The Point

When the rains come in your business, instead of slowing down the progress you’re making, holding off on the next great thing, and getting in line behind your competitors, you should step out where the visibilities a little better, and see what you can do to make your Unique Selling Proposition resonate with your target audience.

However, most local business owners struggle with whether search engine optimization is important for them. After all, their reach is seldom beyond the region around their physical location. So, why would they concern themselves with ranking high in the search engines?

Here are three reasons local business owners need to consider their position in search results.

Declining Use of the Yellow Pages

The number of people who use the print edition of the yellow pages continues to decline. Even the Yellow Pages themselves admit to a 2% drop in usage. On the other hand, searches on the online version of the yellow pages was up 22% in 2009.

Even on standard search engines, more and more people are simply running searches and adding geographical terms to find the businesses they need. If they want to find a plumber in their hometown they'll search for "plumbers" and add the town name.

Does this mean that the yellow pages are on their way out?

No. But, it does mean that they'll be changing. At some point in the near future, developing a print version of the Yellow Pages simply won't be as cost effective as putting those resources into their online product. At that point, the print version will cease to exist.

Rise of Universal Search

If you've run a Google search in recent months, you may have noticed a change in the results. If you enter the term "dentists" or "realtors" into Google's search box and run a search, you'll see something interesting show up at about position four on the search results.

It's a little box that pulls data from Google local and inserts it into the main search results. We call it a ten-box, is a part of Google's new universal search, and it means two things for local businesses.

First, it means that if you rank high in local search, you can instantly hit position four on a google search. In essence, what universal search is doing is it's assuming that you really want a dentist or realtor in your geographic region rather than one from across the country. So, Google finds out your IP address and gives you local results near that IP address.

The second thing this means to local businesses is...

If you're not on Google local, Yahoo local, and Bing local, you're missing out an amazing opportunity.

Personalized Search

Many people who use Google as their primary search engine have an iGoogle account. Google presents this as your opportunity to customize Google just the way you like it. In truth, it's just another way for Google to collect data.

Google then uses that data to feed you the search results it "thinks" you really want to know about. When you run a search in your iGoogle account, Google first checks your browsing history in iGoogle and uses that to determine what results you're probably looking for.

Don't have an iGoogle account? Google still personalizes search results based on the location of your IP.

So, what does this mean for local businesses?

When people in your community run searches, if at all possible, Google will feed them results in their local area (whether they type in a town name or not). Businesses who are doing SEO will show up and those that aren't will miss an opportunity to get in front of possible customers.

Welcome to the New World

The drastic rise in the importance of SEO doesn't negate the value of other streams of advertising and marketing. Very few businesses can survive on search engine marketing alone. However, if you're not making some effort to get your business found in the search engines, you're missing out on some pretty inexpensive traffic.

A quick Google search of "logo design" will yeild millions of results. Most of the top results are the "free logo maker" or the "$99 special". But are these top results in Google the best value for businesses?

Custom logo design is the beginning to a business‘s marketing success. While a good logo can't make a bad product or bad business instantaniously successful, a good logo is the fundemental corner stone on which the rest of the company should be built. I know that calling a logo the cornerstone of you business may seem like I'm putting a lot of emphasis on what most think is a small portion of your business, but consider this situation with me and see if you can follow my train of thought on the matter.

A small business has a wonderful idea of how to make a forever sharp set of kitchen knives from recycled tires, let's call them The Rubber Knife Co. This is the core of the business, a great idea. The next step for these rubber knives is branding.The logo is the single expression of what the company is all about. It's the face of the company, the personality, the core value of who they are, or at least it should be. This critical step is the difference between a lasting first impression and a forgettable meeting with the distributer in the grocery stores. It's the difference between someone thinking that these rubber knives are hoax, based on looking at the box, and thinking that these are the real deal. How could this be? There have been many studies done on emotion and memory. Evoking emotion in a person is the best way create a lasting impression. The emotion that your logo envokes in it's viewers, directly defines how memorable your logo is.

The Rubber Knife Co. decided to let one of there friend's son, who's 14, design the logo. The son designs The Rubber Knife Co. a wonderful Web 2.0 looking logo, complete with the reflection on the bottom. This first step has set the direction for the company. From here on, all future designs whether they be business cards, packaging, web sites, infomercials, the whole bit, will be based on the Web 2.0 logo.

So let's analyze The Rubber Knife Co.'s effectiveness in reaching there target market with their logo. Or have they even considered that? Is Web 2.0 the direction that a company focused on recycling and earth friendly products should be going towards?

For the most effective reach, build your brand on a solid logo that will easily extend into all future marketing materials.

If you are looking for logo design, check out our work or consider entering our latest logo promotion.

• First place will receive our Basic Logo Package for free, a $600 value. This logo package includes three original concepts and one revision. This can also be used as a credit towards one of our other logo packages.
• Second place will receive 50% off of our Basic Logo Package or a $300 credit towards any of our other logo packages.
• Third prize will receive a $100 credit towards any of our logo packages.
• A consolation prize will be awarded a set of 2009 Crashbox Creative business cards, autographed by Jonathan and Brad.

If you or someone you know has a logo that sucks, send a copy to mylogosucks@crashboxcreative.com and tell us why your logo sucks and why you need a new one. Also include your name, phone number, email address, city and state, and a description of your business. You must be the decision maker of the business to submit your logo.

Make sure to become a fan and follow us on Facebook to receive the latest information regarding giveaway.

Official Rules and Details

• Submitters must be willing to admit "My logo sucks" (on video if chosen as a winner) and are willing to have their logo presented in that regard as part of this contest.
• Submitters must be the organizations decision maker.
• By submitting a logo, the submitter gives permission to Crashbox Creative to use the logo (and information provided) on the Crashbox Creative website, Facebook, and other marketing purposes.
• Winners must be willing to complete Crashbox Creative's project requirements (communcation with Crashbox, questionnaire, completion of service agreement, etc) in order to receive free or reduced services.
• All submissions must be made via email to mylogosucks@crashboxcreative.com. Submissions must include a copy of the logo, a written statement regarding why "My logo sucks", description of the business, name, phone number, email address, city, and state.
• Entries will be accepted through May 31, 2010.
• First place will receive a free Basic Logo package or $600 credit towards other logo packages; second place will receive $300 credit towards a logo package; third place will receive $100 credit towards a logo package.
• Rules and guidelines are subject to change.

Sometimes months go by and the search engines still aren't finding their site.

We were recently approached by the owner of The OnTime Machine about this very issue. He created a site for his business, but after weeks of waiting and checking Google's index, the site still hadn't showed up.

If you're in this same situation, here are a few tips for getting your site into Google's index.

Submit Your Site to Some Directories

Find a bunch of online directories in your niche. If your business is a local one, like The OnTime Machine, sign up for Google local, Yahoo! Local, Bing Local, Yelp, the online Yellow Pages, and other local online directories.

First of all, this gets your business into the right directories for your area. Fewer and few people are picking up the phone book to look for products and services, and more and more are turning to their computers and smart phones to search out appropriate businesses.

The second thing this does is alert the major search engines that you have a new website. Their crawlers will then check out your site and put you on their crawl schedule. Every 10 days they'll come back to see if there are any changes that need to be indexed. Of course, if they don't find changes they'll put off returning to your site until later, but we covered that when we discussed why search engines love blogs. That should help you keep those search engines coming back on a regular basis.

Visit Some Industry Blogs and Make Some Comments

Go to Google's blog search tool and search for something in your industry. If you're a lawn care provider, do a search for "lawn fertilizers." If you're a lawyer, search out your particular specialty. Read some of the blogs and make some comments.

Notice that most of these blogs have a place to enter your website address. Do that.

This technique will do two things for you. You'll learn some new stuff about your industry, and you'll make others (including search engines) aware of your new website.

Found at Last

Take one night to follow these suggestions. Then give it a week or two and you'll discover that the search engines have finally found your long lost website.

I try to make it a habit to go to the gym on Saturday mornings. It’s not quite as habitual as I’d like it to be, but I’m working on that. A few weeks ago, I headed for the treadmill with the goal of doing 30 minutes of intense cardio. In my gym there are 15-20 TV’s in the cardio area. I was looking for the best treadmill in front of something that would keep my mind far away from the pain. I jumped on in front of Law and Order. I knew that the interesting storyline and the twisting plot would keep me entertained. The only problem was I didn’t have any headphones and the TV’s don’t have closed captioning.

What I thought was the best location for my run soon proved to be rather disappointing. Without audio or closed caption I was lost. I couldn’t tell if that was the good guy or the bad guy in the interrogation room. I soon lost interest, but what did get my interest, you guessed it, the cartoons. I don’t know the name of the show, yet even still today I distinctly remember the story line, without audio or closed caption mind you. I watched as the hero daughter of the show worked to save her father from his own stupidity. But I can’t tell you a single detail from Law and Order.

The Point

It’s the simplest messages that often leave the strongest impression on us. We often get approached by businesses that have a super complex message that they want to cram into a 1”x2” newspaper ad or worse yet, there logo. But let this little observation show you that simplicity is the key to getting your target market to remember you. Short, Clear, Simple, Concise – the recipe to success.

Merging Old and New Without Wiping Out Branding Efforts

Warren Lamb & Associates has been providing secure electronic data interchange and electronic commerce technology strategies for healthcare, financial, and media industries since 1989. So, prior to their website redesign, they had established a strong presence in their industry.

Crashbox sought to give the Warren Lamb & Associates website a professional facelift without nullifying any of the company's branding efforts.

The existing Lamb logo and existing company colors were incorporated into the site to maintain company identity while still allowing a complete overhaul of the existing website. These elements help Warren Lamb & Associates' return visitors answer the first question a website needs to answer.

Where am I?

A complete website redesign without some of these transitional elements might leave return visitors confused as to whether they have come to the right website and might cost the company some critical business.

The Site Structure of the Website Redesign

Site structure of the new website redesign revolved around allowing site visitors to find services in two ways.

First of all, if a visitor knew what business area they data security for, they needed a quick way to find out if Warren Lamb & Associates provided services in that area. So a mouseover drop-down menu was implemented to give home page visitors a quick list of links to the variety of business areas in which Warren Lamb & Associates specialized.

Secondly, visitors in specific industries such as healthcare, media, and finance, who were seeking ways to secure their digital documents and securely transmit those files, needed a quick look at the industries in which Warren Lamb & Associates specialize. Drop-down menus from the home page along with introductory copy on the various industries the company specializes in, allow visitors to quickly identify their industry before learning about the various services Warren Lamb & Associates provide in those industries.

Going Wider Instead of Deeper

Finally, the website was redesigned in such a way that each page of the site can easily be reached from the home page. Visitors rarely go too many clicks deep on a website. If the site doesn't have quick and easy access to all content, the website loses visitors, and, consequently, customers.

So, the Warren Lamb & Associates website was structured in such a way that every single page can quickly be reached from the home page.

A good threshold for website structure is four clicks deep. Visitors really don't want to click more than four times to get the content they're looking for. The new Warren Lamb & Associates site takes navigation ease to the next level making it simple for visitors to find the information they're looking for and make a quick decision.

Website Redesign Facelift

Website redesign is in a completely different category from websites that are designed from scratch. Navigation speed must be improved, conversion rates increased, and a professional edge must be presented. However, if the company isn't re-branding, careful attention must be paid to maintaining consistency in the transition.

If you're thinking of redesigning your website, contact Crashbox Creative. We'll help you do it right.

Using Visuals to Convey Your Message

We've all heard the old saying "a picture is worth a thousand words." It's become such a well-known saying because it's so true.

Your sales message, whether online or print, needs to convey a great deal in a very confined space. There's often a lot you need to tell your prospective customers, but you just don't have room. Design can speak volumes literally in an instant.

At a glance, prospective customers get a sense of what your product or service can do for them. They get a feel for the type of company you are. They sense your company's quality standards, and more. And, they aren't even conscious of it because powerful design speaks volumes in a moment.

Good Design and Layout Captivates

Take the most incredible marketing copy ever and present it to your prospective customers with a shabby design. You'll absolutely ruin any marketing power the piece might have.

Ugly or mis-sized fonts, poor color choice, or clunky graphics can destroy the potential of a good marketing piece.

On the other hand, great design grabs attention. It stands out among the myriad of other marketing pieces flooding your prospective customers. Then, once its grabbed their attention, the design pulls them into the copy by catching their attention in micro-bursts.

Embedding in Long-Term Memory

Every Christmas one of the most popular commercials is Coca Cola's polar bear commercials. What stands out in our memory about those commercials is the polar bears. The message we get from that image is one of family spending time together during the holidays, enjoying each other's company, and having a lot of fun. And, Coke is a part of it all.

What words appear during the commercial? None. We get all those warm holiday feelings and associate them with Coca Cola, and the commercial doesn't actually use words to convey their message.

That's the power of great design. It can create, in a prospective customer, all kinds of feelings and desires. It can give your company the exact image you want, whether that's professional or family or fun. Invest in good design. It really pays off.

Wait! Where are My Title and Description

The title and meta description are both found in what web designers call the header of your page. It's just a little bit of code that a web developer puts into your website. The code looks like this...

<title>Title and Description for Marketing and SEO | Crashbox Creative, LLC</title>
<meta description>Title and description are for more than just SEO. They are the only thing that gets searchers to click to your site. Craft them carefully.</meta>

If you look way up at the top of this browser window, you'll see one of the things the title tag does for your website. See how the top of your browser window says "Title and Description for Marketing and SEO | Crashbox Creative, LLC?" That's one of the things the title tag does.

More importantly, the title tag shows up in search results. Take another look at the sample title and description above. When this page shows up in search engines, the title tag becomes the blue link you see at the beginning of each search result. The description is the text below that link.

Both title and description play a major role in how you rank in the search engines, but that's not all they do.

To Click, or Not to Click

Imagine for a moment that one of your important web pages has been well optimized for search engine ranking and comes up at #1 on Google. Does that mean everyone's going to click on it?

Not necessarily.

If the title and description for the second position on Google appear more likely to be what the searcher is looking for, they're going to pass up your page for the next one in line.

On the flip-side, if your page only ranks #3 or #4 but has a better title and description, people will pass up #1 and #2 to click on your page.

Your title and description need to be optimized for search engines, but they also need to have a lot of marketing pull. It's a balancing act, no doubt about that, but if you balance the two nicely, you'll get a lot more traffic to your website.

Search engine rank is a key concern for Discount Online Parts. High search engine rank means more traffic for the outdoor power equipment dealer and adding more pages means more opportunity to rank well in search engines.

Solution: Add a Blog to the DOP Website

One of the best ways to add more content to a website is by developing a blog.

When regularly maintained, a blog continually adds pages to a site. Adding pages makes a website fresh, and that's something that search engines like. Each page gives us the opportunity to optimize another page for ranking in the search engines.

In addition, a blog provides customers with information they are seeking. Buyers trust sellers more readily when the seller has proven that they have the buyer's well-being in mind.

We established a blog to accomplish both these things for Discount Online Parts.

Result: Increased Sales

One of the blog posts hit #1 on Google within a couple weeks. A prospective customer read the post, went to DOP's website, and made a purchase.

Discount Online Parts was thrilled about the impact of their blog.

The customer found some helpful information about the part and found the part at a great price. Discount Online Parts not only made a sale, but, most likely, a return customer when other parts are needed.