Small Business Design Resources

Small Business Profile: Ellen Hart, Careerbags.com

(310) 491-1460	ellen@careerbags.com			www.careerbags.com

Tell us your story of why and how you decided to start your own business.
In 1990 I was unable to find a business case that fit my needs as a professional woman. I designed a collection and sold it to a major luggage company called Hartmann Luggage. I stayed involved in the sales and marketing of the collection for many years but eventually went on to create other products. Four years ago some of the retailers that I dealt with called and asked to have the collection redesigned and updated because there were no lines out there for women professionals and students. I researched the Internet and found some fantastic designers and decided that there were plenty of options out there but not one great place to find them all. I grabbed the domain name Careerbags and started my business a year later.

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Is It Time To Redesign Your Website?

I recently talked with a potential client whose entire website is based on Flash. Flash websites used to be extremely popular during the 1990s, but have since become pretty much obsolete, especially because it is very difficult to optimize these limited textual content websites for search engines. Take a look at this article to learn more about what is Flalsh and is it suitable for your business.

The client now wants a modern, content-rich, non-Flash website that search engine spiders can actually crawl. This is a very good reason to do a website redesign, which got me thinking about several more reasons why you should redesign your website.

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Small Business Website: Should You Use Your Own Name And Photo?

When working on your small business website design, one of the main questions you will need to answer is the question of your website’s identity. Assuming you are a small business, maybe even a one-person-shop, do you disclose this on your site, or do you pretend to be a bigger business than you really are?

This is one area where there are no hard and fast rules, and where either approach can work, so each business should do what feels right to them.

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Why Doesn’t Your Business Have a Website?

I find it surprising that some small businesses still don’t have a website. Typically, small business owners who decide not to have a website say something along the lines of, “My business is very small. It’s just me and three employees. I don’t want to sell my products online. Why do I need a website?”

My answer is always the same: regardless of the size of your business, and whether you plan to sell your products online or not, you do need to have an online presence, or you risk losing potential customers. Here are the four main reasons why even the smallest mom and pop shop should have a website:

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Understanding and Improving Google PageRank

There’s no question that having your small business website on the first page of Google results is good for traffic. Google has been used for more than 70% of U.S. Internet searches so far in 2010, making it by far the Internet’s most used search engine. One reason Google is so popular is that Internet searchers trust the results it returns. Google’s method for putting together a list of great search results relies heavily on PageRank (PR), a number from 0-10 that reflects a web page’s importance. Average PageRank is 3-5; a PageRank of 6-7 is considered extremely good. Only a few elite websites have PageRanks of 8 or above, and only Google and a handful of others have PageRanks of 10. PageRank is a logarithmic calculation, meaning that each level is harder to reach than the last. For example, moving from PR 2 to PR 3 is easier than moving from PR 3 to PR 4. It also means that a PageRank of 4 is more than twice as good as a PageRank of 2.

The formula for calculating PageRank is patented and a closely guarded secret; according to Google, PageRank is determined by looking at more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. But even though you can’t know all the details of Google’s formula, there are some things you can do to increase your PageRank. Read more »

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Quick Tip: Update Your Website Often

Updating your website often keeps your website fresh in search engines. When I say update I’m not talking about a constant redesign, I’m referring to content. Search engines love text, so the more often your website has fresh content for them to scan, the more “points” your website gets for being an up-to-date source for visitors. The best way to add content to your website is by publishing articles on your blog of course. Learn more about What is Blogging.
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What is your Business Image Worth?

I participate in few forums here and there and provide website critiques on numerous of them. There was one website critique request that came from a website designer that wanted some feedback on a recently completed flower shop website. I was very disappointed and a bit angry with the web designer, because the designer took advantage of a small business owner by promising to deliver a site that sells flowers, but the look and functionality of this flower site didn’t even come close. I of course dug a little deeper and found background information on the web designer, which led me to writing an article What to look for in a Web Designer.

What was wrong with that website?

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Website Critique: Buy SD cards for cheap

Bringing competitive prices and great customer service is what the owners of www.sdcards4cheap.com are striving for. Knowing that they have a lot of competition to beat, they wanted a video website critique with suggestions on how to make their website better.

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Watch Movies of Visitors Browsing Your Website

Have you ever imagined that you can actually see what your visitors are doing on your website? No, no, I’m not talking about going through charts and pages of visitor statistics on Google Analytics or other similar analytics program. I came across ClickTale, which is a program that let you watch movies of your visitors’ actual browsing session. This is way better than just looking at charts and trying to analyze them. By viewing where your visitors’ mouse is actually going, what they type and what results they get from a click, you can evaluate the following:

• what on your website gets neglected
• what errors do users get
• what simply confuses your visitor and makes them leave
• why do they abandon your shopping cart

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How to Start a Website

I get many questions from small business owners asking about website basics. So much of what is written seems to be written by those, and for those, who already know what they are doing when it comes to having a business website. So let’s take a step back and review a few basics, because I know from talking to small business owners that there are many of you who will appreciate this information.

The two must have things to having a website live on the Internet for everyone to see are a domain name and a hosting account. Let me explain what those are and pointers on few other things that are needed to get your website online: Read more »

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