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by Ron Sturgeon

Last month I discussed how clients don’t typically understand the web, and webmasters don’t typically understand your business. So both parties don’t know what they don’t know (one of my favorite sayings), and the end result is a web site that disappoints the business owner and doesn’t produce sales. Most of the time it’s about lack of search engine optimization, in conjunction with the business issues not being a good fit with the web developer’s skills.

• The Right USP (Unique Selling Proposition) for your business – Why should someone buy from you? What makes you different? How well does your site communicate that message? What proof do you have for what you’re claiming? If your USP is better quality, be prepared to say how in ways that matter to your customer.
• Choosing a good domain name – Why a domain with a keyword in it is usually better than something cute.
  
• How to compete without Pay per Click campaigns – Put simply, you don’t need pay per click.
  
• How to drive the right visitors to your site. If you handle imports, you want visitors who are looking for the parts you sell; you don’t want to be overwhelmed by queries for domestic parts.
  
• How to build a site that will turn visitors into inquiries. Your site must be optimized and simple to use. Remember why they came. A lot of businesses have sites with home pages that are all about the business, pictures, warranties, etc. Make sure that your home page has a big red button in the center of the page that says “Find Parts Now”.
  
• How to use ethical techniques to improve search engine rankings. Don’t let others talk you into paying for rankings or doing things that will cause Google to ban your site.
  
• Best practices for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Review the items I can send you in my Best Practices for SEO with your developer. Just ask, I will email it to you.
  
• All about blogs and RSS feeds – How to get the most from your blog and what should be in your plan before you add a blog to your site.
  
• Page titles and meta descriptions – Don’t let anyone tell you these aren’t a big deal. You will need to have the web developer hire content writers who know SEO. Expect to pay $20-$50 per page. It’s very important. If your writers don’t know SEO, they don’t know how to write pages that users like and Google will rank well.
  
• Use of videos – Google owns YouTube, and you should produce some very simple videos and use them throughout the site. Create them in-house. Upload them yourself. Use that little camera you got for Christmas two years ago. Talk 30 seconds about dismantling and another 30 seconds about your guarantee. Write your script on poster board and rehearse it for, oh, about a minute. Get the picture?
  
• Use press releases to get back links – Do them yourself, or give them to your manager’s daughter who just graduated from college. The best service and the only one I recommend is 24/7 because you can put links in the release that point back to your site. Write about the new equipment you just put in service, or the latest service you are offering. Figure one per month for the first year, and add as many links as you can in the release while making it nice and readable. It’s about backlinks. If it’s a good topic and a well written release, send to the local paper, you will get some coverage occasionally. But remember this story is about web strategy.

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Remember, only you can make BUSINESS GREAT!

Ron Sturgeon is past owner of AAA Small Car World. In 1999, he sold his six Texas locations, with 140 employees, to Greenleaf. In 2001, he founded North Texas Insurance Auction, which he sold to Copart in 2002. In 2002, his book “Salvaging Millions” was published to help small business owners achieve significant success, and was recently reprinted. In June 2003, he joined the new ownership and management team of GreenLeaf. He also manages his real estate holdings and investments. You can learn more about him at WWW.autosalvageconsultant.com He can be reached at 5940 Eden, Haltom City, TX 76117, rons@rdsinvestments.com or 817-834-3625 ext 6#.