ELWsoftware.com

If you are considering hiring a web designer for your small business, you should have all of the facts available.  If your small business doesn’t have a website at all, you need to read further.  If you have a website and you want to get more visitors, or if you don’t know how many visitors you get, please consider hiring a professional.  Here are a few things every small business owner should consider when making decisions about a website:

1. Do you want new customers? You would be surprised how many small business owners don’t think about this question.  What would you do with 10 or 100 new customers a month?  What will your existing customers do when the quiet place they like suddenly becomes busy with new people?  If you use your website as an online store, is it possible that fewer people will come in?
2. Do you have anything to say? There probably isn’t too much daily news about the auto repair business, so maybe a blog isn’t right for you.  On the other hand, if car repairs will be taking a while to fix, it would be pretty cool to get updates with pictures.  It might even be fun to have a step-by-step slide show of what goes into fixing or customizing a car.  People love their cars.  Showing people how things get done can produce a great deal of trust.
3. Do animations really look professional? The honest and truthful answer is no.  Animation distracts from your message, especially if you can’t read further until the animation finishes.  You want your web page to say one thing: We can solve your problem. Animations and other eye-candy distract from your message, if they even work.  If you rely on animations to get your message across, this could even hurt you.  Search engines don’t use graphics, they use text.  If the text on your site isn’t good enough, nobody will find it on Google.
4. Who visits your website? If you don’t know who is visiting and how often, you are at a great disadvantage.  A website is not a television commercial where the advertisers don’t even know who is paying attention.  A website offers the ability to know exactly how often people visit, what pages they look at, and where they found you.  You would want to know if all your website visitors came from a Google search for “worst website in town” right?
5. How expensive is a website? Most web designers don’t care that the budget for your small business doesn’t allow huge expenses.  Your plan shouldn’t be to spend as much as you can afford.  If you give a web designer a budget of $5000, they will find a way to spend it.  Your plan should be to find a web designer who wants to improve your business for as little money as possible.

Yesterday I went to Burger King because I wanted a burger with bacon.  I didn’t think about how difficult the drive would be because it isn’t very far.  The nearest Burger King is next to the mall, and the entire area was crowded with Christmas shoppers.  Every year it is like this.  I hate it.  The entire road-facing side of the Burger King restaurant was painted saying that Whoppers were 2 for $3.  So, that is what I ordered.  I added bacon to the whoppers for a dollar each.  I also asked for onion rings since I saw them on the BK value menu for $1. Who is doing the math with me?  The total should be $6 plus tax, but my bill was for 9.97!

I could go on and on about things like this but they happen every day, and apparently nobody seems to notice anymore.  I read a blog post by Seth Godin about what buying a new PC is like.  I had forgotten all of the PC troubles, since I have been using the same Apple computer for almost five years now.  I forgot all about anti-virus software, ridiculous desktop icons, and permission popups for everything.  I understand that they are cheaper, ok?  The problem is that the same people trying to save $100 on a PC are the same people who buy a new car because their old one has slow leaks in their tires or something.  I don’t want to sound like a salesperson for Apple.  I have written about some problems before like the Apple Mouse scroll ball, and how OSX won’t delete files in the trash.

I want to know whether there is a class in business schools that teaches any of the following:

1. Charge people for things at random, and refund them if you someone is patient enough to wait on hold and complain.  (I would single out Bank of America, but everybody else does it too.)
2. Make canceling any recurring payment as difficult as possible.
3. Don’t even think of fixing a problem with a product.  This is what upgrades are for!

Every small business needs a website.  Most small businesses either ignore this great opportunity, or take the idea in the wrong direction.  We are very focused on actually getting new customers for your business.  A website is generally just a tool to get this done.

• A website is permanent. Television and radio ads last 30 seconds.  Ads in magazines last as long as people keep them around.
• Say whatever you want! Yellow pages ads cost more when you need to say more, and they are only printed once.  Your website can be updated any time you want to reflect minute-by-minute changes.
• Get found! If somebody types your company name into a search engine, do they find you?  Do they find your competitors? In the worst case scenario, do people find something that isn’t even true about your company?
• Do you have bigger ideas? Do you want to start the next Amazon.com, or Ebay.com?  We call ourselves ELW software for a reason.  We love trying out new things on the web.  Your idea might just be the next big thing!

We would love to help you build your dream website!  Contact us for a free consultation!

Making a website that will actually help your business is not very difficult.  I often get asked what we offer that you don’t get with one of those $5 a month plans on television.  The answer is simple: You get professionals working to make your business visible on the internet.

If that answer was not enough, pay attention and read further.  A second reason is that looks don’t matter.  Sure, everybody likes to have a professional website, but take an open-minded look at the real world out there.

1. Is an Amazon.com product page known for its looks?  No, in fact you often see page after page of information that you never concern yourself with. (Actually, you might not see it at all.  Stay tuned to this blog for a discussion of “Advertising Blindness”).
2. Is Yahoo.com a convenient page for finding what you are looking for?  It is filled with ads, and annoys you with huge boxes that cover what you are trying to read, just because you happened to put your mouse cursor over the wrong part of the page.
3. Does Google’s simplicity really help you?  There are dozens of Google tools available that you have no idea about because you didn’t see them anywhere.

Increasing business is not about getting people to buy things they don’t want.  Every business owner probably knows this.  Increasing sales is about connecting with people’s needs with your solutions!  The next post will be about the basics of making a decent web site for your business.

I have been asked many times about whether or not it is possible to make money by writing in a blog.  The short answer to whether it is possible is yes.  The more complicated answer is that almost nobody makes money with blogs, and if they do it isn’t much.

The basic idea behind making money with a blog is the following:

1. Write something.
2. Put an ad on your blog.
3. Profit.

It wasn’t supposed to be complicated, but I can make it that way:

1. Write something that is worth reading.
2. Find somebody willing to put an ad on it.
3. Wait for somebody to read it.
4. Profit.

Ok, that’s a little more complicated, but still not realistic.  Let me be honest:

1. Write something that is worth reading.
2. Hardly anybody is going to read what you write.
3. Write some more, and keep writing regularly, and maybe people will start to read something.
4. Still, hardly anybody is going to read most of what you write.
5. Something you write gets a few readers through a Google or Yahoo search.
6. You place an ad that is most likely Adsense, or another pay-per-click type.
7. A reader clicking on an ad gets you at most a few dollars.

Now, the truth about your competitors:

1. Many more people are good at making money off the internet than you.
2. Good articles make money, but you probably won’t get any of it.
3. Somebody smart notices that you wrote a good article or blog post.
4. Your post gets copied, probably many times.
5. The copies will be higher in the search results than your original.
6. Readers will click on the ads on somebody else’s page.
7. They cash the check before you even notice there is a problem.

That’s just how it works.  Unless you are a reporter for CNN or something, don’t expect to make any money.  You could always join the dark side and just copy some articles yourself too, but don’t expect that to work either.  Stay tuned for a few good reasons why.

Does every business need a web site?  The answer is no, but it is also true that not all businesses need customers, nor do they need to make a profit.  The Inland Empire is a unique place for a business.  The largest national and international companies are more likely to be in Los Angeles or San Diego.  If you need to advertise locally you need to compete with companies who are trying to reach millions of people, and are willing to pay for it.

This all means that Inland Empire businesses are in a unique position that is both challenging, and a great opportunity.  You need to recognize that it is very expensive to compete for the attention of somebody who is searching Google for the word “attorney” or “lawyer”.  It is just as challenging for them to compete with you for terms such as “attorney in riverside” since they probably aren’t even in the area.

Designing your site to focus on competing for specific terms is an excellent strategy for someone trying to get ahead with a new business web site.  We have all the tools and expertise necessary to do this work, and we’re probably more affordable than our competitors as well.