Using Google Local Business Center

What Is Local Business Center?
Have you ever done a search on Google for something such as "bike repair" and at the top of the results page is a map that shows businesses on a map. Those companies have listed themselves with Local Business Center (LBC) a free service from Google to help promote your company.

LBC does more that just display your company's information.

• People can leave reviews about how good (or bad) your service was.
• They can get directions to your location.
• You can create online (and mobile) coupons.
• LCB Provides a report about how often your business has been viewed and how people interacted with your listing.
• What search terms were used to find your business.
• How Many went to your website.
• Viewed a coupon.
• Asked for directions (and from where).

If you are a small size business, then it is well worth creating an account with Google LBC. (Yahoo and Bing also have their own versions of LBC.)

You Can Build A Better Website

Your Website Should Not Be About You
Website content should highlight how you can help customers, not about what your company does. We will go over a checklist of five items to help you transform your site into one all about you and your company into one about your customers.

As a business owner you are proud of your product, their features or services you offer. It is what sets you apart from your competition. Unfortunately customers won't buy something because it has the biggest or fastest widget.

People buy benefits (to them) not features. If you are familiar with basic marketing this is not new to you, marketers are always talking about the difference between features and benefits.

Some might claim that there are some people who buy products because of features. Sports car advertisements talk about horse power and computer ads talk about RAM and CPU speed. While that is true, they are still selling benefits to the customer.... More Horse Power = You can go faster  / You can brag to your neighbor that your car has more HP than his. CPU and RAM = You don't need to wait for your computer.

Checking Your Website

Let's take a look at your website and see if it is touting benefits or features.

Open your website in your browser and look at the home page.

1. A larger portion of the home page content is devoted to lists of services / features that your company offers: (Database programming, Flash Animations, Printing on Canvas, File Backup ...)
2. Many sentences include the word "we" or "our".
   Do you talk about how skilled, experienced and knowledgeable your employees are?
3. Few or no sentences contain the words "you" or "your".
4. Quotes or news on your home page from your president or about your company.
5. The first navigation link on your site is "About Us" , or it is the second link, because "Home" is the first link.

How Did You Do?

Did you only answer yes to one or none question? Congratulations, your website probably does a great job explaining why clients should use your product or service.


How many of these questions can you say yes to? Was it more than half? Your website is not doing enough to explain how you can help your clients.

Improving Your Site

Improving your website is simple, but not easy. Change your content to target new or existing clients, by telling them the benefits of your products or services.

1. Instead of listing features list the benefits.
   Database programming = You can change content or add pages yourself without paying a developer.
   Printing on Canvas = Turn your image into a work of art that will last 100 years.
   File Backup = Never worry about loosing files if your computer crashes.
2. Change your content so the words "you" or "your" occur more often then "we" or "our".
   Whenever you have a sentence that has the word "we" ask yourself what is in it for the customer. Try to write content that shows how it affects your clients.
3. Use quotes (Testimonials) from your customers. Include news about how you are helping clients.
4. Change your navigation order.
   Put the links that are important to your customers first.

Another area to look at is product or service detail pages. These pages usually tout features, not benefits. But I'm not going to address that topic. Plenty of people have written about features vs benefits. If you want to read about that topic Google marketing features vs benefits.

Three Tips to a Better Website Building Experience.

Can Someone Build Your Website For $500 (or $5,000)?
Yes it can be done, but will it meet your expectations? Make sure the developer can deliver what you want by checking references and that you know what you are getting for that $500.

When Website Development Goes Bad

Over the past 6 months several small business owners have contacted Zajon to see if we can help rebuild their website. They were not happy with their current developer and wanted to change. I am always happy to get new clients, but I'm also curious as to why they are changing?

The reasons seem to fall in one of two categories.

Over Promise

Some website developers or their sales staff will promise anything to get the project. Sometimes they are so busy that they can not get to your project for several weeks after it was actually suppose to start. In either case the result is a missed deadlines and / or a delayed launch.

Bad Communication

Sometimes there is a communications problem between both parties. The client is expecting or assuming that they will get X, Y and Z for their money, but the developer is assumes that the client only wants X and Y.

Not Communicating

Not returning phone calls was also a common complaint about development companies. By itself this issue was not enough to prompt a client to leave the developer. But, when combined with missed deadlines and unfulfilled promises, it raised the level of frustration. This seemed to be a common thread with many decisions to change developers.

Avoiding a Bad Experience

There are several things you can do to reduce the risk of this happening to you, here are three of them.

1. Check References:
   I know that you are only spending $500 on the website and figure nothing can go wrong with a simple site like this, but it can and I've seen it the results. If you are willing to risk flushing away that amount of money then ignore this advice. Any company that builds websites should be fine providing references on request. Ask that the references be for companies with similar budgets as yours.
2. Get It In Writing:
   Even for small projects, that cost under $1,000 I will give clients a written proposal that includes a sitemap (or list)  of the pages on the site and describe any additional functionality, such as contact pages, that they have asked for. More complex web projects get a more detailed description of the project. Large projects include a complete technical specification outlining the functionality of all parts of the website.
3. Don't Pay In Advance
   Do not pay the for the entire project in advance. It is common practice for developers to ask for an initial payment, ranging from 25% - 50% of the projects total, and it makes sense to pay that costs in advance.

 As a business owner, you need to do a little home work. Ask for samples of work that are comparable to what you would get. It might not come as a surprise, but portfolios usually represent a company's best work. So if you are basing your assumptions on the websites you see there, you probably are looking at projects that cost more than $500.

Advice for Developers (and Other Businesses)

• Communicate honestly with clients. 
• Make sure they understand what they will be getting, before you take their money or begin a project.
• Deliver what you promise.
• Return phone calls, especially if you know you have screwed up.

The above advice seems obvious, but recent experience has led me to believe that it is not always practiced.

How To Select Pictures For Your Website

Select Appropriate Pictures.
It is no surprise that pictures are an important part of your website's content. But it appears as if many small business owners do not spend much time selecting or taking pictures. I'm going to give a quick test you can give your website to see if the pictures are appropriate and a guide to help you select the good pictures.

Test Your Website:

Selling Products
If your website sells a product then this is going to be a simple test.

• Look at your home page. Does it have a picture or pictures that show you product, or line of products?
• Do you show products on the category / product pages?

If you have answered yes to both questions, then you might think you are done. But you are only half way there.

• Do you have pages with content related to your products? (Such as how to buy pages.)

If so, then where possible try to show people using the products. You want to show actual users /customers if possible, or people who represent your audience.

For example: Do you sell scuba masks? Is there a section about buying a mask? Which picture do you think is going to interest someone more and get them to read your content?

I would suggest that all other things being equal, the picture of the scuba diver is more likely to encourage people to look at and read your content.

Offering a Service
Do you offer a service, such as landscaping, photography or website design. The same guidelines apply.

• Show pictures that represent your service on the home page.
• If you offer different related services (decks, paths or flowerbeds) and dedicate individual pages to those services then each page should have picture that represent the page's content.
• Try to show people using the result of your service - people walking on the path, sitting on the deck, or enjoying the flowerbed.

General Image Guidelines:

Here are a few suggestions to impliment with your pictures.

1. Place content in the alternative text  image property.
2. Use pictures that show people using your product.
3. Create links to larger images.
   People like to see larger versions of your work and products, so if you can provide users with links to larger versions of your images.

Obviously some services or products are harder to show than others, compare landscaper's to a lawyer's service. If you can, then you want to show examples of your service and people enjoying the results what your company did for them.