Being noticed is not as hard as being remembered on the internet. Make sure that your website is first found, then easy to navigate, and lastly that your website stands out from your competition so that it will be remembered.

 

 

Build It and They Will Come?

So you have your new visually appealing website designed.  You're thinking "Wow...this new site is really going to bring me more business," so you post it to the web and start waiting for calls to come in.  Weeks go by and your phone is silent!  You think, "what’s going on? Why aren't we getting any business?"   Here’s the problem: building a web presence is more much more than just having a pretty website online.  You must implement a strategy that is based on knowledge of how search engines place websites.  

It's been said that search engines are very much like your old science teacher in school.  If you don't do the work according to the proper formula, you won't get a passing grade.  It may seem like getting your site to the "sweet spot" of any search term is impossible, but in reality it's basically a check list of things that need to be done in the proper way.  Let’s use this analogy for understanding the process better.  You go buy a new car and you drive it until one day you develop a problem.  Unless you’re a mechanic, you don't think to yourself, "I'm going to work on the engine and fix it."  You understand that it’s a complex situation that requires the right tools, skills and experience to do the job properly.  Even mechanics do diagnostics to cars these days before working on them because it pin points the problem and tells the mechanic exactly what is wrong.  

Search engine placement requires tools designed to do diagnostics and pin point the problems or issues that your site most likely has.  Like the auto mechanic example, you still need to be a mechanic to do the work properly or in this case an SEO consulting expert.  This is because the information that is provided by the diagnostics process is in terms that most non-professionals won't understand.  Once you have identified and resolved the problems, you will soon you find yourself in the coveted top-search ranking spots!  

There is one other thing to consider when putting your SEO plan into action: someone is always trying to get your spot!  SEO experts continually keep up with the rules and best practices of search engine optimization.  The search engines like Google and Yahoo are constantly changing their rule and methods.  The HTML standards are always changing and getting new updates.  It's quite a lot of information to keep up with when you are trying to get to the top.  The top is not a destination; it's a continuous battle.

The only way to stay on top once you get there is to keep a monthly SEO maintenance program in place.  This is done by the SEO professional.  They must continually keep up with the rules and regulations of search engines and watch over your spot on a regular bases, and know what to do if your site falls off of its target spot.  Speak to the website design and SEO consulting pros at IEV MEDIA when you’re ready to get serious about your Internet marketing image.