Tag: Old Bald Guy Blog Tour

Offline Business Mistakes When Using The Net

Mike Paetzold back again for day 3 of my visit here as part of The Old Bald Guy’s Blog Tour. This week our topic is “Helping Offline Businesses Use The Net Effectively. Today we will discuss website mistakes.

Probably the very biggest mistake I see when talking to new clients is what I call the “ME” website. I am sure you have seen these sites. They will tell you all about the company, how long they have been in business, who owns them, yada yada yada.

Now in a nut shell my response and the response of most people finding that site is who cares. All of that can be important because I want to deal with reputable complanies and knowing they are not fly by night but if I am searching for something I have a problem.

I only want to know one thing – WHAT CAN YOU DO FOR ME?

That is really all I need to know and once I know that then you can make me comfortable by having all of the stuff about you where I can locate it but if I am looking to get rid of bugs I want to know can you do it?

Target your site to the visitor and what is in it for them. Even though you as the business owner are paying to have the site it will make money for you when you can get a visitor to take an action.

If you are the exterminator that action is to call you or email you to get your service. Make sure that you are telling me how you can help me and not who you are because I don’t care about the latter.

Second big thing I see is most offline businesses when they come online do not take advantage of lead generation. Give your visitors a reason to let you stay in contact with them.

Here is an example- I receintly met with an auctioneer to redo his site, The first thing we talked about is creating 2 audios. One on how to get the best bargains at an auction and the second on 5 ways to use an auction to get more value when you are selling.

Both of these are easy topics for the auctioneer as he has a ton of experience. Offer the two audios in exchange for an email address to all of his visitors. They get to hear him and understand auctions from both sides. He has started to become someone they now know.

Follow that up with a regular newsletter and let people know about his latest auction for buyers and send out a latest pricing update to potential sellers.

Now he can continue to build the relationship and get more people to each of his auctions and make sure that potential sellers at least give him a chance when they are ready to sell items.

So there are two big mistales to avoid.

  • No “ME” website
  • Generate leads

There are many more mistakes but those are two of the biggest and Earl has covered a lot of the technical ones previously and tomorrow we will talk more about them.

Talk to you then.

 

About the author

 

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Mike Paetzold has been online since 2000 and runs numerous blogs and works with offline businesses through Coal Region Web Services. Currently you can find out what he is up to at Mike Paetzold Recommends.

You can also find out and keep current with WordPress at his blog WordPress Made Easy.

Follow Mike on Twitter

Protecting Your Reputation Online

Mike Paetzold back again for day 2 of my stop here as part of The Old Bald Guy’s Blog Tour. This week we are discussing helping off line businesses use the net effectively.

As Google or one of the other search engines becomes the first place that people look for a business instead of older sources like the Yellow Pages it is important for businesses to at least be found there.

Even more important than that is to know what others are saying about them. The advent of the Web 2.0 world has created a lot of sites where customers can rate the service of a variety of businesses. Most are interactive and will allow you to respond if you know the content is there.

As the search engines make this content easy for people that are looking for you to find it is important to know exactly what is being said about you.

Fortunately Google has made it quite easy to find out exactly what is being said about you. This gives you a chance to address problems.

The way Google does that is through a service called Google Alerts. It is easy to set up an alert on your business name, your own name, your product names or on any topic and they will send you an email telling you exactly what they have found as they find it.

First go to http://google.com/alerts and you will see a screen like below.

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Just add your topic, use comprehensive for your type, decide how often you want to hear, put in the email you want to receive the alerts at and click the create button.

Now each time Google finds that topic on any new web page of any type you will be notified. Now at the very least you will know if there is something being said that can hurt you or your business.

This will allow you to address any problems you may find quickly and not get surprised. If it is an interactive site like a forum or blog you will have the opportunity to address it in the same place that someone looking for you will find it.

It pays to be aware, have your own web presence and to be proactive in protecting your name online. Don’t be caught by surprise and go set up an alert today.

 

About the author

 

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Mike Paetzold has been online since 2000 and runs numerous blogs and works with offline businesses through Coal Region Web Services. Currently you can find out what he is up to at Mike Paetzold Recommends.

You can also find out and keep current with WordPress at his blog WordPress Made Easy.

Follow Mike on Twitter