Small business owners often struggle to find cost-effective ways to market their business.    Old school tactics like direct mail and email campaigns, billboards, and print advertising are expensive, ineffective, and outdated for one simple reason:  they require business owners to spend money pushing their product or service on people who simply aren’t in the market for it.

The Internet is a small business owner’s dream come true because it allows you to market your products and services exclusively to people who are looking for them!  What’s more, if you know what you’re doing, you can effectively market your business for a fraction of the price of traditional methods.

Small Business Online Marketing Traps

Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to lose a lot of money on internet marketing if you don’t know what you’re doing.  In particular, hiring a bad web designer can be catastrophic.  Additionally, Google makes it very easy to drop hundreds or thousands of dollars on Adwords ads that don’t convert to business for you.

Here’s what you need to know in order to compete in today’s online marketplace:

Choose your web designer carefully

The ability to market yourself online cost-effectively starts with a good web site.  A good web site is one that not only looks professional, but also shows up in search engine results. After all, if Google can’t find you, nobody else can either.

Therefore, it’s  important to hire a web designer who is familiar with the basics of designing a search engine friendly site.  Make sure your web designer:

• uses text-based navigation (not image-based or javascript navigation)
• uses a full css layout, not a table-based layout
• writes unique title tags for every page of your site
• uses search-engine friendly urls or permalinks, not long, dynamically-generated urls containing a lot of question marks and equal signs
• writes a unique description for every page
• includes a site map
• only uses one H1 heading on each page
• uses your keywords in your titles and headings

Hiring a designer who is not familiar with the basics of search engine optimization is a waste of money. You can easily weed out the really bad ones (without having to resort to a lot of technical jargon) by asking them if they use javascript-powered menus or table-based layouts.  If they say yes to either question, spend your money somewhere else.

Choose good keywords, and use them wisely

Before you hire a web designer or write a word of copy for your web site, it’s important to put some thought and research into your keywords.  Keywords are the words people type into search engines to find your site.  A good keyword will actually be a phrase, and not a single word.  For example, if you own a piano store in Dallas, a good keyword for you would be “Dallas piano store.”

Once you have a pretty good list going, go to the Google Keyword Tool and put in your keywords.  Here, you can find out how many people are searching for those keywords every month.  (This tool will also generate additional related keywords that you may not have thought of initially.)

Very high traffic keywords (in the tens of thousands) will be difficult to rank for–meaning that you can use these keywords in your site, but when someone types them into Google, your site is not likely to be one of the top search results. On the other hand, the lower the traffic estimate is, the more likely your site will be to show up at the top of the listing when someone types in that keyword.

The problem is, of course, that if no one is searching using your target keywords, it doesn’t matter how well you rank for them.  Your site will still get no traffic.  The trick is to find keywords that sit at a good balance between no search traffic and too much search traffic.

Once you find the right keywords, make sure you use them in your title tags and page headings.  Do not spam the search engines by using them too many times.  If you repeat your keywords too many times per page, Google will ban your site from its listings altogether. Always remember to write your web site content for people, not search engines.

Get high quality links pointing back to your web site

In the old days, you could manipulate your search engine ranking solely by creating a search-engine friendly site and using keywords wisely.   Google thought that gave web masters too many opportunities to game the system, which resulted in irrelevant results.  In an effort to provide good, relevant results, Google changed its search algorithm to take into account the number of other sites that link back to your site.  The more people link to your site, the more it will rise in search engine listings.  To start getting links back to your site:

• register with directories like yellowpages.com, business.com, bestoftheweb.com, etc.
• join local chambers of commerce and get them to link back to you.
• issue press releases via prweb.com and similar services.
• Create “linkbait,” which is a lot of unique content on your site that other people will naturally want to link to.

Creating Linkbait

Sites that naturally rank highly often have a lot of helpful content that people naturally want to link back to.  The more unique content you can write around your keywords, the better.  Never copy and paste articles from other sites, as Google dislikes duplicate content and often won’t index it.  (Also, copying and pasting pictures and text from other web sites is a violation of copyright which can get you sued.)

If you can write articles that will position yourself as an expert in your field, you will be more likely to attract incoming links.  This in turn will push your site to the top of Google’s search engine listings for various keywords, which will hopefully generate business for you.

If you are worried about the ongoing cost of constantly paying someone to update your site with new articles, consider investing in a content management system such as Joomla or Wordpress, which will allow you to write articles and post them yourself.

Be careful building Adwords or other pay-per-click campaigns

If you are having a hard time ranking naturally for your chosen keywords (or if your site is new and hasn’t been indexed yet), you can buy links to your site that show up on the first page of search engine results.  In Google, paid links show up on the right hand side of the screen, whereas organic search results show up on the left.  However, if you’re not careful, you can lose a lot of money fast.

A full-scale Adwords tutorial is beyond the scope of this article, but it’s important to know that choosing the most popular keywords for your Adwords campaign is often the wrong way to go.

For example, if you own a web site hosting company, you might think it  would be a good idea to buy the keyphrase “web site hosting.”  Then, every time someone types “web site hosting” into Google, your ad would show up.  This seems like a good idea until you realize that every time someone types in that keyprhase and clicks on your ad, it will cost you $8-12.  Add that to an estimated traffic volume of 147-184 clicks per day, and you have spent $1200-2100 per day on internet advertising.  If you only make a few dollars off every new web hosting account you sign up, you’ll quickly go out of business this way.

Instead, you want to find longer phrases that are more descriptive and cost less money.  Consider using regional modifiers, such as “Dallas web site hosting” or “Denver web site hosting.”  Other common modifier words include “cheap, affordable, buy,” etc.  Longer phrases are available for cents.  The down side is that long phrases don’t individually generate very much traffic.  The key is to come up with a lot of long search phrases that each generate a little traffic–hundreds of phrases, if possible.  When you group them all together behind one ad, the result is a lot of traffic for cents per click.

These tips should get you started on the road to effectively marketing your business online.  If you have additional questions, feel free to email me at jenn@zensamarketing.com.

If you have a logo idea but need help converting it to digital art for use on your web site and print materials, Zensa can help.  Simply send us your pencil sketches, and we’ll convert them to digital art for your use.

Deliverables include:

• High resolution Tiffs for print–various sizes
• JPG or GIF files for use on the web
• Original scalable vector Adobe Illustrator file
• Any original Photoshop artwork

Zensa offers this service for $95 per logo.  Simply email us your scanned drawing, or send the original drawing by mail.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Call us today at 214-208-1954 for more information.

So you want to design your own logo.  Maybe you want to start a small business and have requested some logo design quotes, only to discover that professional graphic designers want hundreds or thousands of dollars to design your logo for you.  Maybe you just want to nurture the creative genius within yourself.  Whatever the reason, there are some simple tips you can follow to make sure your design looks like a professional-looking brand and not an amateur, “did-it-myself” piece of junk.

Make sure your logo communicates the purpose of your business, but not too literally.

The number one mistake amateur logo designers make when creating their own brand identity is visually interpreting the purpose of their business too literally.  For example, if you own a piano store, writing the name of your piano store and sticking a piano icon next to it screams amateur.

BAD:

This is too literal to look professional.  What’s more, it’s just bad clipart, available to anyone, anywhere.   It’s not even a unique graphic, which means you have not created a unique brand identity.  What’s worse, the piano clip art features a picture of a grand piano that opens to the left, when all actual grand pianos open to the right.

GOOD:

Notice how this professionally-designed logo incorporates the shape of a grand piano lid without actually sticking a grand piano next to the name of the business.  This is not so literal, but it still communicates “piano,”  which brings is to our second point.

Try to incorporate your graphic into your text.

In the logo above, notice how the graphic of the piano lid is incorporated into the text of the company name.   Any logo design which does this effectively will look more professional than a logo consisting of text and a separate, standalone graphic.

For example, in the Zensa Marketing logo, notice how the lotus blossom is incorporated into the text below it.  The stem of the “k” also doubles as a flower stem:

Which brings us to the third point:

Avoid websites that auto-generate logos for you.

These web sites are a waste of time and energy!  You cannot create an effective brand identity off a logo a machine pieced together for you.  These kinds of logos never look professional, because they never integrate the graphic element into your text.  They can’t.

You might be thinking. . . “But how can I design a logo that follows this rule without knowing how to use expensive design software like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator?”  If you have a pencil and paper, sketch out some ideas until you find a concept you like.  When you decide on a final concept, take it to a graphic designer who will translate what you’ve drawn into digital art.  Most graphic designers can accomplish this task for you in less than an hour–much less time than it would take them to design a logo for you from scratch.  Hence, the price is significantly cheaper.  Zensa Marketing offers this service for $95.

Make sure you have designed a logo that will scale.

A professionally designed logo will always scale well, which means it will look just as good on a billboard as it will look on your business card.  Many amateur designers don’t take scalability into consideration and wind up designing a logo that is hard to read or interpret at small sizes.

Remember, your logo is the foundation for all your other marketing collateral.

Remember that the logo you design will be the foundation for all your other print collateral.  Your logo dictates which colors and typefaces will be appropriate to use in all your marketing collateral, such as your web site, business cards, letterhead, and brochures.  Therefore, when you design your logo, choose corporate colors you know you’d like to see on the web and in print.

These are the main points to remember.  Happy designing!

Many small businesses have had the misfortune of hiring a web designer (who may have been very expensive) only to discover that their new site looks great, but doesn’t show up in Google, Yahoo, or other search engines. They are stuck with a web site that potential customers can’t find, which is certainly a poor investment. So how can you avoid winding up with one of these duds?

Read the rest of this entry »

When I was new to Joomla, I spent days trying to figure out how to upload my local Joomla site onto my GoDaddy host server. When I called GoDaddy support, they told me they didn’t support Joomla, which left me on my own. I searched all over the internet and didn’t find the answers I was looking for, so I went out and spent about $70 on Joomla for Dummies and Joomla! Visual Quickstart Guide, hoping I could figure out how to accomplish this one simple task. Nada. There were no good, clear, concise, complete how-to guides for getting this done. So I decided I would write one.

Here’s how to do it:

PART ONE: INSTALL JOOMLAPACK AND BACK UP YOUR LOCAL SITE

1. Go to http://www.joomlapack.net/download/JoomlaPack-Components-download.html and download the latest version of JoomlaPack.
2. Install JoomlaPack to your localhost site in the same way you would install any other component. (Go to Extensions > Install/Uninstall, browse to your downloaded file, and click the button that says “Upload File and Install.”)
3. Go to Components > JoomlaPack > and click “Back Up Now.” Make sure you don’t navigate away from that screen until you see a message that says “Backup is Complete.
4. Go to Components > JoomlaPack > Administer Backup Files. Click the checkbox next to the backup you just made. Click Download and save the file in a convenient location. It will have a .jpa file extension on the end of it.

PART TWO: DOWNLOAD KICKSTART

1. Go to http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/jpack/frs/?action=FrsReleaseView&release_id=10315. There you will find a page with release information and a bunch of tabs labeled “Notes, Changes, Files,” etc. Click on the “Files” tab, and click on the link to download the Kickstart Zip file.
2. Unzip the Kickstart file and move the php script file to the same folder where you put your Joomla local site backup.

PART THREE: TAKE YOUR LOCAL JOOMLA SITE LIVE ON THE INTERNET

1. 1. Go to GoDaddy.com and log in.
2. On the left navigation bar under “My Products,” Click on “Hosting.”
3. Put a check in the box next to the domain you’re trying to set up, and click “Manage Account.” This should bring up the Hosting Control Center.
4. Click on the Databases bar.
5. Click on MySQL.
6. Click “Create Database.”
7. Write down the Host Name, the database name, and your username and password. (You have to click on the little pencil icon to the right of your database before you can see all the relevant information. You may have to wait awhile for GoDaddy to create the database before you can see the hostname. Be patient.)
8. FTP your .jpa backup file and kickstart.php to the root folder of your web host directory using whatever FTP client you prefer. (I prefer Dreamweaver, but I hear Filezilla is good and free.)
9. Open up a web browser and type in http://www.substitute-your-domain-here.com/kickstart.php.
10. At the bottom of the screen, under FTP options, input the username and password you used to FTP the .jpa and kickstart files to your site in step 8. Leave everything else alone.
11. Click “Start.” Wait patiently while JoomlaPack Kickstart populates your site. WHEN IT IS FINISHED, DO NOT CLOSE THE WINDOW. Follow the directions on your screen and open a new window to complete the installation.
12. In the new window, select your language and hit “Next.”
13. Hit “Next” again if your installation check looks okay (comes back with all green Yeses”).
14. Hit “Next” again to agree to the GNU General Public License.
15. On the “Database Configuration” screen under basic settings, do the following:

    a. Leave the Database type set to MySQL.

    b. Replace the Host Name with the one GoDaddy provided you with when you set up the database.

    c. Delete “root” and replace it with the username you chose when you set up the database.

    d. Replace the password with the password you created when you set up the database.

    e. Fill in the Database Name with the name of the database you created when you set up the database.

16. You will get a congratulations screen. Hit “Next.”
17. Enter the FTP information you used to FTP the .jpa and kickstart.php files to your site in step 8. Click “Next.”
18. Confirm your email and password information. Hit “Next” to reach another congratulations screen.
19. Go back to the JoomlaPack Kickstart window that warned you not to close it until you had finished restoring your site.
20. Click the “here” link where it says, “When you have finished restoring your site please click here to activate your .htaccess,” etc.
21. You see a screen that says: ALL DONE! Kickstart has finished.
22. CONGRATULATIONS! After all that, your site is finally live. Whew!