Small Business Design Resources

Free Christmas Graphics Giveaway – Day 5

These are free for you to use for personal and business use, except for resale. Make sure to come back everyday for new graphics to download.

Quick Tip:

Print and cut these snowflakes out to use them as ornaments on your Christmas tree. Or use them as holiday decorations on your blog or website.

Free Christmas Graphics Giveaway – Day 4

These are free for you to use for personal and business use, except for resale. Make sure to come back everyday for new graphics to download.

Quick Tip:

Insert your favorite photo inside the holiday frame, print and hang it on the Christmas tree as an ornament. Or create a greeting card by printing out the frame on a plain sheet of paper and fold it in half (write your greeting inside the folded sheet).

Free Christmas Graphics Giveaway – Day 3

These are free for you to use for personal and business use, except for resale. Make sure to come back everyday for new graphics to download.

Quick Tip:

Use a decorative font to write a title on the banner and place it on your blog. Or you can incorporate this banner in a greeting card design.

Free Christmas Graphics Giveaway – Day 2

These are free for you to use for personal and business use, except for resale. Make sure to come back everyday for new graphics to download.

Quick Tip:

Print these Christmas tags out, cut them out and use them on gifts to add that personal touch.

25 Days of Christmas Free Graphics Giveaway

Today marks the first day of our “25 Days of Christmas Free Graphics Giveaway”.

These are free for you to use for personal and business use, except for resale. Make sure to come back everyday for new graphics to download.

Steer Holiday Shoppers in the Right Direction

With the holiday shopping season in full force, have you prepared your small business website for the upcoming festivities? Now is the time to make sure you’re targeting the holiday market to maximize your company’s profitability this season.

Make sure your website is equipped with the best keywords for the job. Without key-wording your website properly, customers will not have very much luck when searching for the products or services you have to sell this holiday season. It’s perfectly acceptable to change keywords on your website around for the holidays to target those online shoppers. In fact, changing and experimenting with keywords in general is a smart part of small business website design.

What Do You Mean By Holiday Keywords?
You may already have valuable keywords present within the pages of your website. When you freshen your content for the holiday season, you want to put in popular words or phrases in that will help the general public locate your website easily in search engine results. Below are some popular holiday targeted keywords and phrasing that you may find will work for what your company’s website has to offer:

• Great Gifts Under $25
• Perfect Gifts for Dad
• Holiday Gift Ideas for 2010
• Affordable Christmas Gifts

As you can see, these are some very popular, yet generic search terms people will be using to locate gifts for their loved ones this year. You may ask “well should I use the word Christmas in my keywords?” That is completely up to you. Using Holiday in place of Christmas will get the same meaning across, but there are quite a few people who will use the term Christmas in search engines when looking to do online shopping. Studies show that businesses that use Christmas as a part of their marketing strategy are not really losing out on sales. Consider not only adding Christmas, but other terms like Hanukah or Kwanza to make your key phrases as well as your website looking well-rounded.

Three Reasons To Add A Blog To Your Website

If you’ve built a well-designed website for your small business, congratulations! You’re already ahead of the competition. Good small business website design is very important, yet browsing the Internet, I often can’t help but notice how poorly designed many websites are. A clean, bold design, easy navigation and high-quality content, along with basic search engine optimization of your website’s copy and title tags, will do wonders for your website and will help you strengthen your brand and establish yourself as a reputable business.

Now to the bad news. Just a decade ago, a great website was all you needed to establish your business online and to impress prospects. But things have changed dramatically over the past few years. Having a great, well-designed website isn’t enough anymore – you now need to have an interactive, social online presence. Customers, clients and prospects expect more these days from their online experience. They have come to expect interaction – they want to interact with you online, or at least have the option to do so.

To enable prospects to interact with you, you need to be active in social media, and one of the oldest forms of social media is also one of the best – blogging. Here are the three main reasons you should add a blog to your small business website – today.

1. Strengthening your brand. A well-written blog transforms your website from static to dynamic. It creates a vibrant website that keeps getting updated with fresh content, which gives visitors a reason to come back and also gives search engines a reason to crawl your website more often (more on SEO benefits in the next paragraph). You can use a blog to provide your visitors with new info, tips and ideas; to create a buzz around your website by posting contests and giveaways; and to give your customers and prospects a place where they can interact with you through voting, polls and comments.

2. SEO benefits. A blog gives you a wonderful opportunity to enrich your website with your main keywords. This is especially important for e-commerce websites that typically have very little content. When search engines are crawling your website, trying to index it correctly, they need to have something to work with – they need text that will tell them what your website is about and what are your main keywords. While your website’s URL and title tags provide search engines with the basic info, a blog reinforces that information and, overtime, can help you to rank better for many different keywords.

3. Your competitors are doing it. Even if you’re not convinced that your website needs a blog, but your competitors are adding blogs to their websites, this should be a good enough reason to add a blog too, especially if you know that customers in your space are participating in social media and reading blogs. If your competitors seem more up-to-date than you are, if their website is more fun and interesting, prospects will not hesitate to choose them over you.

Black Friday Profits for Your Small Business

We are less than two weeks away from this year’s Black Friday. On this day, many wake up still full from turkey dinners the night before at the crack of dawn in search of discount merchandise madness. When we think of Black Friday discounts, we think about retail. We think of heavy traffic anywhere near malls and shopping centers. How often do we think about Black Friday deals online? Small businesses can benefit from holding these specials on their own websites.

Consider incorporating your own Black Friday deals into your small business design this holiday season. First, start by advertising your intentions. Create a newsletter or email message to be sent to your client list. Let them know what deals your website will be showcasing and let them know how long they have to act on them!

Are you unsure about what Black Friday goodies you can offer to customers? A simple discount is always a good start. Some other great ideas are:
• Discounted shipping or free shipping
• Free gift with purchases
• Coupons towards the next purchase

While these are all great ideas for your Black Friday campaign, it’s up to you to decide which promotional deal will be the best fit with your business. Make sure you get your newsletter mailed out about 3 business days before the holiday. It gives people enough time to read it, but not enough time to forget about it. Don’t overlook one of our other previous articles on newsletters and how to keep your company’s emails from winding up in the spam folder.

Have a happy Thanksgiving holiday and a prosperous Black Friday!

BBB is Scamming Business Owners for Money

Last Friday 11/12 I was watching an ABC 20/20 about the Better Business Bureau (BBB). They were discussing that business owners are asked to pay a membership fee in order to get an “A” rating on their profile.

This has jogged my memory, as I was once a member of the BBB with an “A-” rating because I was a new member. The membership fee was really high around $400 a year, as I didn’t see any value in my money (no one during that year has told me that they found my business on the BBB) I decided to cancel it when the membership was up.

The following year I’ve notice that my grade has dropped to a “B”, but I didn’t have any complaints, in fact I had two positive reviews. When they called me to renew my membership I asked about the lower grade and the lady told me that after I pay my membership fee the grade would be improved. I was kind of skeptical but I was concerned about the grade and all those potential customers who would be seeing it. The lady also told me that hundred some people have viewed my BBB profile and offered me to pay the dues in two installments. Of course I wanted my grade to be improved, so I paid the first installment and the grade was improved the following day to an “A”.

When it came time for the second installment, I decided that something wasn’t right and I canceled my membership. If you look at my profile now, you’ll see that my grade is a “B+”, again I don’t have any complaints and still the two same positive reviews that I had back then. The only difference now is that I don’t really care how BBB grades me, my customer testimonials on my website are the proof of my work and reputation.

After watching 20/20 on this, I would caution anyone from taking the BBB seriously because I was scammed and I don’t think it’s fair for the public when business owners are tricked to pay for their reputation.

Have you been in a similar situation with the BBB? Leave your comments below.

Small Business Profile: Naomi Gauldin, Naomi’s Dish

(517) 214-7303	chefnaomi@yahoo.com			www.NaomisDish.com

Tell us your story of why and how you decided to start your own business.
I decided to start my own business because I want to be my own boss and I have all these ideas of what I want to do. I really admire Oprah’s business acumen and when I turned 30, I had an ‘aha’ moment. I said to myself, the only way something is going to happen is if I make it happen. So I looked into what I could do while I was finishing school and still working my full-time job. I found out that being a personal chef could allow me to work and go to school while fulfilling my passion in cooking. I get the chance to interact with people and prepare meals, which is what I love to do. Being a personal chef is a starting point for me until I can open my own restaurant.

How would your customers describe your business?
Great food and service that is like no other in the area.

What’s unique about your business, how do you differ from your competitors?
I will prepare any food that the customer desires as well as give them new foods to try out as well. I differ from my competitors in that I will tailor each menu to the customer’s needs and wants and provide original creations by myself as well.

What’s your most popular service?
Not only will I prepare meals for during the week, I will also prepare meals for special occasions such as wedding anniversaries and small, intimate parties. Anything that your heart desires!

How do you market your business?
I have business cards, direct mailings, word of mouth, Twitter, my blog and Facebook. I will be getting a website in the future.

What role does your website play in your business?
Currently, I’m using my blog as my website and that is helping me get the word out for my business to attract customers as well as give updates to what’s going on.

What would you say to small businesses who currently don’t have a website or have neglected it?
I would say that you need a website eventually since a number of people go online to research information. If money is an issue, which is was for me, I would say to definitely have business cards and utilize Twitter and Facebook for your business until you can get a website.

Anything additional you want to tell us about your business that we don’t know yet?
Follow me on Twitter and visit my blog to leave your feedback. I’m open to all ideas and suggestions!