The local Yellow Pages is running a radio campaign to promote advertising in the Yellow Pages. In one spot they use a business owner to talk about how successful his Yellow Pages ad is. In it he states that over 80% of his traffic comes from his Yellow Pages ad. 80%! Talk about putting all your eggs in one basket.

I’m sure the Yellow Pages loves this figure but as a business owner I’d be worried if such a large percentage of my enquiries came from the one source. It’s the same argument you’ll read online about relying on Google for all your traffic.

When marketing your business you should be focusing on promoting your business in a variety of ways both online and off. This will ensure that your referrals come from many sources including search engines, word of mouth, newsletter promotions, Yellow Pages and so forth. Apart from widening your net this ensures that should you receive a drop in traffic from one source you’ll take comfort knowing you have plenty of others to keep those referrals coming in. If you don’t you’ll like that Yellow Pages campaign from a while ago “Not Happy Jan“.

I was reading an article on the pitfalls of using stock photography recently. Basically a Chicago based online pet business bought a stock photo of a pet to use on their website only to discover:

I bought a stock photo of a dog for my website and it has become our unofficial mascot. Recently, I discovered that another pet site is using the same photo. Can I stop the site from using it?

Unfortunately unless you have an exclusive license or have contracted a photographer to take the photo for you you have no exclusivity to it and anyone can use it. And therein lies the rub. What may seem like a cheap option (stock photos can be bought from as little as $1) can end up being an expensive lesson.

More and more businesses, including large corporates, are going down the stock photography path and are being embarrassed by finding images they’ve used in campaigns being used by competitors, making it difficult for consumers to tell brands apart.

When using photographs in your website or marketing materials it often pays to spend a little money and have them done by a professional photographer. Not only will they look better, you are guaranteed that all the hard work you’ve spent in building and promoting your brand can’t be undone by a competitor simply buying the same image/s and muddying the water.

Uniqueness is important in business - don’t drop the ball by making it easy for others to copy you.

My husband’s family traditionally celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve. As part of that tradition the Christmas meal is continental frankfurters and potato salad. We’ve taken on that tradition and now host a Christmas Eve gathering for all our friends and family.

Invariably the potato salad making is left to me, and I always make two. One with bacon, sour cream and mustard and one with beetroot, boiled eggs and mayonnaise. They both always turn out perfectly (yup I’m a great cook ) and both are delicious, but each year everyone raves about the beetroot one, and requests the recipe, and nothing is said about the bacon and sour cream version.

This year, while cleaning up I was commenting on this fact to my husband. I wondered if my bacon and sour cream potato salad was no good. He assured me it was fine but the beetroot one was just brilliant. I had one of those zen moments: it’s all about being remarkable!

For those in the know, being remarkable was the phrase, and concept, coined by Seth Godin in his brilliant book Purple Cow. Seth’s premise is in order to succeed in business today you’re either remarkable or invisible.

My beetroot potato salad is remarkable. My bacon and sour cream potato salad is invisible.

If you’ve not read Purple Cow I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Over the years I’ve had a lot of really, really fantastic people give me advice on building and promoting my web design business.

Today I received an email from someone starting out and asking me for advice. I was flattered and more than happy to give back.

I thought I’d sumarise some of my points for others out there looking at building a web design business. In no particular order:

Find a niche. There are so many web design companies out there you have to really think about what makes you different. Do you want to specialise on one particular area? Are you known for something or is there something you could be known for? A great book to read is Purple Cow by Seth Godin. Seth talks about transforming your business by being remarkable.

Get your website online. Now! This is one mistake I made and really wish I hadn’t. Learn from me.

Learn about markets as conversations and having a human voice. Another must read: The Cluetrain Manifesto. You can buy it or read it online.

Join some relevant forums and start conversations and make connections. I spend most of my time at Cre8asite Forums under the nic sanity. Others to consider:

• Webmaster World
• SitePoint Forums
• Digital Point Forums

Forums are a way of getting help and advice, sharing help and advice, showing off your skills and of course - networking.

Write articles.

Start a blog.

Get links to your website!

Collect and post testimonials on your website.

Add case studies or a portfolio to your website. If you haven’t done a lot of sites yet look around and see if you can offer your services to a charity or something similar.

This list is by no means exhaustive but I hope it offers some advice for those just starting out. Trust me, we’ve all been there.

Good luck!

Seth writes an great post about Under New Management notices:

If I liked your store before, now I’m on notice to be careful–it might not be as good.

If I didn’t like your store before, why on earth am I paying attention to your little sign and why should I go out of my way to take another chance?

If you aren’t reading his blog you should be.

Daz over at On SEO Pond writes a great post How many enquiries are you missing out on?

Sadly this happens far too often online too. How many times do you email a company and get no response? Or a response that takes 5 days. I can’t see the point of having a website if you don’t reply to enquiries or take your time in doing so?

Online your website and fast communication is how you are judged. What sort of impression are you making?

I bought two products online last Friday: a tube of shaving cream for my hubby from Hong Kong and a tube of moisturiser for me from Hoppers Crossing (a 15 minute drive from where I live).

Both offered free shipping which, whilst not a deciding factor, was certainly a nice bonus. So which one do you think turned up first thing Monday morning? Nope, it was the shaving cream from Hong Kong. Usually I wouldn’t have expected it until tomorrow. Seriously.

Now I’m not critising the Hoppers Crossing place - I purchase from there regularly and always receive my goods in a timely fashion, but less than one business day from Hong Kong, that’s sensational. It’s the type of online shopping experience I want to tell all my friends about. Thanks StrawberryNET!

Invariably when I tell someone I’m a website designer I’m asked what a website could do for their business. Of course my answer varies depending on the type of business they have but in most cases I say a lot!

Whether you’re a small, local business or a huge multi-national, a website can be used to provide information, sell products, gather leads, sign up subscribers or promote your services.

Just as there’s many types of businesses there’s many types of website - from a small, few page site, to a huge, e-commerce shopping website. It can be geared towards an international market or a local market - or both! Whatever your goals and demographic, a website can help you further your business.

Here are some examples:

A Website For a Local Business

Whether you’re the local dentist or landscape gardener, a website is a way to provide information about you and your business to your prospective customers. It can be used to support other forms of advertising, such as the Yellow Pages or local newspaper, where you generally don’t have a lot of space to sell your message. Simply include your website address and your prospects can go online and read the rest of your message.

You can also use your site for local promotions, networking with other businesses or offer additional information not available elsewhere.

A Website for a Country Specific Audience

Expand your audience by selling to a wider range of people. Your site could also be a cost effective way of providing support - such as Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s) and accept payments online.

Depending on your offering you could also hook up with people offering a similar product/service in other states and service a larger area.

A Website for an International Audience

The big one - an international audience. With an international audience you are able to target a much wider market, perhaps even a market you never considered before.

Whatever your business a website enables you to be open 24×7, 364 days a year. It helps you connect with your prospects and customers and promote your business in a timely manner. All in all a website is a fantastic marketing and selling tool for anyone serious about their business.

Business cards are an overlooked marketing tool. As well as providing your business details they can be used to promote what you do. In fact I often like to suggest to clients that adding information about their business and/or products and services can be a great way to remind prospects who you are 6 months after they got your card.

One of our members at Cre8asite, Patricia, has taken this one step further and asked whether a business card is an appropriate place to add a promotion. Liz, one of our mods,  has grabbed this idea and run with it questioning the benefits of adding your URL (website address) and a reason to visit the site.

It’s an interesting discussion so feel free to drop in and add your thoughts.

I went to a new yoga class today (which is why I’m ever so relaxed dear reader ). It’s a new school and their identity, marketing materials and even the studio itself are beautiful. Being new, and a Thursday morning, I was also lucky enough to be the only student so effectively had a private lesson. The way they are set-up and marketing themselves I don’t expect that to last long.

They even have a website (this is Australia - it’s not that common yet) and whilst it’s not search friendly it’s beautiful and provides enough information about them and their classes. They also advertise their website address everywhere. The only problem, it contains a dash: yoga-path.com.au and they don’t seem to own the alternative, yogapath.com.au.

This is problematic for a number of reasons:

1. They’ll loose a lot of traffic to people who type in the domain with no dash.
2. There’s a chance a competitor (or domaineer) may snap up the alternative domain.
3. The dash makes it harder for it to pass the billboard test. What’s the billboard test? Is it easy for someone to remember if they saw it on a billboard? I know I kept forgetting it and finally stopped and picked up a brochure to remind me.

When choosing your domain name make sure it’s as close to your business name as possible. If there are variations or common misspellings it’s worth registering them to.

If it’s a business you plan to market overseas make sure you have the .com version as well as the one for your own county code (.com.au in Australia).

This may seem like a minor deal right now but believe me you’ll appreciate your foresight down the track.

Me being me, I did make this suggestion to my teacher at the end of the class and she was really appreciative. Unfortunately it turns out yogapath.com.au has already gone.