The Internet is truly a global phenomenon, allowing you to connect with customers all over the world. With a business website, you aren’t limited to local traffic the way you are with only a brick-and-mortar location. That is a huge business advantage, but it can leave you wondering how to build your local presence on such a global platform. Luckily, there are several excellent resources available to help you target local traffic.
Yelp.com is a website where customers can search for local businesses and leave reviews of their experiences, and it also offers a number of free tools for small business owners. If you haven’t already, check Yelp to see if your business is listed; if it isn’t, you can list it for free. If it is listed, claim your page to take advantage of all that Yelp.com offers small business owners: communicate with your customers by responding to their reviews, promote discounts and special events, check the amount of traffic your Yelp business page receives, recommend other businesses, and provide detailed information about your business–including your website address. With more than 26 million visitors in December 2009, Yelp.com is a great way to connect with local traffic.
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In order to keep your small business practices up-to-date, it’s important to keep an eye on the competition. You’ll learn what the latest trends are, find out what’s working and what’s not, and remain responsive to what your customers want and expect from businesses like yours. Fortunately, there are several easy ways to learn about your competitors.
It may sound counterintuitive, but it’s important to learn as much as you can about how your visitors browse your website. If most of your visitors leave before making a purchase, you can bet that there are competing sites that they find easier to use. ClickTale is a great tool that lets you see exactly how visitors use your site, so you can pinpoint what is working and what is not. Looking at visitor browsing patterns will show you what visitors want and expect to see on your site–not only will this help you make changes to retain your visitors, it will also provide important clues about what competitors’ websites offer.
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I probably don’t need to tell you that starting an online store is a great way to supplement your income, and – overtime – to hopefully generate a full time income while working from home.
People have always been drawn to the idea of working from home and being their own boss. The best thing about an online store is that the risk is minimal – unlike a brick and mortar store, your initial investment can be very low.
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When you develop your blog, you need to keep in mind the 4 basic principles of profitable website building. These are commonly known as CTPM. The letters stand for Content, Traffic, Pre-sell and Monetize. The four principles work for all aspects of your website business but let’s take a look at them in light of your Blog.
Let’s take a look at each of the words and how they apply to blogging.
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Once you publish your small business website to the internet, anyone across the globe with internet access will be able to see it. But perhaps you run a local service and you really only care about local traffic in your neighborhood. You might be asking yourself if it is still worth maintaining a small business website. The answer is – absolutely! When people are researching a business, the internet is the first place people go – even for small and local businesses. They want to know whether you are a legitimate business, what times your business is open and what services you offer.
The internet if the first place people go when they want to find out if a business exists in their local area. When people see that you have a website, it makes them feel that you are a legitimate and reliable business. So running a website is an important part of doing business in today’s market place whether you are a big business or a small, locally-based business.
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Your website is seriously outdated. You need to hire someone to do small business website redesign for you. You’ve researched your options online and narrowed them down to three promising candidates. How do you decide between the three?
One of the best ways to make sure someone can deliver on their promises is to check their references, and when it comes to online businesses, third-party testimonials are the best references. Of course, you need to make sure the testimonials are valid before you can trust them.
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Thank you everyone who joined me on Tuesday December 2, 2009 via Twitter #SmallBizChat discussing Designing Your Business Website.
If you’ve missed the discussion, you can download the transcript Designing Your Business Website Transcript
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Get your business seen by local searchers! Some listings are free and some have a fee.
Now you can see how your business is listed in popular search engines all from one place. Take a look at www.getlisted.org and make sure you take the time to add your business information to at least the free listing services.
Adding your business to local listings increases chances for people who are looking for your products and/or services in your area to find you faster.
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Business, Social Media | admin | 
March 9, 2010 6:17 am | 
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