Photo by Pedro Ribeiro Simões (Flickr Creative Commons)

Sometimes the easiest things in life to ignore are the small things. The least popular books on money are the books that preach being frugal and saving money and making safe investments. The diets that get the least attention are the ones that say eat sensibly and exercise regularly. We don’t want to hear these things. We want to hear about which stocks are going to be blowing up and how can we lose 45 pounds in 30 days. Small things are boring.

The kicker is being frugal and saving has produced more millionaires than the stock market. A boring diet and exercise plan makes more skinny people that the latest Hollywood fad. For every 10 people out looking for these awesome, mind blowing ways to improve their lives (and their businesses) there is one person out there just focusing on the small things and crushing it.

Now I am not saying don’t work hard, don’t go out and push for the big wins. I am saying the small and simple usually wins in the end. For example I can not tell you how many times I have decided I need to start working out again. So I put in the P90X dvd and guess what? After 3 days even my socks hurt and I put the dvd away for another year. It’s the same with your business.

What if instead of making these huge plans you said, “I am going to work on promoting my site for 15 minutes a day.” What are some ways you can get started?

Start a blog – Write one blog post a week about your business or your products. At first it might take you 30 minutes to an hour to write one (don’t worry you have 105 minutes per week). After a while you can write a 350-450 word blog post in 15-20 minutes. This is one of the best ways to increase traffic to your site.

Interact with your customers online – Find out where your customers are at online and start up a conversation. Want to find customers on twitter? Here is a little tip. In the search box on the top of twitter you can search for phrases. For example if I sell shoes I could search for “new shoes.” The only problem is that gets me everyone on twitter that has the phrase “new shoes” in a recent tweet. Twitter has ways to narrow that down geographically. If you search for this – new shoes near:”tucson” within:15mi – you will get all of the people that have recently tweeted about new shoes in the Tucson area. So maybe you can find someone debating on whether to buy new shoes or not and reach out to them with a coupon. People are out there talking about you and/or your product, join the conversation.

There are a lot of other things you can do to promote your site. If you would like to find out more ways please email or call us and we can get you started on the right track (free of charge of course).  We would love to talk about how you can grow your business. Good luck and remember a small action today is worth more than a plan to do huge action someday.

There are a lot of sites out there on the internet.  A good chunk of them aren’t very good.  The reason is there wasn’t a lot of thought put into how your visitor views your site.  Here are a few quick and easy ways to scare away your visitors.

1. It’s not IMMEDIATELY clear what you do.

There is a rule called the “3 Second Rule”. People on the Internet are looking for something and if they aren’t convinced in 3 seconds OR LESS that your site will give them what they are looking for they go looking somewhere else.

2 You have advertisements to other sites on your site.

Why would you direct visitors to other sites? What you are telling them is “I obviously don’t have what you need so go see these guys.” That may not be what you are trying to say but in essence what you are saying is that you really don’t want them on your site.

3 You hide the contact information.

Nothing says “we are going to screw you” like hiding your contact info. The main reason internet doesn’t work is that normally human beings, deep down, want to do business with other human beings. Internet creates a huge space where TONS of people are out of their comfort zone. When you make it clear that your aren’t afraid of them contacting you, you are telling them it’s OK…they are really dealing with human beings in a more convenient way.

4 You have what you think is a cool flash intro and even worse some music.

OK not only does flash totally break the “3 Second Rule” (see reason number 1…if you can’t remember WRITE IT DOWN!) And the music? Everyone hates music on web sites…even you do when you are on other sites. I’d even bet that when you go to your own site with music you mute that damn music straight away. The Golden Rule man.

5 You have grammar and spelling errors.

Yeah I know…it’s not your fault…you’re English teacher just didn’t get the job done. It’s not your customers’ fault either.  They shouldn’t have to suffer.  What your bad grammar and spelling says is that you are NOT a serious company. Serious companies have seriously good grammar and spelling.

6 You have way TOO MUCH information on your homepage.

Have you ever been to a site with a ton of content on the first page? And have you ever been to the opposite (I mean a good site)? This is like telling your life story on the first date (no really that’s a bad idea).  All that information confuses the customers and keeps them from really seeing what you offer (product or service).  Here’s the thing…people don’t want to read a all that crap on your homepage…clean it up and make it clear how they can give you their money.

As of today there are almost 57 million WordPress sites on the internet.  In fact 22% of all new websites built in the US are built using WordPress.  There is a great reason that so many sites are being built using WordPress – WordPress is awesome.

Most people that have heard of WordPress before think of it as a blog software.  Wordpress did start as a blogging platform but that has changed.  It still is great for blogging but the developers at WordPress have moved it’s focus to make it better as a publishing platform.  We call this a content management system.  This means that non computer people have an easy way to manage their own site.  Someone with basic computer knowledge can manage their site in ways that were never before possible.  Our solution is a static and professional looking website for your clients and a user friendly backend for you.

WordPress doesn’t come out of the box ready to go as a content management system.  It takes some knowledge of PHP and creative thinking to provide customized solutions for users.  This is what we love doing.  Our passion is to make WordPress bend and flex to be customized for our different users.  Our intuitive WordPress based backend is so easy to use that someone with very basic computer knowledge can maintain even a complex website.

There really are no limits to what you can do with a WordPress website.  Huge sites have been built using WordPress.  Check out some of our work and see how a static looking website can be built with this “publishing platform.”

Every business has a market and every market has certain characteristics such as size and scope and other demographic information. No business (well except Coca Cola) can say their market is absolutely everyone, everywhere. The problem is when businesses base their strategies on what I like to call “Nothing to Everyone” premise. When you offer something that is for everyone you have a 99.9999% chance of being nothing to everyone and a .00001% chance of being the next Coca Cola. The problem is that’s a dice roll I wouldn’t make.

Is there another way?

Hell yes there is another way. The other way is figuring out what segment of what market really thinks you are the awesome. Basically you find what your market is and try to add huge value to them. This is what successful companies do and this is what you need to do to become successful especially on the internet. Think about the following. Ensure is like a old folks vitamin drink. Seriously only people above 70 drink it. How do you think their website should look? Right..like an old folks home or something. On the other hand Monster energy drinks website should be a lot different.

If you want to have a great website that people will come to, find value in and use it to funnel business to you, it is 100% necessary to design it in a way that your potential customer base feels comfortable with. Here are some tips to do just that:

1. First and foremost you have to know who these people are and if you don’t fit into your customers’ profile get together with some customers and ask them what they would like on a website.

2. At every stage of web design take a step back and ask yourself “Can I see my customers using this?” If you can’t see it don’t do it. Here you have to be really objective. It’s like every mom thinks their kids are cute and sometimes you’re like sorry lady that kid is ugly. Don’t get those mom goggles on. You make think its great but the site isn’t for you. If your customers won’t love it don’t do it.

3. Ask your customers. Once you have something set up get your customers to give you feedback. People love giving advice and they can really help you create value for them.

If you do this you will have an awesome website that serves its purpose: bringing you more business.

We looked through over 400 Tucson business Facebook pages and found what we think are the Top Ten Tucson Facebook Pages.  This round we just judged the cover photo and profile picture.  Here are the ten companies starting with number 10 that we think put in the extra time to create something that represents their business in great way.

10. Just Between Friends Tucson

Who ever said that your cover photo had to be just a picture?  JBF does a great job of adding a message and putting the next sale in there.

9. Tucson La Gran Via 3,876 likes

Not only do they have a great picture of the restaurant but they added a message paying attention to where the profile pic is.

8. The Parish 805 likes

All restaurants need to pay attention, this is excellent food photography.  It makes me hungry.

7. Maya’s Palace 240 Likes

This one was a surprise to us.  We found it by accident but it’s a great example that you don’t need to be a huge business to do a great job with your Facebook page.

6. Canyon Ranch 14,340 likes

The profile picture of Canyon Ranch really ties everything together.  The cover photo is also really well thought out.

5. Visit Tucson 20,543 likes

We are definitely seeing a theme of great photography.  Don’t just take a picture of the outside of your building, take a picture of what your business represents.

4. Planet Smoothie 566 likes

This is the type of Facebook page you expect from a big company.  Show off your products, make it look like a poster.

3. Big Juan’s Tacos and Burritos 1,497 likes

Big Juan does a few things really well…tacos, burritos, and Facebook.

2. Cornerstone Church of Tucson 316 likes

Two words…Great Typography.  I love the challenge and the color scheme (even though it’s a bit Sun Devilish).

1.  Tucson Likes 1,294 likes

Nice clean design and a great looking logo makes this a fantastic looking Facebook page.  I also like how they give some information about what they do in the cover photo.

That is our top ten.  Who do you think we missed?

If your Facebook page needs an update contact us.  Our affordable design service can help your business stand out from the crowd.