In my opinion, WordPress is the easiest tool to use to build a small business website. WordPress is very easy to customize, is search engine friendly and is available for free. Learning WordPress can be time-consuming. But what most people do is have someone set-up a basic WordPress website, then they learn how to edit and add new content. This spares them the burden of learning how to actually develop a WordPress website; rather it enables the owner to take control of their website by focusing on learning the elements that they will need to run their business. Learning to use WordPress after a developer has set one up for you is pretty easy. There are a lot of videos on YouTube that teach WordPress and there is even a WordPress.tv website that you can reference. Of course, your developer can provide you with a brief introduction. If this still is not enough, there are several books available at your local book store or public library. As far as costs, a typical WordPress website set-up should run you anywhere from $500-$1,500 depending on how customized you want your website to be. Once the website is developed, you then can then take control and learn how to manage it yourself.

Extend WordPress With Plugins

What makes WordPress so easy to use is the amount of plugins they have available. Plugins are features that can be added to your website to increase its functionality. For example, if you want to do ecommerce and have a check-out page, there is a plugin for that. WordPress plugins take about 5 minutes each to install, activate and customize. Here is a list of WordPress plugins to install on your website, or, ask your developer to include them.

* The All-In-One-SEO pack – This plugin makes WordPress search engine friendly by reminding us to include the proper Title, Meta and Keyword data to each page we create for the website. Using this plugin routinely will increase your websites ranking.

* Contact Form 7 – This is the second plugin I install when I create a new website. This plugin makes it simple to create a form on a contact page that will allow people to email you a question or request a quote.

* Sexy Bookmarks Plug-In – This plugin makes it easy to install social bookmarking buttons on your websites pages and/or blog posts. These buttons can then be clicked by your website visitors and instantly shared on social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Digg; there are over 40 social media platforms that can be added, these are just a few and many of them are in multiple languages if you need to add that functionality.

* Google XML Sitemap – This plugin will make it easy to include a sitemap page on your website. A sitemap is basically a map that includes all of the pages and blog posts that are included on your website. This is helpful to have because when Google crawls your website looking for pages to add to its index it can easily find your sitemap and run through all of the pages that you have. This speeds up the process to get your website include in search iEngine results. You can also add your sitemap to the Google Webmaster Tools section and notify Google of its existence further increasing the speed with which your website will get noticed.

* Twitter Tools – This plugin will allow you to link your Twitter account with your WordPress website; making it easy to automatically share the content you create with your Twitter followers. By doing this all new content that is created, be it a new page or blog post will automatically get “tweeted” and shared with your followers.

* Easy Privacy Policy – This plugin allows you to install a basic, generic privacy policy on your website that can either be added to and modified to your liking or left alone in its basic form to explain some of the fundamental privacy policy laws that govern the web. Having this page will help your websites credibility with both your website visitors and search engine like Google.

There are literally hundreds of WordPress plugins that can be used to increase the functionality of your website. Think of them like apps for and iPhone or Droid; chances are no matter what you want to do with your website there is a plugin for it. To learn more about WordPress here is a link to a page on our website where you can download resources, find links and how-to guides to learning and maximizing WordPress as a do-it-yourself website development tool.

Yelp tends to focus on content curation; content is generated from local Yelpers who share reviews of the local businesses they frequent in their respected cities. These reviews are then curated, organized and published by the Yelp Community Manager (an official Yelp employee) on a page within Yelp. These published reviews can be incredibly powerful when it comes to shaping a local merchants’ online reputation. The good news is that you, as the business owner can actively participate in the process.

To begin, you’ll need to claim your listing on Yelp. This is pretty painless and should only take a few minutes. Make sure you complete your profile too; Yelp has strict guidelines when it comes to approving listings. They’re not there to intimidate anyone from signing-up. It’s more of a SPAM prevention thing than anything. Always use a real photo of the business too, that goes a long way.

Once the listing has been claimed you will have access to all of the conversations being had about your business. You can look at who has been reviewing your products and services and respond to any comments or feedback that has been published; good or bad. Be sure to remain objective and honest when communicating via Yelp. Your voice will be heard but only if it is honest and credible.

Finally, don’t go into “sales mode” either. Yelp is not a site for self-promotion; it’s a management tool, a lot like the drop boxes that most businesses keep for suggestions. Expect these comments are published on the web.

People paid it too, despite much evidence of it actually working and because there was no way to get “in the book” without someone else helping you. In fact, you had to work with a sales person to get your advertising campaigns running. A lot of small businesses think that it’s done that way today too and they’re wrong.

With a little Googling and some reading you can find tools and resources to educate yourself on how the entire digital marketing ecosystem works. Within minutes you can set-up and run your Google Adwords campaign, LinkedIn campaign or Facebook campaign. It’s not tough at all. But it’s new and most people are afraid they will screw something up. You know what? That’s fine too. Screwing up is part of the learning process and you need to learn to save yourself any headaches later.

Think of it this way, the money and time you’d spend dealing with a sales guy, customer service rep or agency could be spent learning how to do a lot of this stuff on your own. Even if you decide not to manage it all yourself, being able to call someone’s bluff when they recommend something completely out-of-scope will pay dividends.

Without a strong brand, your marketing efforts will be less effective, especially in the long term.

Admittedly, in an era where there are dozens of quick-hit marketing tactics to apply, this can be difficult. Trendy plays like Groupon, Foursquare, Yelp, Facebook and Twitter all make it easy to jump from marketing tactic to marketing tactic, searching for a winner. But the truth is, even though many modern communication channels provide excellent marketing platforms, without a strong brand, you’re not going to accomplish much.

For the purpose of this specific post, let’s focus on digital branding, especially since almost 85% of local consumers use the web to find local products and services. Generally, when people search locally for products and services they search generically. Keywords like Dentist, Landscaper, and Catering Service are what get searched for. What they get back is a myriad of results to select from.  From the results, they select the most familiar. How do you become the most familiar and consequently the chosen? You guessed it, by building a brand.

However, this takes time and patience. The good news is that in a digital world, we can make headway much faster than in past decades.  So where do you start?

The first step is develop your identity guide. Because every time someone receives a communication from your company an impression is made, you need to have a consistent identity. Establishing an identity guide will help ensure that all initial and follow-up communication to clients and potential customers is uniform.

By making certain those impressions have a consistent look or image, you’ll reinforce that your business is a professional, client-focused organization. A consistent look helps people understand who you are and what you stand for. Many of the world’s most admired brands are instantly recognized by the consistent symbols and messages they repeat in creative ways.

The key to a consistent, clean and positive graphic identity is establishing and following guidelines. Adhering to this guide will yield a clear perception of your business and will strengthen the long-term visual impact of all of your communications.

Let’s briefly look at the 4 fundamental components that should be included in your brand identity guideline:

Logo – Your logo should be modern and relevant. Most of all, it should be professionally designed. The creative expression should be relevant to your industry and including a tagline will also help define your value in a way that can be repeated. If it’s been more than 10 years since your last logo design or if your existing logo was developed by a non-professional, consider a logo redesign. There are dozens of website that can be leveraged to design a logo quickly. Logobids.com is one of my personal favorites; there you can post what you’re looking for and then freelancers will submit designs based on your desires. Most logos are $200 and are completed in 2-3 days.

Design system – Primarily this refers to the color palette. The color palette will go a long way in shaping your identity. The palette is made up of both primary and secondary colors. Primary colors will be used as the defining emphasis with the secondary colors being used most for highlighting related ideas, products or services. Color also helps create an emotional connection with your target audience. Blues tend to generate feelings of calm and trust while red denotes authority. So put some thought into your audience and consider how they will respond to the colors you use.

Typography – Your typography is the style in which you present text. Typically, most brands will use one typeface. The consistent use of the typeface contributes to a cohesive look and reinforces your brand. Much like the colors you choose, typography will go a long way in generating emotion from a reader. It should also be easy to read for your entire audience so again, consider who your customer is and what your true goal should be in selecting a typographic style.

Photography – Photography will play an important role in communicating your brand. The style used will be key to the impact a photograph has on its audience. A few fundamentals to consider regarding photography include use of bright lighting, approachable people and also make sure to be personable, confident, candid, working, engaging and friendly.

So there you have it, a down and dirty guide to transitioning a marketing campaign to a branding strategy. Don’t get me wrong, these are all much harder than they sound to complete. A lot of careful thought should be put in. The reality is though that if you begin to think about branding instead of marketing you’ll make smarter choices that will incrementally add up to strong brand. Strong brands remain relevant, regardless of marketing trends. And just because you’re a small business, you’re not exempt to thinking big brand – unless you want to waste big dollars on lots of small and futile trends.

But then everything changed. It was gradual too, so it snuck-up on people and caught them off-guard. The Internet started to gain traction and small business marketing budgets starting to diversify and allocate a portion for online advertising opportunities. They still spent a good deal with “the book”, mostly because the web was still a nascent marketing channel and the opportunities were limited. So YP sales people kept taking orders and continued to make money; granted a little less but still a good income. So, although everyone knew the web was gaining a little, they remained calm. Directories rolled out a few new features to help YP ads stand out. They released a website to increase advertising opportunities and tried to evolve. They just did it so slowly.

Eventually, small business owners started getting calls from SEO companies and PPC experts. They learned about new technology and advertising platforms. They learned how to optimize a website. Long story short, they learned new techniques for marketing online and started to invest more into it. Unfortunately, many of these so called SEO and PPC experts were simply wannabe entrepreneurs that wanted to capitalize on the opportunity. They all had a great pitch but very few of them could back it up. So they took the SMB’s money and did their best. Sometimes with less than spectacular results.

Despite all of the noise and fakes that were popping up there were some legit companies that knew what they were doing. Many of them were local agencies that had morphed into digital marketing firms, leveraging real advertising and brand capabilities to deliver digital marketing solutions. This was a great era for the local small business because they had access to a real agency and the talent and big picture thinking that comes with that; and since most agencies were just getting their own feet with digital, they were pricing themselves in an affordable way and giving the SMB a great value for the money spent. But again things transitioned and bigger brands came knocking. The traditional clients that the agencies worked with starting needing more and more digital work done. The demand made it difficult for agencies to manage both small and large projects and a decision was made to focus on the big billers. So a lot of agencies abandoned main street and went back to focusing on larger clients and projects.

The next era of evolution was the era where smaller agencies start popping everywhere. Entrepreneurs who worked at the large agencies recognized an opportunity to start a boutique agency that would serve the SMB market. They priced themselves a little lower, applied the same agency thinking and process and started to get to work. This was also the era when web services went big-box and companies like GoDaddy, Web.com and SitePoint started to grow. They got into the web design business, SEO game and provided marketing solutions of all kinds to small business owners. These options continued to grow and grow. Soon, we had too many and that is kind of where we are today. With all of the choices, a lot of small business owners feel paralyzed.

I completely understand too. It seems like everyone wants the SMB dollar but few are providing any real value. You’ve got your freelancers, boutique agencies, big-box web companies, YP sales rep and a bunch of local experts that all claim to increase your bottom line. But who do you trust? I can’t say I have the answer either. I’ve seen situations where a big-box is the right choice; then I’ve seen situations where the freelancer works great. For some, working with a smaller, boutique agency is the way to go. At the end of the day though I still think it comes down to a gut-check.

Because the tactics and techniques that all of these companies will use to market an SMB are fairly universal, we can assume that they won’t change much. What will change is the approach to getting them done. Most companies will provide all the essential tactics to get a campaign going, linkbuilding, web design, seo, social etc…all fairly ubiquitous in terms of use. But the way they go about servicing and reporting results is where the rubber meets the road.

Service is the differentiator in a digital world. It’s also where a lot of big-box companies drop the ball. Unfortunately, freelancers seem to struggle with this too. In my experience it is the boutique local agency that does the best job. The team of 5-10 smart minds that left the big corporate marketing world to start a small business for themselves. These are the people that know what you are going through as an SMB. These are the people with real skin in the game. They have a reputation to maintain and a business to grow and that can’t happen without them growing yours. So, my advice is to steer clear of the freelancers, big-box service companies and inflated agencies. Find a local firm that you can meet in person and get to know.

Services we provide:

Services we provided:

Thanks to a well designed website the owners are experiencing sales results that are far better than they initially planned. This additional budget has been used to create a series of videos that we are compressing, converting and publishing to the Force website as well as through various social media channels like YouTube.