 The words “Buy Local” are showing up in all kinds of marketing pitches. For food and farm commodities, the words guarantee fresher foods that have not traveled miles to get to the dinner table. For service work or contractors, the words guarantee that the provider lives in the same town or county. For the consumer, the words guarantee that the company is not only local, but available and accountable. Many consumers have grown weary of dealing with impersonal, big box warehouse types of businesses. They still don’t want to pay a whole lot more for a product or service BUT they will if they think it will benefit them in the long run. For instance, let’s say Jane Smith is looking for new carpet. She has an idea of what she wants and goes to Store A. The person in Store A can tell her about the products in stock, show her a catalog for special orders, and answer questions about delivery times. Then she goes to Store B. The person in Store B can sell her the same products but also asks her questions. What room is she looking to carpet? Does she plan to live there for two years or 20 years? Does she have pets? Based on the answers to those questions, the person in Store B might recommend a carpet that is better suited to her personal situation. Jane Smith evaluates the information and decides to make her purchase at Store B because the person there was genuinely interested in helping her figure out what was best for her. Running a business and marketing a business is always about more than the bottom line. It is about your knowledge, your reputation, and individualized customer service. As Bill Maynard and Tom Champoux, of The Effectiveness Institute say, “It does not need to be a choice between head decisions and heart decisions. An organization that balances head decisions and heart decisions has a far greater potential for achieving and sustaining success than an organization that doesn’t have heart.” We always appreciate the kind words, and the referrals! Our philosophy:
We've built a business on that philosophy... and look forward to meeting many more individuals and businesses who are looking for an online presence with a company they can trust. So, you’re a small business. But is your website a main component of your marketing and branding efforts? If so, have you looked at your website lately . . .from a client’s point of view? If not, you may want to start right away. Your website could be a reason you are losing business. Small business can attract potential customers via their business website. To make sure your website continues to do its job, you need to make sure that the content, appearance and usability are near perfect. In fact, getting your web design wrong can have negative effects on your business. Here are common mistakes small businesses make with their websites: 1. Poor Navigation People visit websites for specific information and if they cannot locate it quickly, they will seek it elsewhere – probably your competitors. The chances of them visiting your site again is slim. A good navigation structure should be seamless and will keep visitors on your site longer. Don’t make your visitors think about how to navigate your site; it should be obvious. 2. No Call for Action. . What Should the User Do? Ever seen a brochure with nonsense information? This is the same for websites. The fundamental error of many small business websites is the lack of a clear call to action. You need to make sure you are asking the user to do something like buy a product, tell someone something, read a book or visit somewhere. People like to take direction. Make sure you tell them to take action before they leave your site. 3. Design and color Website should be designed with a balance of color and contrast. This is not a priority for the average small business owner. But it should be. Take a look at your website and determine if the text is difficult to read due to the color and contrast. If readers can not read the text because it is too dark or too light, they will move on. 4. Nonsense or no information The most important reason why people will visit your website is to get information, and if you don’t have it, they will, once again, leave your website. Small businesses often offer too much information that the user is overloaded and can’t find the simple fact they are searching for. Keep text simple but informational. 5.Websites that have clutter Some small business owner’s websites are so cluttered that users have a difficult time trying to figure out where to go. Keep websites clean looking and easy to read. Visitors won’t return if they can’t understand or follow the content because it is just too messy. Unfortunately, this will lead to low traffic, a high bounce rate and possibly a poor page rank. So step back and take a fresh look at your website. By creating some slight changes to your website, you may increase business and the overall positive image of your small business. Ask yourself these questions:
Website design is both an art and a science. There is something about a unique website design that keeps visitors returning and customers buying. No matter what type of business you are in, here are 5 practical web design tips that can help you as you build your first business site online.
Follow these 5 simple and practical tips the next time you design a website and you will improve your prospects for higher rankings, more visitors, and better results. You've heard you need a website to maintain a competitive stance in today's business climate. That much is true, but you don't have to spend thousands of dollars to have a Web presence. For most small businesses - especially in Adams County, Pennsylvania - you can have a decent website at a reasonable price. It is important, however, to learn how to judge ROI. Return On Investment. If you are advertiser, then you already know how to measure ROI on your current advertising. You run a newspaper ad, then you see what kind of response you get. If you close a sale and your profits exceed your expenses, there's your ROI. Do you measure your ROI the same way for a website? Yes. Actually, you do. But there is one more detail that factors into ROI. Even for traditional marketing. If you print 1,000 brochures, for instance, at a total cost of $500 (let's use round numbers for the sake of clarity), then after you have distributed those 1,000 brochures you should have realized an ROI of more than $500 in order to have made that investment worth your while. Brochures have a limited distribution. And there is the heart of the matter. Websites have an unlimited distribution. In other words, once you build your website, it's there for good. Forever. Unless you take it down. Assuming the same cost factor ($500) on an unlimited distribution run, your online brochure doesn't need to make you $500 within a reasonable time frame in order to be profitable. It needs to earn back that $500 over the course of its lifetime. I'm not saying a website does, or should, cost you $500. You can get one for less. But if you consider the lifetime ROI for your website design, if it costs you twice that much and you get one or two customers a year, then your website will pay for itself in no time. | 
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