Help Your Customers Find You Online

Web site builders and e-commerce services are much more small business-friendly than they used to be. They are readily available, easy and affordable.

One that I use extensively is WordPress, but there are MANY more out there. WordPress was originally started as a blogging platform. They've made it easy to add pages and features to structure your content like a traditional Web site, but the with ease of a blog platform. It's extremely effective as a small business Web site. You have the ability to add, modify and delete pages and content without coding, which is cost-effective and keeps your site's content fresh.

I know for those of you that read regularly, I'm going to sound like a broken record. But the following things bear repeating because they are important and help make your site search engine friendly.

1. Think like your customer.
   - What terms ("keywords") do they use to find you?
   - What are the most common phrases? 
2. Your most important keywords need to be found on your home page - nor more than 2-3. 
3. Use your secondary keywords to link to internal pages, one keyword per page. An internal page should focus on ONLY ONE KEYWORD. If you use too many, you'll only dilute the impact. This confuses the search engines - remember they are trying to figure out what your page is about. Use a secondary keyword on both your home page link and on the internal page.
4. Use your local area name in your keywords - add your city, region, suburban area, etc. to your keywords. Use what's familiar for your customers. You don't need to show in a search result for New York if your business is in New Prague! Examples: antiques new prague, auto repair new prague, czech country bike trails
5. When you add new content to your site, link to it from other places you are on the Web - your Facebook page, LinkedIn profile, Twitter, local listing Web sites, etc. The idea is to increase your "Web presence" or Web footprint.
6. List or claim your local business listing in the major search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Bing. Local listings are dominant in the search results now. These results are also used in mobile phone applications.

Above all, remember that expanding your Web presence (footprint) is a continuing effort. Don't get lost deep in the search results somewhere by continuing the old mindset of "set it and forget it".  Work smarter, not harder.

Ciao for now, Paula

Death of the Magnetic Stripe Credit Card?

Did you know the magnetic stripe technology was developed back in the 60's? That's 50 years ago! My, how times have changed.

In a recent article, Bob Sullivan at MSNBC says Europe has been slowly eliminating this technology since 2005; what's taking the U.S. so long? The price tag. It's mega dollars for card companies to adopt the newer "chip and PIN" technology. The chip and PIN technology embeds a microchip into the card and is more secure and thus less vulnerable to fraud attempts.

In an attempt to eliminate all magnetic strip cards in the wake of the 2009 breach at Heartland Payment Systems (where millions of credit card numbers were stolen), the European banks are considering the option to refuse to accept magnetic stripe cards for payment transactions. U.S. travelers to Europe may find difficulty in the future if they do not possess the new chip and PIN cards. Some European vending machines and train ticket kiosks already require these "smartcards".

With our fraud rates on a rapid rise, predictions are that our magnetic stripe cards will be a thing of the past. Start planning now.

Read Bob's full article here: The Death of Magnetic Stripe Card

Ciao for now, Paula

Card Readers for Smartphones: A Follow-Up

Hi everyone -

My hubby forwarded this recently published article to me from the Pioneer Press because he knew I was testing the new Square device.

I thought it had more good information on how other businesses and twenty-somethings are using this new device to take credit card payments on their mobile phones.

I am totally fascinated by the possibilities this can open up for local businesses!

Click here to read the full article (short read): Bringing credit card apps to the masses

Bringing small local business EASY cutting-edge technology,
Paula

P.S. Do you find the information I share valuable? Please share this page with a friend. See below for one-click ways to do this, or simply cut and paste the Web address into an email. Thanks!

TweetDeck: Manage Your Social Web Presence

TweetDeck is a great tool to manage your social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) all in one place. This service allows you to set up your account (it's free!) so each account's activity shows in your dashboard. It's a great way to stay on top of your social presence across all platforms and allows you the ease to post to multiple accounts at once. There is even a scheduling option so you can push out messages at a later date.You can download a desktop version (this is what I use) or they also have apps for iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, and Android.

My creativity comes in bursts at times. The scheduling tool allows me to put several thoughts together at once, but to schedule them to 'drip' out to my customers in a more digestable way. You could also use this tool for scheduling updates while you're on vacation. You can do a week all at once and schedule it to post daily. What a great organizational tool!

Ideas for social media updates
Scheduling updates is a great way to get in the habit of creating content regularly. You know more about your business than anyone else. Here's some quick idea-generating thoughts for you to develop into content for your customers/visitors.

• Share some of your knowledge. It might be familiar and seemingly unimportant to you, but it could be just what they want to know.
• Think of things you find valuable and see if you can share this with them in a creative way that helps them 'do life' better.
• Life is busy. Can you make it easier?
• What can you do to deliver more than is expected? 
• Don't be afraid to share personal tidbits about yourself. After all, business is really about relationships. We buy from people not businesses.

Did you notice I never gave you any ideas about promoting sales or special offers? While this can be a valuable space to share your next sale or coupon, these social areas are more about building relationships instead of selling.

Think about this - if you always have a sale or special offer, you condition your customers to NEVER buy anything at retail price! Essentially, you dilute your retail price and people feel no sense of urgency to buy something until it goes on sale or until they can get it cheaper at a later date. Therefore, the appeal of a "sale" or "coupon" has little meaning if it's come to be expected.

How are you using social media? Have you done something with success you can share? Please tell me by leaving a comment below...it may just spark a good idea for someone else!

Keeping it real for local small businesses,
Paula

Card Readers That Plug Into Smartphones

Remember my last post where I told you that the "e" in eCommerce stands for "everywhere"?! Believe it baby.

I saw this a couple of weeks ago on one of the morning shows. Small merchants can use their smartphones to take credit cards when they are selling away from their business.

For local businesses, think Farmers' Market, trade shows, conferences, business expos, etc. If you have your smartphone and this card reader, the possibilities for sales are limitless. Cool! eCommerce everywhere! I love it!!

Think small business and shop local... :P
Ciao, Paula

Read the full article for more details at BusinessWeek.com:
The iPhone as a Cash Register

UPDATE to the post above: Here are a couple of links to some additional information on the providers of these card readers.
Intuit's GoPayment
If you use Inuit's Quickbooks, these mobile payments can tie directly back to your accounting. Watch this video for specifics: Andrew Freed on Intuit's GoPayment
Square's Card Reader
Verifone's Hand-Held Readers