If you’re debating whether your small business needs an online presence, let me explain to you the gains. Creating a website gives you a way to connect with your customers and grab prospects as they search online.
Let me give you an example to highlight the benefits and a strategy to build your online presence…
Imagine I owned a restaurant and wanted to start attracting the attention of people that search online. A lot of people search for places online, and read reviews to figure out where to go.
My first step would be to create a website. We’d highlight our logo, directions to the restaurant, and even print our menu. I’d make sure we have some pictures and explain our dress code, so people know what to expect. We want to offer as much information as possible, while enticing the reader to come check out our restaurant.
The problem with only having a single page that simply displays information is that it’s just a static page. Google won’t give my website good rankings because the content isn’t being updates, and Google assumed the information is just old. Also, with only one page, I’d only rank for people explicitly searching for the name of my restaurant, but I want to get everyone searching for a great middle eastern place.
To counteract this, I’ll setup a blog. I’ll keep the static page with information, people still need that, but now I have a place to write updates and keep people involved.
The hardest part of creating a blog is figuring out what to write about. As a restaurant owned I’d use the blog to write about new dishes, maybe have our cook post recipes, or even write about celebrities that visited or successful parties we threw.
Once I’ve gotten the blog going and have some visitors through search engine traffic, we’ll begin to spread out. It’s time we join some social networking sites.
A recent study by Cone Inc., found that 60 percent of Americans interact with companies on a social media site. It also found that 93 percent of Americans believe a company should have a presence in social media. A huge market is available to us and our restaurant is going to take advantage of it.
Our first step would be to target specific demographics and their corresponding network. Since I’m hoping to get anyone to come to my restaurant, I decide to setup a profile on both Facebook and Myspace. Generally, Facebook caters to college students and recent graduates while Myspace has a larger variety of users.
Once the profile is setup the best thing to do is add links on your blog to them. Add an image or button with text that reads “Facebook Me” or “Find us on Myspace”. We’ll even go so far as to instructing our restaurant staff to give our business card, with our online information, to each customer.
The reason why we push our social network page is because it creates repeat customers. If we’re connected on Facebook or Myspace they don’t have to come to our blog to see upcoming events, instead they’ll receive messages via Facebook or Myspace. No longer do you have to get your customers to come to your site, instead you go to them.
Now that we’ve connected with our customers, and our restaurant is starting to see a following, we’ll begin writing reviews about the place. By this time someone should already have added the restaurant into the Google Maps database. If not, I’d just add it myself, it’s simply tagging our address with a place mark and name.
When I finish setting up the place mark, I’d start writing my first review. I’ll be writing the first review because usually, most people never want to be first. By writing the first review, we break the barrier, and invite others to write reviews also.
If the reviews after ours are good, we’ll see people visit our restaurant over others, and if they’re bad we know what to change. We won’t let bad reviews stay unanswered, after fixing the problems we’ll respond to the reviewer and let people know we’ve addressed the issue.
Google is not the only one that offers reviews, and we’ll search for other sites that offer restaurant reviews. When we have a list of the ones we want to target, we’ll just continue the same strategy that we used on Google Maps.
By the time we’ve completed this, the restaurant should have a good Google footprint and a community of fans both offline and online. Because of the reviews and social networking sites, I’d receive real-time feedback and be able to fix problems. Finally, our blog would grab attention of people searching for middle eastern food, and may even become a leader in the field.
This strategy isn’t only for restaurants, it can be applied to most small businesses too. Want a personalized strategy? Feel free to contact me, and we’ll see what we can do.
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