Author: Bob Rosenbaum

A surprisingly large number of owners still think their small business doesn’t need a website.

Among them are some of the smallest businesses, like handymen, gutter cleaners and house painters. But it also includes businesses with higher overhead and more at stake: mechanics, limousine services, even restaurants, retailers and professional service providers like lawyers and accountants.

A website isn’t a luxury – especially for small businesses. It can mean the difference between being perceived as a painting company and a guy with a ladder. Today, a website is like a telephone and a business card: Don’t even think of doing business without one.

Why you don’t have a website

Here are the five most common reasons small-business owners tell me they don’t need a website – along with some push-back.

1. I get all my business by word-of-mouth: That will likely be the case even with a website. But more and more, people who are referred to your business will try to look it up online before making a phone call. When they do, if they don’t find your business right away they will find competitors. You’ll never know how much business you didn’t get from direct referrals who discover you don’t have a website.
2. Most of my customers are older and don’t use the internet: According to already-outdated Pew Research, 6 out of 10 people 65 or older use the internet regularly. But even if all your customers are in that non-internet-using 40%, any new customers coming your way are likely to be younger.
3. All my customers are local; I don’t need a website to reach people in Idaho: If a website reaches people far away, it’s reaching even more people close to home. That’s because the major search engines all use geographic location in search results – especially on mobile devices which now account for more than half of all internet search activity. Reaching people outside your geographic area may not put money in your pocket, but it doesn’t hurt anything or cost extra.
4. I don’t have time to build a website, and I don’t have the money for someone to do it for me: Today, you can build a drag-and-drop website without any technical knowledge at little or no cost. Time and money are never the real reason – just indications that you don’t yet understand the true value.
5. I don’t have anything to put on a website: In my experience, this is the real reason most of these businesses aren’t yet online. When pushed to make a case why anyone should do business with them, they freeze. Organizing the description and value of your business can make your brain ache, but it’s critically important – and not just for your website. Going through the sometimes-difficult process of learning how to make your business seem unique will pay dividends in all aspects of what you do, and it’s the most important part of creating a website.

Why you need a website

A 2012 survey by Search Engine Land indicated 85% of consumers use the internet to find or qualify local businesses.

• For the smallest businesses, a website can act as an extra set of hands – providing information without you having to stop work to answer the phone.
• It also puts you on equal footing with larger competitors.
• With phone books having all but disappeared, it’s becoming the only way people can find you.
• Even the simplest website can present your business as organized and serious; it broadcasts that you want people to find you and learn about you. Not having a website says the opposite: that your business is marginal or indifferent.

Building a simple site

Lots of small businesses have integrated the Internet with their day-to-day operations by building feature-rich websites with blogs, e-commerce, appointment-schedulers and other add-ons. This can be valuable and has successfully transformed many businesses. But that may not be what you want.

A website does not have to change the way you do business. It doesn’t need to have state-of-the-art social media integration. It doesn’t need to be optimized to show up at the top of search engine rankings. There’s nothing wrong with a simple website that provides basic information and seldom changes.

There are three technical requirements to build your first website: A domain name (prices vary, but $15 a year is a fair, gimmick-free price); a hosting service (ballpark $120 a year) and a simple drag-and-drop platform on which to build your website (free). The large hosting services like GoDaddy and 1&1 provide everything you need in one place (and you’ll enjoy the experience about as much as a trip to Walmart on Dec. 24).

If you’re unfamiliar or uncomfortable with the process, ask for help from a friend who has already been through it; it’ll cost you a bottle of wine. Or pay someone who specializes in building small-business websites – who will help scale the project to your needs and budget.

The harder job for most people is figuring out what to put on the website. So make it simple. I suggest starting with just 4 pages:

Home: The introductory landing page that provides basic information about what your business does and who it serves.

Services: A page that goes into a little detail about what you offer. It doesn’t have to say much – just a list of the things you do.

About: A page that provides background about you and the business; use the same stuff that you say to prospective customers when trying to close a sale or deal with them.

Contact: It’s enough if you provide an e-mail address and phone number. Also include your mailing address – in case somebody wants to send you a check some day.

After the website is up and running, you may decide to add one or two more pages:

• Testimonials from customers
• A gallery of photos, if appropriate, of work you’ve done

One warning: Don’t illustrate your website with photos that you “scrape” from other websites or from Google Images. Most of these are copyrighted, and the cost if the copyright holder finds you (which is more likely than you think) can be exorbitant. If you need photos, try Pixabay.com or Stock.xchng, where photos really are free to use as long as you follow their guidelines.

Don’t worry about all the other fragments of knowledge you hear about building a good website. They all have their time and place. But for you, it’s enough to establish your online presence and then get back to business. You’ll be glad you did.

Voting for the 2015 Best of the Heights Awards continues for another four weeks – and it’s not too late to exploit it.

If  your business is located in Cleveland Heights or University Heights, this local recognition program provides an opportunity for free and low-cost marketing. Here’s how this year’s program works, and how to take advantage of it in your business:

How it works

People fill out nomination forms for their favorite Heights businesses in 19 categories, and those receiving the most votes are named “Best of the Heights” at an event on Oct. 7. Nomination forms are available in the Heights Observer (they’ve been running since May) and online through FutureHeights. It’s that simple.

How to exploit it for your own good

1. Nominate yourself. There’s nothing wrong with self-promotion, and nobody will ever know you were the first person to nominate the business. Ballots require your name and contact information, but that isn’t shared publicly; it’s just to make sure the nominations are valid. Here’s a link to the online form.

2. Ask staff, family and friends to nominate you too, and tell then what category they should use.

3. Ask customers – and let them know which category.  The very act of asking customers to nominate you puts them on your team and brings them closer to you. Here are ways to make it easy for them to nominate you:

• Keep a supply of forms on your counter (you can photocopy them right out of the Heights Observer; we don’t mind). Present them nicely, in a basket with a sign and leave another clearly-marked basket for completed forms. You can mail them or drop them off at the Observer all at once. (The Observer/FutureHeights office is in the former Coventry School.)
• Use your website and e-mail communications to ask people to nominate your business. Provide a link directly to the online form in those communications to make it as easy as possible. This is a welcome opportunity to communicate with customers without asking them for money. You’ll be surprised at how many are happy to engage with you at this level.
• Put a message on your company’s Facebook page and any other social media sites you use. Make it direct, something like: “Joe’s Eats” is excited to participate in this year’s Best of the Heights Awards. Help us by nominating us in the “Best Bar, Pub or Tavern” category. Here’s a link to the nomination form: http://bit.ly/htsbest.” (The link works; you can cut-and-paste it.)

4. Get your staff involved. Make sure everyone on your team knows this is a special initiative. Give each his or her own supply of forms (they can place their initials in a small spot in the corner) and offer a reasonable incentive – a cash bonus or gift certificate – to the staff member who brings in the most valid nominations.

5. Team up with friends in your business district. While you’re soliciting nominations, offer to suggest businesses in other categories if they’ll do the same for you.

6. If you’re a finalist or a winner, promote yourself. Put the honor into your advertising, on your letterhead template, in your e-mail communications, etc. Where appropriate, provide a link to the Heights Observer’s coverage of the winners (probably in October).

When all is said and done, the nominating process is a useful and refreshing way to promote your business. It engages your customers at a different level; it helps them think of your business not just for what it sells, but for how well it runs.

Even if your business is tiny or new and you think you have little chance of being named a finalist, the process is likely to strengthen some existing relationships and create new ones.

It might also reveal areas where you need to build up your marketing, such as building your Facebook network, or tidying up your customer database, or creating regular e-mail communications.

In the worst case, if you find people aren’t excited to nominate the business, you’ll have learned something important – and can begin looking for ways to improve the customer experience.

The Best of the Heights is designed to highlight and honor the many excellent independent businesses that are located here. But it’s also a platform for you to do  some honest self-promotion.

This is so simple, so obvious, it probably doesn’t need to be stated. Except that I first heard it a couple decades ago and have used it every day since. So maybe a brief mention:

The Productivity Matrix is a simple tool that helps you make sure you’re doing the right work at the right time.

Stephen Covey had a matrix like this in his iconic book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. That may be where I first saw it, though his is organized a little differently than the one here. But the point is the same: Everything you do fits somewhere within this matrix.

Items in Quadrant 1 are tasks that are not urgent and not important. It’s amazing how many of these come in each day by e-mail – and how easy it is become indentured to them. Working in Q1 is “Productive Procrastination.” You can tell yourself you’re getting something accomplished, but it’s never anything that matters.

Items in Quadrant 2 are urgent and not important. These are often other people’s emergencies – their failures to do the right thing at the right time. Regardless of origin, Q2 work is toxic – stressful yet pointless.

Items in Quadrant 3 are both urgent and important. Some Q3 work is an integral part of daily business – seating lunchtime customers at a restaurant, or doing the end-of-the-month billing. You can’t get ahead on this stuff.

But some Q3 activity exists because it simply didn’t get done sooner – like planning holiday sales promotions in mid-October. The work would have been more fruitful if it had been done in August. This kind of Q3 work can be tough on profits; it often results in extra expenses like expedited shipping and paid overtime. When big businesses undertake “process optimization” what they are really doing is figuring out how to reduce the number of tasks that end up in Q3.

Items in Quadrant 4 are the source of all things good in business and life. These not urgent  but important activities are things that matter – things to be pondered, polished and perfected. It is in Quadrant 4 that businesses are transformed, partnerships are sealed, successes are made, happiness is achieved.

It’s easy to get so wrapped up in stuff from the other quadrants that you can go days or weeks without ever touching Q4 work. But if you can schedule time every day – even a little –  to work in Quadrant 4 activities, you’ll find yourself spending more time on the things that matter and bring you joy. And as time passes, you’ll find that more of what you do works out well.