Internet has been popular since mid-1990s. Many business owners still do not use it for their businesses at all. Some business owners know that they need a website since everybody has a website. However, they think it is enough to have a website up and be out there. A website is not going to be an investment if they do not know how to use it properly. It is going to be an expense.  Below are some common mistakes made by business owners about their business websites:

•   Too many ads

Many business owners put too many ads on their websites. They think it is a great way to promote their products when people visit their websites. They do not realize it is a big NO-NO. When people stop by websites, they just want to find the information they need as quickly as possible. With too many ads on websites, it gives visitors horrible experience and stops them from coming back. Two to three ads are appropriate for each page of websites.

•  Confusing navigation

Some business owners try to be “creative” on websites navigation to impress visitors. Nevertheless, they do not understand that visitors will leave quickly if they cannot find what they are looking for. A simple and clean navigation menu on the top will provide more than enough for visitors to easily navigate the websites.

•   No clear call-to-action

Visitors do not stay long on the websites. Instead of just offering information, websites need to have a clear call-to-action to direct customers to take whatever action business owners need before they leave websites to maximize profit from each single visit. For example, a proper call-to-action could be something like “call us now @ 111-222-3333 to claim your free gift”.

•  Amateurish websites.

In order to save cost, many business owners choose to build websites themselves. Most of the time, they are not professional. As a result, small mistakes will hurt business images badly. For instance, the content is not aligned. Photos widen pages unevenly. Hiring a professional website designer/developer is a good investment for business owners.

• Little and useless content

For some reason, business owners do not like to put content on websites. They upload a bunch of pictures simply because it is easy to take pictures. Too many pictures do not help please visitors. Instead, it annoys visitors. Some business owners upload random content to fill up web pages. It not only hurts readership, but also decreases websites’ search engine rankings.

• Shopping cart is not obvious.

Some businesses sell products online. But their shopping cart is small and almost hidden. An e-commerce website should make it easy for people to buy. If customers have to perform too many clicks to make a purchase, they are leave immediately. In contrast, Amazon.com does a great job on that. It invented a function called “one-click”, simply meaning customers can make a purchase with just one click. Business owners could definitely learn from it.

• No contact information

Many business websites forget to include the most basic information such as phone number, email address and physical address on the websites surprisingly. It is better that if contact information could appear on each web page. The best way to do it is to put it on the bottom of the page so that it will stick on every web page.

•  Missing pages and broken links

When customers click on page links on website, they often appear to be broken. This is unprofessional. Broken links and web pages should be removed from the business websites.

• Slow hosting

Many business owners purchase cheap hosting service. But most cheap hosting services are slow. The study shows that, if the loading time of a web page is more than five seconds, customers will leave right away. Buying a quality hosting service is a great investment. The cost is around $10/month as opposed to $3/month for the cheap hosting service.

Hopefully you are not making mistakes above.

Posted by Tim in Business.

The answer to the tile is simple for most business owners: YES! It is understandable that most business owners do not get social media even though they have spent a great amount of time trying to understand what people are looking for and what they should do to help their businesses with social media.

Most business owners are busy with day-to-day operation. They have already got so much going on. However, social media is definitely something business owners should concentrate heavily on because it is really beneficial for business if they know how to utilize it.

Below are the seven most important reasons that business owners should use social media:

1. You can give unhappy customers quick and cost-efficient customer service. When coming across unhappy customers occasionally, business owners would like to solve the problem for unhappy customers immediately. However, usually it is difficult to find a perfect time to meet with unhappy customers since people are busy. It is worse if customers live far away. Nevertheless, social media overcomes all barriers. People spend a great deal of time on it. Business owners can find the unhappy customers easily and interact with them publicly. Business owners do not have to make an appointment with customers or drive far away. It saves time and cost.

2.  Social media offers an easy way for business owners to put themselves in public. By posting status, offering discounts or seasonal promotions, business owners would be able to reach a wide range of customers for free. It is a perfect platform to brand their businesses. For instance, if business owners offer customer service via social media, all customers’ friends will see the interaction. As a result, business owners will have built positive business images in front of all customers’ friends. It is a free and effective PR!

3.  Social media offers business owners an opportunity to show their customers that they are real people. Many business owners are behind the business, meaning they do not deal with customers directly. With the help of social media, business owners could post their pictures, videos and personal information. That means a lot to customers. It offers a channel to customers to talk to business owners freely, which further enhance the connection between customers and business owners.

4. It is another way to get found. All business owners hope that their websites could be on the first page of Google. There are only ten spot available on the first page of Google. Not only is the number of spots limited, but this is also hard to get onto. Social media like Facebook has more than 600 million users. If business owners understand social media, by being active on social media, customers would find them.

5.  Social media gives business owners highly targeted traffic. Those people who stick around or interacting with business owners all the time on social media usually are the ones interested in products or services. Therefore, business owners do not have to go out and look for customers.

6. It allows customers to communicate with business owners in their preferred way. In particular, young people nowadays use social media over any other communication channels. Using social media means business owners speak the same language with customers. If the language barrier is overcome, money is easy to go from customers’ pockets to businesses’ pockets.

Again, social media is the trend. If you can avoid it, try to embrace it. Learning how to use social media will help take your business to the next level.

Posted by Tim in Business.

Small business owners work really hard to serve their communities, but most of them are not tech savvy. They do not do any marketing online and just lose one of the best channels to a whole new world of customers.

Why don’t they have a website? As I talked to many small business owners, I realize there are three main reasons:

• They simply don’t know what to do

As mentioned above, most business owners are not tech savvy. Many of them do not even know how to use a computer. They think that it is difficult to learn the technical details if they are totally new to the technology world. They choose to not to learn it because they do not want to add more to-dos to their busy schedules. For many reasons, they just do not know what to do. Therefore, the best thing to do when they don’t know what to do is to do nothing.

• They don’t have the time to learn it

This is the most important reason why they don’t have a website. Most small business owners are busy with day-to-day operation of the business. They work more than eight hours a day. They hardly have time for themselves. They really just don’t have time to learn all knowledge including coding, programing, hosting, etc. to set up a website.

• They think they can’t afford it

Most small business owners are extremely thrifty. When they are told that a website can easily cost them more than $1,000, they simply think they can’t afford it. They treat a website as “luxuries”. However, what they don’t know is that a website is a necessity today. It expands the customer base to the global level instead of just local. A website is a tool to generate more profit. It is not an expense, it is an investment.

There are many things that small business owners can monetize their websites. There is a most popular and typical formula.

• Set up a simple website

A small business website does not have to be fancy. A simple and neat website will do. It should be well organized so that visitors can get the information they want as soon as possible.

• Drive traffic

A website with no traffic is like a store in the middle of nowhere. It will not do small business owners any good. Small business owners need to drive traffic to their websites by any means. For instance, they can simply tell their customers to go to their websites to get updated promotion information when customers walk into their store. They can also do search engine optimization to increase their ranking on search engine to help them get more online exposure to get more traffic. The goal is to get qualified traffic for the website, not any traffic.

• Generate leads

After getting the traffic, small business owners should get visitors information so that they can do target marketing afterwards.  The leads generated from the website are highly qualified as potential customers because they are interested in the products or services small business owners offer already. The hardest part of selling is done.

• Marketing to leads generated

With qualified leads generated, small businesses owners are able to do target marketing via email or direct mail to them. Since leads generated are highly targeted. A great discount or promotion will easily raise their interest and get them to call business owners.

Why don’t you start a simple business website today and follow

• Set up a website
• Drive traffic
• Generate leads
• Convert them to customers

process to see how it works for your business.

Posted by Tim in Business.