Back in the day... especially the '50s,'60s and '70s being found was not as much an issue as it is in today's over communicated, noisy world. The job of making sure your business was found was the job of the Ad men of Madison Ave. Since the '70s, especially since the invention of those tube things, it is not only easier to connect but also harder and harder for businesses to be fo0und by the folks who are looking. And this find ability problem is rooted in the increasing demands on our attention.
Find ability is a real challenge for small businesses for a whole slew of reasons, which are not the subject of this article. Instead, I'm going to focus on some of the more useful tools and techniques to help the right folks find you.
Everybody who does business should have a headquarters, a place where folks looking for solutions to their problem can easily find out if you have what they want. Your HQ can be a brick & mortar store front, a virtual store, a blog, or web site, whatever it is, it needs to be a place where folks can quickly find out:
- If you have anything close to a solution to their pressing problem;
- If you are someone they can trust and in turn trust that the stuff you make will work for them;
- If you make it easy to search for and maybe buy what you have.
So... you must have clear paths that help potential buyers check you and your stuff out. That means, if you sell in multiple places don’t send some folks to one place and some to another, have a preview place with clear ways to check out each of those other places.
Ok, now that we have that all cleared up lets talk about ways to get those folks to your HQ.
Remember:
- You want to give folks a clear way to find us, if they can’t find us we can’t give them the chance to buy our solution to their problem.
- Your choice of find ability strategy really depends on your own personal and business goals.
Raising your find ability score
Today being find able is a whole lot easier than ever and because of the ever evolving tools available you get to determine the nature of your tool bag. There are lots of ways to bring people to your home base but I’m only going to mention the most popular.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Being found on line has always depended on whether a particular search engine pops your name up somewhere near the top of the first page to show up when someone types in anything relevant to you or your stuff. Making that happen is the job of SEO.
The short explanation of SEO is that if you write about the right stuff, change the content of your web site frequently, use the right words (key words) Google’s search algorithm will pop you up at or near the top of the first page that shows up when someone is looking for left handed wood fired mugs. Not being on the first page is like being in East Wazeristan, as far as being found is concerned...you may as well not bother.
Why you may ask do I need to worry about this search engine stuff when all people have to do is stick my name in the box and hit enter? Well, here's the deal...those folks sticking your name in the box got your name somewhere, so they are already on the trail to your HQ. This search engine stuff is important when someone you don't even know exists types a string of words that somehow describes that stuff you make. So if you make glass garden art that reflects the sun in pink AND you have talked about it a lot... Google will find you. If you think to add you are from W.Sagebrush, Google will make sure anybody looking for stuff you make in W. Sagebrush will know you exist. And this is important Why? Because, if that dude searching for for stuff like yours lives in W. Sagebrush guess who he'll see at or near the top of the results page?
Without those special words and descriptions you'll miss out on connecting with that person who loves glass garden art especially when it is pink. Now, that may be OK if there aren't that many folks like that out there. But, there still may be other folks looking for exactly what you make but can't find it because Google can't find you.
Adwords/Adsense etc...
This tool is not much different than it’s old school counterpart...the use of adds placed on web sites by services like Google. These tools can be very effective if you have lots and lots of money to throw at them. See, how much your add gets clicked on depends on how much you want to spend, adwords works is like an auction, not to different than eBay and unless you really no what you’re doing you can very quickly run up a large bill.
I wouldn’t recommend this for artists there are better ways...
Social Media
Next to or combined with SEO, social media like Facebook,Twitter, Friendfeed, Linkedin are very effective tools to help bring folks to your HQ. Each service is like a better version of the Chamber Networking “get-together” and you don’t have to wear those dumbass name tags that you always seem to forget to take off!
Social media has been proven to be extremely helpful as a tool for helping folks find the right buyers. In fact, the big guys like Dell and Jet Blue, have used Twitter to generate millions in sales in 2009. What's cool is the tool is great for artists even more so because it lets you build your own personal entourage without a lot of work and...it won't cost you a cent!
A Content Management System(CMS) aka blogs
As a platform for an HQ, a CMS cannot be beat, it is made for ease so you can:
- easily keep your web content current;
- optimize for search engines (generally not available for services like Blogger, or TypePad);
- have a place where potential buyers can learn more about you;
- make social connections easily from one central platform;
- easily customize appearance to the point of being indistinguishable from the old static sites.
Mix it up
No one of these tools will fully work as a road map for your potential buyers. Mashed up with your business goals they'll help the right buyers find you and help the wrong buyers move on without wasting anyone’s time. The beauty here is in the ease and customization potential and once everything is set up it pretty much runs itself with a few tweaks now and then.
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