Archive for category Getting Started

Endorsement Disclosure Statement


On your website, do you endorse products or services provided by other businesses?  You website needs an endorsement disclosure statement.


endorsing a product or serviceThe Federal Trade Commission established Guidelines for Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising. The intent is to make it clear to readers of your website if you are receiving compensation for your endorsements or testimonials. You need to let your readers know if you get money or even free samples in return for your thoughts.

To help individuals and businesses avoid problems, the Disclosure Policy organization has provided a quick and painless way to draft a simple disclosure policy for your website. First go to http://www.disclosurepolicy.org. Then fill in your information and answer simple questions. Next you copy and paste the resulting policy statement on an easy to find page on your website. You may need to alter some portions of the policy statement, to make it fit your business and your website better, but they give you a good start. And make your policy easy for your readers to find, in your sitemap or on a navigation tab.

Does your website have an endorsement disclosure statement?

We can help your website market your business better! Contact Jax SEO Works today!

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How to Improve Your Business

SearchingA good business owner is always looking for ways to improve their business.

1.  Get new ideas is to keep learning; reading articles online and in magazines and books, follow other successful entrepreneurs on Twitter and Facebook, and their website blogs.

2.  Set goals for your changes and improvements, and then make small, manageable, incremental improvements.  You can get to your goal with this approach.

3.  Measure and track your efforts and your results.

  • How much did you spend for your advertising last month?
  • How many new visitors did your business see as a result of that advertising?   (And ask your visitors which advertisement brought them to you.)
  • How many of those visitors made a purchase?   (Did you make a profit from their purchases, or did you pay more for advertising than you made in sales that resulted from that advertising?)

Professional Speaker, Author, and Entrepreneur Michelle Chance-Santhong, the Online Marketing Goddess, shares her inspiring progress to improvement, applying some of these concepts in one of her recent videos.

If you have some more suggestions, proven ways you have used to improve your business, that you’d like to share, please

  • add your Comment below,

  • or send us your suggestions to share via our Contact form.

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Business Plan for Your Small Business

Before you go any further with your small business, gather your ideas and aspirations and make a business plan.

Business Plan for a small businessThis plan is just a document stating the current status of your business, and what you want to accomplish.

Your plan can be as short as one page; see : Write Your Business Plan, shared by the Small Business Administration.

If you will need a loan to get your business started, the SBA also has How to Prepare a Loan Proposal.

Some people try to start a business without thinking out details. This process helps you organize your thoughts about your business venture.

If you are just getting started with your small business, and want to find out more about getting started, Contact Jax SEO Works. We’re here to help.

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Basic SEO

searching on the internetWho hasn’t searched the internet for a business website, but then when they found the site, they left un-satisfied because they couldn’t find the information they needed?

And many business owners are frustrated to have a website but get very few website visitors and even less conversions (business from the website).

Basic SEO (Search Engine Optimization) will get your website a better ranking from search engines and to get more website visitors!

Help optimize your website for search engines and visitors:

  • Use good, long-tailed keywords.
  • Helpful, interesting content.
  • Easy to use navigation, so your website visitors can easily find what they came to your website looking for.
  • Website design to create interest in your website (and your product or service).

There are millions of websites on the internet, each search engine (e.g., Google, Bing, Yahoo!, About, etc.). Each uses their own set of algorithms (calculations) to evaluate each website. Then the websites are ranked (SERPs) according to their opinion.

“Content is King.”, continues to be important to keep as a priority when optimizing websites to rank better in search results. Original, interesting, focused, content will rank better than rambling content that makes no sense. Videos and Photographs which are related to each web page’s topic also help improve ranking.

And Search Engine Optimization guidelines continue to develop and change as search engines compete to provide desired results for internet users.

Often, some professional insight can help you get started in the right direction to your website goals.

Contact Jax SEO Works for help to improve your internet presence.

 

 

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Prepare your website for your target audience.

The prospective clients, the group of people that you want to reach through your website, are your target audience.

a Target Audience for your WebsiteSo, who is your target audience ?

Depending on the topic of your website, your target audience could be:

  • world wide, or for a certain area of a specific city,
  • for people of any age, or of  a determined age  group,
  • for e-commerce, or for sharing information about a hobby or common interest, etc.

How will your target audience find your website ?

Consider the topic you selected for your website, then define what the people in your target audience would search the Internet for in order to find your website.  Make a list of words and short phrases you think your target audience would use to search for your website.

Google Trends can help your website.

Here is where it would be helpful to have some idea what words and short phrases your target audience would use to search for your website, if you could just ask them.  Google features Google Trends, which you can use to determine how many people search for a word or short phrase.  Google Trends even allows you to compare words and short phrases (from the list that you made) to see which ones more people are searching for. If your website is primarily for local interest, you can refine your Google Trends response for a country and city.

Less searched words and phrases.

  • What if some of the words and short phrases you know significantly help describe your website don’t appear to be as popular on Google Trends ?
  • What if some of your words or short phrases haven’t been searched for enough for Google Trends to have any data to respond to your request ?

Your list should include some more popular words and short phrases, to increase the probability of your website being found by your target audience. But you can also include words and short phrases on your website that you know significantly help describe your website even if they don’t appear to be as popular on Google Trends. If a member of your target audience is as familiar with the topic of your website as you are, they may search for that same word or phrase, and that could help them find your website

Dan's Floor Store - storefront - Ponte Vedra, FloridaFor example, looking at words for a client’s website, Dan’s Floor Store

we compared:

  • wood floor installation and wood flooring installation
  • hard surface flooring
  • tile work

and Google trends showed us that wood floor installation and wood flooring installation were more frequently searched for than hard surface flooring. Tile work is about as popular a search topic as wood floor and wood flooring installation.  We use each of the phrases (as applicable) in the content text on the website.

But search word trends are always changing, so you should periodically check how your search words are trending for your target audience in you analytic data, and adjust them accordingly.

“A and B” testing, that is to say trying similar but different approaches to the same goal can also help you find out what works best for attracting your target audience to the website, but that will be another Jax SEO Works article.

If you would like to get better results with your small business website, Contact Jax SEO Works. We enjoy helping others.

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Marketing your small business with blogging.

Blogging can help market / advertise your business product or service.

A “blog” (contraction of the terms web log or weblog) is a category of website where brief articles are posted periodically.  In addition to text, the posts can contain photos / images, graphics, or even videos.

Young lady adding content to her website, using her laptop.Many small businesses use blog posts to tell visitors about the products or services that they provide.  They make their blogs interesting and informative.  They post new articles on a regular basis, to keep visitors coming back to see the latest, or to subscribe to the business’ RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed from their website (so the visitors can see the new blogs as they are posted, without having to go to the business’ website).  Then these website visitors buy those products or services.

Blogs can bring more visitors to your website, more customers to your business, and that means more opportunities for sales.

Just remember : When you write a blog for your business, you want to share information about your product or service that sounds:

  • intriguing,
  • exciting,
  • curious and/or unusual (but true),
  • and is easy to understand and remember.

Does your business use blogging for marketing and advertising ?

We can help you improve your websiteContact Jax SEO Works today to get started !

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Thinking about starting a small business?

If you are just thinking about starting your own small business, one source of helpful resources, to help you make your dreams of being your own boss into a reality is the United States Small Business Administration website.

Take a look at the Index page on the SBA website.

small business advertising - Tyler's TomatoesThe site features  :

  • A wealth of small business insights and guidance.
  • Information about SBA funding programs for small businesses
  • A Learning Center with even more information to help get you started
  • Local assistance resources, with special help for Veterans and Women interested in starting their own small business.

The Internet has a wealth of information to share.  As my son always says, “Google is your friend.”

If you need help with a website for your small business, Contact Jax SEO Works. We will work with you to help you get a website that will advertise your business; products or services on the internet, and bring you more customers.

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Automated Answering Message

What sort of automated answer message does your business telephone number have?

Does your caller hear a message like:

on a cell phone, listening to an automated answering machine messageHello, this is (your business).  No one is able to come to the telephone now, but if you will please leave your name, telephone number, and a brief message, we’ll be in touch with you as soon as possible.

I was recently surprised to return a missed call and hear:

Hello, if you would like to be removed from our calling list, please press 1.

No business name, no promotional message, but sending a message that sounded to me like their business believed most callers would not want to hear from them again.

When you answer your ‘phone, take a breath and think what kind of impression you want to send to the person who’s calling you, and smile, because people can hear the smile in your voice.

Have you heard some strange automated answering messages?  Please share them with us in a comment.

Want help improving your small business website? Contact Jax SEO Works! We like helping people grow their business!

 

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Social Media Can Help Promote Your Local Small Business.

Get the New Year off to a Great start by getting your business involved in Social Media Marketing.

Small Business Saturday - logoLike Li Evans shared in an article on local small businesses and Social Media Marketing on Search Engine Watch, “Small businesses have some huge advantages in social media over the Walmarts of the world. . . have a much easier time personally connecting with their audience because, more likely than not, they know the majority of them personally.

Those personal connections make it much easier to build your communities in social media sites . . . . People readily become your fan, recommend you to other local friends, and tag and submit their own photos that help promote your local business.”

Find out more in Li’s YouTube video:

Getting your business involved in Social Media Marketing may seem new and intimidating. But it can be easier than you think.  More social connections allow you to build a broad base of trust in you, your business, and your products or services. That base of trust can mean more customers for your business.

There is one thing that you DO NOT want to do with your business social media outreach. Don’t only share information with the intent to sell your product or service. Sell, Sell, Sell gets old. Better to “mix it up”. Share positive information of general interest to the local public (if you are a small, local business) from time to time.

Let Jax SEO Works help your website grow your business! Contact Jax SEO Works today!

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Budget for Website Marketing

flat screen tvYou’ve probably seen tv ads for building your own website for free.

Sounds good, but there’s more to building an effective business website than just what those ads show you.

There are millions and millions of websites on the internet.

A little help from someone with a fresh perspective, someone who has experience in digital marketing. That fresh look can mean the difference between a website that just sits there, and a website that brings you clients.

You want your website to help people to find out about the products or services you provide with your business.

Ways to improve your website marketing, making your website easier for your potential clients to find :

  • Website Maintenance (your website needs to be maintained regularly, checking for broken links, adding new information, removing information that is no longer helpful or interesting, etc.)
  • Content Development (mainly concerned with the text on your website; you need to have information that people are searching for, and share information that search engine robots read to find a website in response to people’s search request, hence the popular quote, “Content is King!”)
  • Keyword Research (keywords are the words or short phrases that are used on your website, and that your clients will use to search the Internet for your website – selecting good keywords for your website pages and articles can make the difference between your website helping you find new clients, or not)
  • Increasing the Number of Inbound Hyperlinks to Your Website (the number nf hyperlinks (also called links) from other websites to your website represents your website’s popularity, and getting links from quality sites is very helpful)

If you have a small business website and would like some us to take a look. We can see if there are some easy ways to improve your digital website marketing program. Contact Jax SEO Works. We want to help your website and your small business do better.

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