When it comes to Main Street, finding a strip mall without two or three “For Rent” signs along it, is a rare occasion lately.   Sure, the sour economy has taken its toll on everyone from the local mom and pop shop to the Fortune 500s.  We know that unregulated big business brought down Wall Street.  But what broke the backbone of the US small business market? Why are small businesses everywhere continuing to fail?

I started to think about this after passing my town’s local pizza joint that recently became one of the many, “here today gone tomorrows” of our time.  Nonni’s had just revamped itself in hopes of generating more business - new flat screen TVs, a decorative paint job that put you right in the middle of southern Italy while indulging in your pie, and some fancy new furniture.  Unfortunately, the owner invested too much of his time and money in the wrong place.

Unless your over the age of 65 or just plain behind, you don’t use paper publications like the Yellow Pages to find what your looking for today.  Instead, we Google, Yahoo and Bing.  We use search engines that give us exactly what we are looking for (and more) in just seconds.  The problem, for many small businesses lining the sidewalks of Main Street, is that their products and services are not being captured by these search engines.  It’s surprising to see how businesses, from general stores to hair salons, don’t have websites (their most important store front and tool for moving up on the search engine ranks).

I understand they are called “small businesses” for a reason.  Localized, smaller centers of commerce and capitalism - plain and simple.  But today, thanks to technology and globalization, there’s really no such thing as being localized, especially if you want people to know you exist.  Bottom line, the small businesses who have remained too small (i.e., no websites or other forms of online advertising) well their time to get up to speed with the rest of the world has come.  Whether your a one man accounting firm or a 30 person nail salon - you need to advertise your services on the web.  The old pen and paper way of managing and publicizing your trade is out.

Let’s revisit poor Nonni’s to try and zone in on how this establishment could have potentially survived the technology tsunami and the recession.

1. If Nonni’s would have invested the $1,000 to $2,000 that originally went to flat screen TVs on a new website, they would have been able to establish a web presence, making it easier for customers to search for their services, order online and look up the shop’s phone number, address, menu, etc.

2. Having a website Nonni’s could have also hired or performed SEO on their website to help increase traffic to their site and essentially generate more business.

3. After getting more business/ revenue from their website, Nonni’s then could have gauged whether or not to invest in TVs and a new paint job based on whether their clients were coming in for pizza or ordering out.

4. After expanding and hiring a larger staff to deal with increased business, Nonni’s could have had a CRM or Customer Relationship Management designed to help more efficiently run their business.  CRM systems could be used to keep better track of inventory, staffing and employment needs like hours and payroll, as well as manage a client and customer list of emails and other contact info to email blast their customers about promotions, new events at the store, etc.

Lesson of the day: small businesses need to focus on their digital store front in order to keep their actual store front up and running in today’s day, age and economic times.

What is pay per click? When you go to google and type in “web design westchester” you see the top sites come up in the white. The two sites on the top and the website ads on the right is what pay per click is. Those people actually pay to get their website in those areas.

Is pay per click worth it? Most of the time you lose money before you actually make money. The reason is because you have to experiment which keywords, ad copy, and bid to place that will give you the most customers. When I say customers I mean people who are going to purchase your products or services, not prospects (people who are just looking). I normally tell people to try it out and keep track of how many people are turning into clients. You can run daily, weekly, or monthly analysis using Google Analytics.

What keywords do I use? When you are searching for the right key words to use for pay per click it is important not to go straight to the “good deal”. Why? Because a lot of the times those keywords are cheap because they don’t hold as much value as other more expensive keywords. A lot of times I look at competition and what they are putting on their ads (it’s not cheating!)

Is pay per click important? I think the people who use pay per click for the easy key words, such as web design Westchester, is wasting their money and time. It takes a little bit of work to get to the front page, however it can be done. If you cannot do it yourself spend the few hundreds of dollars and have a professional do it (like me). I think it’s worth it to spend the money on an SEO specialist to get you to the top, but then again there are negatives. It is up in the air if it will save you money, however think about this how often do you read or even bother to look at those ads? I know my answer is that I never do! Sometimes I’ll click on my competitor’s ads just to click it and make them spend the dollar (I know it’s cruel)! But anyway that’s about all the interaction I have with that portion of Google. Besides you are paying anywhere from 20 cents to 5 dollars (depends on the keyword and how many people want it) to get seen! Well let’s just do an average of 2 dollars… Are you telling me that you are going to spend 200 dollars for every 100 people that come to your website? I guess it really depends how many of those people turn into customers. But the point is SEO really isn’t that difficult once you get the hang of it, it’s just a lot of work because there are so many people trying to get to the front page along with you. However, if you can get to the front page I recommend that instead of PPC and that’s my final answer!

It feels like people from my generation are the last of a dying breed - those who still use or make use of print.  Those of us who can still find “ink on our fingers,” so to speak. From news and advertising to everyday communication and commerce, it’s no secret that we have become a digitalized world of bloggers, e-vendors, and online media socialites.  For those of us that started out that way and who were born into the World Wide Web, well, the issue of what to do with all that paper that adds up over the years doesn’t even come about. So what about those people, whose livelihoods relied upon and were surrounded by the world of print?  How are they fairing in a world that runs along the digital highway and waits for no one?

The sad but true reality of the state of the print world is dismal. We’ve all read about the folding of major newspapers, magazines, and the demise of various other facets of the print world that have existed for almost a century. While many companies and technical savvy individuals have been able to keep up with the times and adopt the ways of the digital world or make that transition to the web, a small, yet important demographic still lags behind – that of the small business.

Small businesses, particularly successful, small businesses that have been around for years seem to have the most trouble with transitioning from print or pen and paper to the web.

Having worked with a number of clients that are small businesses looking to make this important transition, the following are just a few suggestions on how to properly make the leap from print to the web:

1. Setup a blog, a website or both. Whether you’re selling shoes are publicizing your latest book – creating a blog or website is key. For blogs, we suggest using Word Press. It’s much more flexible, you won’t have to advertise (like you have to advertise with blogger). With Word Press, you also have the option of setting up a content management system, which allows you to create multiple pages and an actual website with other pages. Making a website for your company allows for an endless amount of possibilities. You can start with a simple, 5 page web  site just to get your name out there, what you do and communicate with your target market faster and easier. Eventually, you can put more work into your site’s SEO and SEM for web advertising or setup e-commerce to start selling your products or services via the web.
2. Plan your Design. If you plan to use current publications or text there are a couple of things to consider when it comes to typography and images. When it comes to designing your website or blog, these two aspects of your web publication are the most important things to be aware of. The way something looks on paper will appear different on the computer screen. For this reason, you should familiarize yourself with how font type and size differentiate from print to digital. Also take into consideration various font colors and how they will appear best on whichever background you are looking to use on the web. Print best practices normally use a 10 or 11 point font. This size font is not legible on the web and should be increased to either 12 or 14 when using text on the web. Also consider using a sans-serif font as opposed to serif fonts – they are known to have a much higher readability level for most people viewing the text on a screen.It is also important to consider color and contrast of the text and its background when publishing on the web. For example – it is important to be careful to steer away from grey or light colored fonts that will be hard to read on a white background.Common problems with design transitions from print to web also include image size and dimension after compression. Things to consider are your images dpi (dots per inch), the document/image format – we recommend using either a JPEG or PNG.
3. Educate yourself on the best ways to market and advertise your website or blog. Things to consider are SEO, email marketing, RSS feeds or visitor/user subscriptions to any publications you might be offering the public.

The above are just a few of the significant things you should take into consideration when transitioning from print to web. While there is a great deal of information and things to watch out for during this process it has proven to be one that is well worth it. The best suggestion we can offer those of you looking to take the leap is to make use of the internet and all of the other information out there regarding this process.