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Marketing Small Businesses Online – How to Improve Your Web Presence and Increase Traffic

Home Based Business

More and more people today have been setting up their own businesses and learning about marketing small businesses online. Times have changed since the advent of the internet and there are a few elements to any successful marketing campaign that I’ll share with you here.

Web Presence

The point of marketing small businesses online is to drive traffic to your site and hopefully make a few conversions. A conversion rate calculates how many people must visit your site before you make a sale or generate a new lead. The following methods are each valuable methods of increasing your web presence.

Top Five Methods

1. Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the single most important element to any online marketing campaign. By optimizing your site for search engine crawlers, you can improve your ranking in those search engines and generate long term organic web traffic.

2. Search engine PPC (pay per click) advertising is another way you can increase your presence. You set up your account with the search engines, choose your keywords and determine which sites you want your ad displayed. For everyone who clicks on one of your ads and lands on your site, you are charged for that. If no one clicks, you owe nothing.

3. Social networking is quickly becoming an amazingly powerful marketing tool. Setting up free accounts on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and HubPages you can start promoting yourself and your products. Include social bookmarking buttons on each of your web pages to encourage others to spread the news.

4. Article marketing campaigns in another excellent way to improve your web presence. By submitting good quality and informative articles to directories such as EzineArticles, you are not only presenting yourself as an expert to human readers, you are also creating valuable backlinks to your site which can greatly improve your ranking.

5. Commenting on blogs, forums and discussion groups is another powerful method of increasing your presence. Leave regular comments on sites that are related to your market’s niche. Doing this will also create valuable backlinks.

It Takes Time

Marketing small businesses on the internet takes patience and dedication. There is not overnight success, not even online. Be prepared to spend time each day building on each of the five principles. Keep at it and before long you’ll be reaping the rewards.

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Presentations – 3 Fail Save Tips

Many people say they would prefer to go to the dentist and have a drilling without anaesthetic, be locked in a box full of spiders or sky dive with the person they would most like not to be with rather than make a presentation.

Of course we all have phobias and things we convince ourselves we can’t do. Mine is picking up the telephone to sell and I’m sure you can tell from the language I use that I have a set of assumptions about ‘selling’ and more importantly the likely outcome. In short, fear of rejection.

And it’s the same with presentations. You may be talking to a number of different people (internal v external) in a number of different circumstances (formal v informal) to deliver a number of different outcomes (information v commitment).

It may, of course, just be to entertain but this is usually the realm of more experienced speakers.

So, fear of presenting is not a trivial issue. Here are 3 Fails Safe Tips.

1. Take the Angst out of it

• What’s going through your mind here?
o I haven’t done it before;
o I have done it before and I didn’t feel it went well
o People were so patronising with their feedback.
o Actually I didn’t want to ask them!
• So what’s likely to be overwhelming you at the moment? It’s your emotion isn’t it?
• And we all know that we are our own worst critics. Do you have some one or something – say a parent or parrot – on your shoulder – saying don’t, can’t, failure, you’ve done it before and it was rubbish!
• So do all of us! So park this stuff.
• Think positive. Be a footballer and imagine scoring the winning goal.
• People coming up to you and saying:
o That was something I’ve been struggling with for ages – thank you for helping me out;
o I really enjoyed the energy and commitment you put in to your presentation;
o I could never do that – tell me what I need to do to be like you.
• This can be really difficult, but in addition to practising your presentation in front of the mirror and recording it, you really ought to trial it in front of somebody who you know will give you constructive feedback.

2. Attend to the Practicalities

• Having done the ‘hard’ work in shaping and preparing your presentation, on the day there are some practicalities you need to take control of.
• Yes, I mean take control of, because no matter how exquisite your speech preparation has been, there are some really practical issues if not addressed can literally destroy your presentation.
• So what might they be?
o Can people hear you? – do a sound check with the people at the back of the room;
o Lighting – are you visible for everybody in the room? Are you moving between light and dark patches?
o Are your slides visible to everybody? – are you getting in the way of people seeing the slides?
o Are the slides too busy?
o Are you using the slides as your script?
o If you want to facilitate people talking amongst them selves does the room layout support this?

3. Believe you’re the ‘Expert’ for the Day

• And of course you are.
• It doesn’t mean you know more than anybody else in the room – and if you don’t they’ll probably let you know.
• But if your presentation is well prepared with robust factual evidence then you’re on the high ground.
• If you want to express an opinion then make sure you label it clearly – my view is that…
• You can acknowledge different points of view – on the one hand/on the other hand.
• But don’t be wishy washy in terms of your outcome – express a view, evidence it and be prepared to learn!

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Carriage Clocks Past and Present

Carriage clocks have a unique and classy style. An old horse drawn clock can be considered very collectible. They were originally conceived so people had a means of telling the time whilst travelling in the 1800′s as wristwatches were not invented until the 20th Century. They are easily identifiable as they have a distinctive style and shape.

In the 1800′s people travelled around in carriages and as clocks technically evolved it became possible to build a medium sized one which people could carry around, hence the name carriage clock. Before that clocks were very large and were basically either grandfather or large wall clocks such as Town Hall or Railway Station time-pieces.

The carriage clock of today is smaller and more compact but in the 1800′s they were still quite large by today standards. They were rectangle in shape and built to withstand the rugged travel in a carriage on uneven roads when horse drawn carriages were the only means of transport. The carriage clock casements were solid to protect the mechanism.

Carriage clocks have a standard shape which makes them instantly recognizable. The case is usually made from metal or polished brass. The face often has a glass frontage with the background of the face being made from porcelain. Modern clocks tend not to have the porcelain face unless you purchase an expensive one, and then it would probably be decorated with an intricate design. The more decoration on the face usually signifies the superior quality of the timepiece.

Another Identifiable part of a horse-drawn clock is the handle which made it much easier to carry around from a carriage to a place of rest. As the carriage clock became more advanced it would have incorporated a bell or chime on the hour. Similar designs on other types of time-pieces were also afforded to carriage clocks such as scrolls on the corner of the frame and inlay gemstones. Modern carriage clocks tend to have mass produced quartz movements but back in the 1800′s movements would have been spring driven mechanical mechanisms.

Today clocks are based on the original clock design, but they tend not to have the intricate mechanical movement, ornate design or the decorative detail of their predecessors. This does have advantages as modern clocks are much more affordable. Carriage clocks are still very much in demand today and are often given as wedding presents, anniversaries or retirement gifts. You can buy a clock from as little as £10 today.

The lower price clocks tend to be replicas however you can still buy authentic carriage clocks. Authentic clocks have glass back doors which allow you to wind the clock up and see the mechanism and all the internal workings of the clock. Some high priced clocks will have gemstones set in the clock, with gold and silver incorporated in the clock.

As we began not to ride around in carriages, and cars and modern homes took over, you are now more likely to see these types of clocks on mantel pieces. The more complicated clocks will play tunes using a hammer which strikes a bell every hour. If you have one of these clocks with inset precious stones, enameled porcelain glass face and decorative scrolls, then it’s a collector’s item. As with any clock its worth having it serviced every year to keep it in full working order, and to maintain an accurate time. This will also help to maintain it’s on sale value.

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