IS IT TIME TO EXPAND YOUR WEBSITE?

YOUR SMALL BUSINESS WEBSITE & YOUR MARKETING BUDGET
Most small businesses spent a good portion of their yearly marketing budget on their business website when they first established their company web site. Hopefully that money was well spent and your website has ended up being a successful marketing tool for your small business.

If your web site is successful and is bringing in new clients, doesn’t it make sense to put more money into your small business website, to hopefully make it become even more effective? Continuing to allocate a portion of your marketing budget each year, towards something that has proven in the past to be beneficial will make your small business website an even stronger marketing tool.

IF YOUR BUSINESS WEBSITE IS WORKING WELL
If the web site that you have for your small business is doing well, and what it is supposed to do, you may be following the adage “if it’s not broke don’t fix it”. I too follow that premise regarding many things in my life. But in reality, is that the best thing to do when it comes to your business website? In my opinion, it probably is not best to leave things as they are unless your website and its’ performance as a small business marketing tool is providing you with more business than you can handle.

If you are pleased with the responses that you are getting from your business website but would like more customers from your website, ask yourself a couple of questions. “Am I showcasing all of my products and services thoroughly and effectively?” “Is there something I can do to convert a higher percentage of my website visitors into actual customers?”

After sitting down, taking a good long look at your website and really thinking about the two questions that I asked in the previous paragraph, there is a good chance that you will answer “no” to at least one of the questions.

With a little further thought, you will probably be able to zero in on something that can be added to, or modified, on your website that will help improve your small business web site as a marketing tool for your company. Perhaps it means just editing or adding some text on an existing web page. Maybe adding an additional page to your site will help showcase something that you are not currently putting enough emphasis on. Perhaps your Call to Action is not strong enough and can be improved.

If you can see where there may be a problem or something that can be improved upon but just can’t seem to come up with a solution or idea on how to make the changes needed, try looking at the websites of some of your competitors get some ideas of how to change your small business website and make it a more effective small business website.

IF YOUR WEBSITE IS DOING POORLY
If, on the other hand your website doesn’t seem to be helping your efforts to market your business; perhaps you did not initially spend enough money on your website to make it truly effective. If this is the case, maybe you need to spend some of this year’s marketing budget to expand and improve your website, so that it does end up being the most successful marketing tool in your arsenal.

Are you describing your products and services sufficiently? Is the text content on the various pages of your small business website search engine friendly? Is the information on your website current and up to date? Overall try to figure out why your business web site is not working and take the time to implement the changes necessary to make your website a profitable tool for your small business.

WE ARE HERE TO HELP YOU
We urge you to continually review your small business website and look for ways to improve it. If you want your business to prosper and grow you must use every tool at your disposal to its’ maximum potential. In almost all instances a small business website is the most productive tool in your business marketing tool box.

Don’t become complacent about your web site. Spend money each year on making your website better and the best that it can be. Existing clients of Tom Rumish Website Development that have continued to improve their small business websites each year have ended up increasing their sales each year, almost without exception.

We urge you to contact Tom Rumish Website Development for all of your small business website design and maintenance needs. We will be glad to listen to you and help you implement any changes that you desire into your existing business website. If you’re not sure what needs to be improved on your small business website we can review your site and offer suggestions. Click here to speak to us right now. If you don't have time to speak with us right now email business website designer Tom Rumish.

WEBSITE ADD-ON FEATURES

SMALL ADDITIONS TO YOUR WEB SITE

CAN MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE IN YOUR REVENUE

There are many small things that can be added to, or done to your website that can increase the amount of business and revenue that you receive from your website visitors. In almost all cases these are features that are classified as a “call to action”. Some of these little “add-on-features”, which create a Call To Action are specific to a particular type of business only, while others can be used on the websites of all businesses.

A call to action is defined as follows: "Encourages site users to act to or respond to an offer. Often incorporates an action verb, for example, “download now”.

“CALL US NOW” BUTTONS

An innovative and fairly new way to implement a “call to action” on a small business web site is to place a “Call Us Now” button or link on a web page. Call Us Now is a great small business website feature that can be used by virtually any business. An example of a “Call Us Now” button can be seen on our small business website designer site.

Basically Call Us Now buttons work when a site visitor clicks on the Call Us Now button. When this is done a small window pops up in which the web site visitor enters their phone number. Within seconds, their phone rings. When they answer their phone, a phone call to your business is initiated and your business phone will ring. When you pick up your phone you are immediately connected to your website visitor by telephone.

No special phone, equipment or software is required to implement this feature on your website.

WHAT BUSINESSES CAN BENEFIT FROM “CALL US NOW”
Almost any business can benefit from having a Call Us Now button on their website. Below are a few of the many examples in which a Call Us Now button can be used to convert website visitors into sales:

Carry-out and food delivery businesses -- People can view you menu online and place their pick-up or delivery orders by connecting to your business immediately using a Click To Place Your Order button.

Restaurants –- People who are visiting your website to find your location and view your menu can use a “Click to Make a Reservation” button.

E-Commerce sites -- Very often website visitors have questions about products or are hesitant to input the credit card information needed to process an order. A Click to Call button can be used to answer those questions or for site visitors to place an order by speaking to a live person on the telephone.

Lodging & Accommodations businesses –- Most people today prefer to make their lodging reservations online from a website. If your website does not have an online reservation system in place, a “Make Your Reservation Now” button can be used and has almost the same effect as an online reservation system.

LOW COST ALTERNATIVE TO AN “800” NUMBER
Your clients are not charged for the calls that they place using Click to Call services. This fact can and should be prominently mentioned on your web site. Generally speaking your business pays only for the minutes that someone is connected to your business through a Click To Call service.

In most cases Click to Call is a low cost alternative to having an “800” phone number. Unlike “800” phone numbers there are no taxes, line charges, and in many cases no recurring monthly fees. That being said, charges to have a Click To Call button on your site is often much less expensive than having an “800” number for your business. In many cases, depending on the call service provider used, there are no contracts to sign.

INCOMING CALL TRACKING
Almost without exception all Click To Talk providers have client call tracking and a web-based control panel from which you can view a Call Activity Log. Depending on the service provider call logs can include:

• Call time & date
• Caller phone number
• Caller name and optional email address
• Call duration and cost
• URL address from where call originates

And often more information

The information in the Call Log can of course be downloaded and used for future follow-up contact with clients and potential clients.


FOR MORE INFORMATION
For more information about adding Click To Talk buttons & links, online reservations systems and other interactive features to your website, which have the potential to help you and your company gain customers and revenue Click here to speak to us right now. Or, email Tom Rumish Website Development with your questions.

Be sure to visit our small business website designer site to see an example of a Click to Call button. Small business web site designer Tom Rumish Website Development offers a multitude of web site services to small business owners. Be sure to visit our website www.tomrum.com to see all that we offer.

Home Page vs. Inner Pages of a Website

Is your Home page more important than the inner pages of your website?

There is constant discussion among website designers about the importance of a website’s Home page. Some professional web site designers argue that a Home page has little to no importance compared to the inner pages of a site, while others argue that the Home page of a website is the most critical page of a website. There are valid arguments on both sides of the issue as far as I am concerned.

Here is my personal take on the whole issue of a website Home page and its’ importance and role.

YOUR HOME PAGE AS A “LANDING” PAGE
In the past, the Home page of a website was almost without exception the “landing” page for visitors to your website. Rarely did anyone arrive at your web site on one of the inner pages.

In today’s world the Home page is probably still the primary landing page for your site due in part to the fact that your site URL (www.mysite.com) is what is printed on business cards, letterheads and other forms of print advertising. But, due to the way that major search engines have evolved, the inner pages of a site have increasingly become landing pages for your sites’ visitors.

Because of the fact that the Home page has decreased to some extent as an entry point for a website, the role of a Home page has changed somewhat compared to its’ role in the past.

SO, WHAT IS THE FUNCTION OF A HOME PAGE TODAY
Think of your website as a printed book and the Home page of your website as a combination of the book cover the Table of Contents and the back cover of a book.

Just like the cover of a book, your Home page should grab people’s attention. It must attractive and represent the website favorably through the use of a pleasing layout & colors and have a feature or two that creates a “stickiness” to attract their immediate attention and cause them to want to explore your site in more depth, instead of quickly moving on to another website. In addition, if the Home page is cluttered and hard for people get oriented to they will quickly move on to another site. Remember that First Impressions Are Everything. Landing page = first impression = very important.

The textural content of a Home page can be compared to the Back Cover of a printed book and should give a very brief description of what your site and company are all about. That is to say, it should tell in condensed form what products, services and information you and your company can offer the web site visitor. If applicable the content of your Home page should also have a call-to-action.

Lastly, a very vital function of your Home page is to act somewhat like the Table of Contents of a printed book. It should provide a way for site visitors to quickly find the specific information they want or need and provide a way for them to easily get to that specific information on the inner pages of your website. This is done of course with the use of an easy to use navigation menu and/or links.

INNER PAGES OF A SITE AS A “LANDING” PAGE
As I stated earlier, the Home page is not the only page at which people arrive on your site. Search engines will link to inner pages of your site, thus causing those inner pages of your site to be the “landing” page for many, if not most individuals that arrive at your website as a result of a search engine query.

Because inner pages of your website are often landing pages for visitors, the inner pages should have the same attractiveness and “stickiness” that your home page has. Inner pages of your site should also have easy to understand navigation to all other pages of your web site, just as your Home page has. Be sure to have a consistent look to all pages of your site to avoid possible disorientation.

I always maintain that “Every page of your site should be accessible from every page of your site”.

THE FUNCTION OF INNER PAGES OF A WEB SITE
Inner pages of almost every site are the “meat and potatoes” of what you have to offer your website visitors and what they came for. They are the pages that you have hopefully generalized and briefly mentioned on the Home page of your site and are usually your sales force and money makers. The inner pages of your site is where Content Is King.

The reason that Content is King on the inner pages of your site is because it is on these inner pages of your site where you should not just outline, but go into detail with current information about the various products, services and information that you have to offer. The way that you author the textural content on the inner pages of your site can mean the difference between making money or going broke.

I won’t go into text authoring other than to say that you must accurately showcase all of the products, services and information that you offer and gracefully lead your website visitors down a path that ends with a call-to-action. You can of course implement a call-to-action at more than one point within the page content of an inner page.

HOW DOES YOUR WEBSITE RATE ?
Does the Home page of your website have eye appeal and have some sort of stickiness to grab the attention of people? Is your website navigation complete and easy to use? Can every page of your site be accessed from every page of the web site? Is the text content on all of your pages current? Do you have an effective call-to-action on your pages?

If you do not have a website – why don’t you have one? You are missing out on what is probably the least expensive way to advertise and market your business or organization.

Small business website design and maintenance specialist Tom Rumish Website Development is your answer for low cost web design. Business web site designing, website re-modeling and up-dating and SEO are among the many services offered by professional web designer Tom Rumish. Visit our website for more details about the many affordable web services available.

http://www.tomrum.com/
sales@tomrum.com

Naperville Baggo ECommerce Website

Baggo - Cornhole Games Online Sales & Rentals

Small business website designer and web site maintenance specialist Tom Rumish Website Development recently designed and developed a new ECommerce website for Chris Johnson and Naperville Baggo.

Chris is an avid Baggo - Cornhole player and professional carpenter who owns Creative Touch Carpentry. He had, in the past, manufactured Baggo - Cornhole games for his friends and the church that he attends. After doing some research Chris Johnson decided that there is a viable, niche market for the games. As a result, Naperville Baggo was born.

Baggo - Cornhole tournaments and events have become really popular in the Chicago, Illinois area just as they have nationwide. So, Chris decided on not just producing the Baggo boards but also renting Baggo - Cornhole boards to taverns, church groups, civic organizations and the like for tournaments and special events in the greater Chicago area.

Chris decided that the best way he could market his new venture without taking too much time away from his primary business, Creative Touch Carpentry, was to offer his Baggo - Cornhole products for sale and rent online. He felt that by marketing online he would not have to spend a bundle of money to market his sale products & rental services. In addition to the relative low cost to market online Chris is able to reach his niche market, both for sales and rentals. As a result of marketing online, Naperville Baggo's market area for sales is nationwide and he can limit his rentals to northern Illinois.

Due to good Search Engine Optimization (SEO) during the website's design and development by Tom Rumsh, within one day of putting the website online Google showed the Naperville Baggo site as #8 on the first page of search engine results for the broad search term "baggo cornhole sales". Website Search Engine Optimization has become a major part of the design process of the custom websites designed by Tom Rumish Website Development.

For more information about Naperville Baggo, purchasing their products online with your credit card or information about renting baggo - cornhole games for an event please visit their website. www.napervillebaggo.com/

The small business web site design and maintenance firm of Tom Rumish Website Development can help you turn your small business ideas into a reality too. Small businesses are the backbone of the USA and more and more people are turning their ideas into profitable online businesses. Marketing your small business online is a extremely cost effective. By having Tom Rumish Website Development develop an E-Commerce website for you, it will allow your customers to purchase your products or services online by using their credit card.

For more information about ECommerce websites or a custom designed website to showcase your company's products and servies contact Tom Rumish Website Development. tomrum@tomrum.com

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

There are many people that will tell you that they can get you on page one of the major search engines with their Search Engine Optimization (SEO) methods. But, is that first page SERP (Search Engine Results Position) that they are referring to for a broad search term? Almost anyone can get a #1 position for their company name, which is a very specific search term query.

As an example doing a Google search for “Tom Rumish Website Development” will yield approximately 900 results on any given day. (Results for any search term will vary from day to day.)

But, doing a Google search for the broad search term “business website development” shows 144,000,000 (One Hundred Forty Million) search engine results in Google. Tom Rumish Website Development (http://www.tomrum.com/) was #1 in the search engine results of the Google’s 144,000,000 search results for “business website development”, a very broad search term. (Results for any search term will vary from day to day.)

In addition, Tom Rumish Website Development (http://www.tomrum.com/) was #1 in the search engine results of the Google’s 23,800,000 search results for “business website designer” - another broad search term. (Results for any search term will vary from day to day.)

SEO THAT REALLY WORKS
NOT JUST MISLEADING CLAIMS

As you can see by the above search engine results screen shots our SEO works. Tom Rumish gets real results in major search engines for BROAD search terms that have a large number of competing websites.

The examples above are for the Tom Rumish Website Development site. But, it’s not just my own Business Website Design site that is doing well in major search engines. Many of my current clients are showing up in the #1 position or on the first page of Google and Yahoo broad term searches.

Client 1 of Tom Rumish - #1 in Yahoo for a search term with 6,930,000 competing sites.

Client 1 of Tom Rumish - #2 in Yahoo for a search term with 1,490,000 competing sites.

Client 2 of Tom Rumish - #8 in Google for a search term with 4,710,000 competing sites.

Client 2 of Tom Rumish - #3 in Google for a search term with 2,340,000 competing sites.

HAVE YOUR SMALL BUSINESS WEBSITE
GROW YOUR BUSINESS

Make it your 2009 business priority to have your website start to really work for you and your small business. If your small business website isn’t helping you gain customers and grow your business it’s time to get it working for you. The best way to do that is by making sure that your web site is showing up well in search engines. Our proven web site Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can help you get the results you want and need.

Though Tom Rumish is first and foremost a small business web site designer, our website SEO techniques have proven results and is one of the many low cost web page design services offered by Tom Rumish Website Development. Contact Tom Rumish Website Development for a no obligation SEO consultation. Visit our website at http://www.tomrum.com/ to learn about the many small business web page design services that are offered.

MARKETING - A Fundamental Ingredient for Profitability and Growth.

Small to medium sized business owners often ask, “How much should I spend on marketing?” The answer: “It varies by industry and business size.” It is also based on how much and how fast you want to grow.

SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives) and USSBA (U.S. Small Business Administration) define an effective marketing budget to be between 2% and 10% of sales. Business to Consumer, retail and pharmaceuticals can exceed 20% during peak brand-building (company recognition) years.

I'm sure that you've all heard this before; “You have to spend money to make money." Most companies under spend on their budgets, thinking that not to spend is to save. This isn’t true. Keep in mind that your marketing efforts are directly proportional to your revenue, so now is not the time to be penny foolish.

The marketing budget for businesses with under $1 million of yearly sales averages 7-8%. If your company is B2B or B2C, you may need to raise your budget by 1–3% to see solid results. Retail and pharmaceuticals lead the spending, with many of these companies spending more than 20% of net sales. Overall average is reported as 6%.

Some circumstances will merit an increase or reduction in your marketing budget as a percentage of revenue. During an initial branding build (business recognition) or a re-branding phase, you should have a higher budget, which can be reduced in the future.

You can grow your company with “baby steps”. This is called organic growth, and it is how nearly every business starts off. Remember washing cars or mowing lawns for a few bucks? Next thing you know, your neighbor wants it done. That neighbor refers you to another neighbor, and so on. Many businesses grow their clientele on word of mouth alone, and are very successful. But they usually hit a brick wall.

That’s where building a solid branding (business recognition) campaign helps. To rely on organic growth alone, you risk losing revenue from business you did not get because X% of potential clients never discovered you. Why risk thousands to save hundreds?

Many small to medium sized companies fail each year because they do not allocate enough money for marketing. Successful small & medium sized companies realize that marketing, if done properly, brings back solid returns, whereas not allocating enough in your budget for marketing could spell disaster.

More people than ever use the internet to find businesses and services. That being said, one of the most important ways to market your small business is to be sure that your business has an online presence. Having a small business website is not only one of the most important things that you can do to market your business, it is also one of the most cost effective ways to market to local, regional and worldwide audiences.

Tom Rumish Website Development specializes in affordable small business website designing and maintenance. Website client testimonials from our clients attest to the fact that what they have spent to have a website custom designed for their small business has invariably paid off greatly. Business websites that work = sales growth.

If your business does not have a website or if your existing website is outdated and not helping you gain new customers I urge you to contact Tom Rumish Website Development for a free, no obligation consultation.

A TOUGH ECONOMY AND YOUR BUSINESS MARKETING PLAN

When the economy gets a little rough and money gets tight most businesses find themselves in a position of having to cut the costs related to doing business. The first thing that most businesses tend to cut in the cost trimming process is their marketing budgets. This is a mistake that can often prove fatal to a company’s existence, or at the least lead to worsening their business income when they need it the most.

Marketing budgets should be the LAST thing that gets cut during a period when businesses are struggling, instead of the first thing that gets cut or eliminated. During tough economic times you need to gain new customers more than ever. Cutting your advertising and marketing budget will give your business less exposure to potential new clients at a time that you should be concentrating on increasing new clients.

Each dollar that you do not cut or eliminate from your marketing budget has more value to your business when your competitors are cutting their marketing efforts and budgets. In essence, the money that your business spends, and does not cut on marketing and advertising, becomes a higher percentage of the total dollar amount being spent to market businesses like yours, due to the fact that many other businesses mistakenly cut their marketing budgets first.

Increasing, as opposed to decreasing, your marketing budget during a period of tough economic times will multiply the percentage of critical exposure that your company needs during rough times, to gain new clients and customers. So, unless it is absolutely necessary don’t cut your marketing and advertising budget. Advertising and marketing your business is more important now than it is when things are going great with our economy.

If your business does not have a business website it is more critical than ever, during this period of economic down turn, to have a professionally designed website to help gain new customers and retain the current clients that your business has.

Listed below are a few of the many reasons that your business should have a business website:

1. Having a professionally designed website for your business will add creditability to your business.

2. A website will demonstrate that your business is not a new business. Generally speaking people prefer to deal with a company that is established and been in business for some length of time.

3. People most often prefer to deal with companies that have websites because it shows that they are “serious” about their business and that the company won’t just vanish in a short period of time, in the event that the potential client should have a problem with your products or services.

Name the top 3 competitors that your business has. Do they have websites? If they do have a business website and you don’t, how much business are you losing to your competitors? By not having a website you are allowing your competitors to have an advantage over you in marketing their business. Having a professionally designed website for your business will eliminate the marketing advantage that your competitors have, plus it will open the door to gaining new customers from the Internet.

Tom Rumish Website Development, specializes in custom designed small business websites.

As your partner, we will take the time to sit down with you and truly listen to your website needs to create the best possible solution for you. We go to great lengths to ensure that we thoroughly understand your unique website wants and needs, by genuinely listening to what you have to say about your goals, needs and budget. We treat each client like you’re our only client because we’re small enough to make truly personal service our priority.

If your business does not have a website or if your existing website is outdated and not helping you gain new customers I urge you to contact Tom Rumish Website Development for a free, no obligation consultation. Now, more than ever, you need an small business website design that will truly work for you.

We accept Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express and PayPal.

Tom Rumish Website Development
P.O. Box 362
Sandwich, IL 60548-0362
(815) 786-8573
http://www.tomrum.com/
tomrum@tomrum.com