Ropikan: Trick Or Treat: Small Business Owners

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Trick Or Treat: Small Business Owners

Once you have set up your website use these easy tricks to draw attention to your business.

Trick: Promote Your Website

Use email for efficient, inexpensive communication

Make sure to ask your customers for their emails, and text time you have a sale or other promotion, you can let them know about it.

Use social media to develop relationships with your fans

If you're on Facebook or G+ or another social network, make sure you're talking to your fans and customers and listening to what they have to say.

Promote your website on receipts and other printed material

People won't know you're online unless you tell them. Make sure to put your website address on your business cards, paper receipts, and print ads.

Give people an incentive to visit you online

Have you tried offering a discount or a free gift to customers who visit your website? Incentives can motivate customers to take action and find you online.

Invite happy customers to recommend your site

People trust reviews and recommendations from their friends and family. Don't be afraid to ask customers to review or recommend your website. It will expand your reach and bring in new customers.

See Also : Best Ways To Promote Your Blog

Treat: Optimize Your website

Follow these simple tips to help Google understand the content on your site. This information helps deliver great results to searchers (your future customers!)

Look good in the search results

Your page title is used as suggestion for the title in Google's search results. Describe your business in a concise, informative phrase.
Domain names are an important part of Google's search result. Choose a descriptive and easy-to-read domain name for your website. Sub-pages should also be easy to read. For example, use www.stasiasbakery.com/custom-cakes instead of www.stasiasbakery.com/prodid?12345.
Meta descriptions are page summaries often used by Google and other search engines on the search results page. Write unique descriptions for each page in 160 characters or less.

Help Google understand images

Give your images short, descriptive file names.
The "alt" attribute describes the image. This helps Google understand what's in the image.
Write a short caption on the page below each image. Put important information in text rather than images.

Update and keep going

Provide useful content and keep it up to date - Your website is like a virtual storefront. You wouldn't leave a store unattended for 6 months, right? Keep your site fresh by starting a blog, announcing new products, sale, and special offers. Remember to put yourself in your customer's shoes and make sure you provide them with the information they need.

More information and support

g.co/webmasteracademy Google's Webmaster Academy offers free step-by-step lessons and short instructional videos.
g.co/seoguide and http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35291 Looking for more advice on how to optimize your website? Read Google's SEO starter guide.
google.com/webmasters Google's free webmaster tools helps you understand and improve your website, get timely alerts on problems, and find answers to questions.

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