Inside Small Business | Small Business & Home Business Marketing

Homepage Hocus Pocus

The website was the single most important thing. All along I knew this, and the resulting procrastination was severe. First impressions count. Because my business was to be solely on line, the biggest influence on visitors would be how I looked on-monitor. Of course, you have to have good copy—nothing substitutes for that. But your home page says so much, not necessarily in words but in style.

Studying my competitors’ websites meticulously, I hated each and every one of them the entire time for having a share of the market that couldn’t yet see me even if they tried. What was surprising about the homepages of the most popular mineral makeup websites—the ones showing up consistently in the left-hand column of Google searches—was the proliferation of bells and whistles: ads, blinking discount offers, seals of approval from official entities of one kind or another, imprints of logo designers, website creators, and hosting companies.

But was it this that made them popular? Instead, I settled on the look of sites in other areas in the Beauty category – the sleeker sites of small companies selling clothing, skin care, and giftware.

I still surf my competitors’ sites, at least weekly, in part to satisfy myself that I made the right decisions, or what I think were the right decisions. Today I continue to get glowing reviews about how beautiful my site is. These are not from friends and relatives, and at some point you just gotta believe. Weigh in, anyone!

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Social Media. Wazzat? Part Two

Some time ago I found a website called Squidoo, a place where anyone can write a mini-webpage on any topic. Mine is entitled “All Things Mineral Makeup” (www.squidoo.com/alicecosmetics), and the hyperlinks in it have sent more clicks to my Alice Cosmetics website than some of the pay-per-click ads I’ve done. Squidoo, it turns out, is a social networking site. Some of its peers are LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Twitter, and many, many more, each with its own format and concept. These sites typically include member profiles that give potential customers (or friends, or those with similar hobbies, etc.) a peek at who you are, what you like, what you are all about. And blogs are an integral part of this internet-relationship-building.

Social networking, I learned, is a new way to communicate with your target audience, a way of “having a conversation” with those who, increasingly, appreciate knowing you in a more personal way. As I learned in a webinar I attended recently, “the most credible source of information about a company is now ‘a person like me,’ which has risen dramatically to surpass doctors and academic experts for the first time.” This according to the Annual Edelman Trust Barometer, published by Edelman, the leading independent global PR firm.

The bonus? Hyperlinks on blogs and social networking sites also mean precious “backlinks” to your website, one of the things Google loves to see when it ranks your website.

Social network marketing can be a lot of work, but I’m a convert. Try it and let me know what you think.

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Social Media. Wazzat? Part One

I will never write a blog, I said to myself. Why would anyone want to hear my rambling thoughts about anything? Then I found out, and in doing so was introduced to the whole new world of internet marketing called social media, sometimes social networking, or, most appropriate for my purposes, social network marketing.

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Logo Agony

I’m a designer’s worst nightmare. With a background in graphic design, marketing, and corporate communications, I had particular and robust ideas about what I wanted. Okay, I’ll admit to being a recovering perfectionist as well, and doubtless that contributed to the lengthiness of the process. The actual passage of time was perhaps not unusual, but the many fits and starts and the angst surrounding them are unforgettable.

Entrepreneurs setting out to start a new company, in my opinion, would be wise to set aside a hefty budget for graphic identity. I did not. I wanted world-class design, however, and that is where Logoworks came in. Headquartered in Utah, Logoworks caters to small businesses. It designs logos, business cards, and websites inexpensively by using top-notch designers who never have to actually speak with clients. Instead, all communication takes place via formatted e-mail and account coordinators who do have to speak with clients.

What gave me pause was the distance (Cape Cod is more than a walk to the beach from Utah) and, more important, the consequent lack of day-to-day rubbing of elbows. In the end, I came away thinking the Logoworks formula is actually superior to working with one local designer, who would have had competing priorities. At each step of the way, it is spelled out how the process will work and how long turnaround times will be for each revision round.

The package I purchased from Logoworks included unlimited revision rounds for logo design. And it’s a good thing. Because when it came to satisfaction with the early concepts, I was less than enamored. Granted, my list of “theme” words was far-reaching: sophisticated, no-nonsense, innovative, light-hearted, new, fresh, natural, beautiful, intelligent. I also specified that the logo must not even hint of anything related to women’s cosmetics – no lipstick cases, no brushes, no frills. A tall task, indeed.

At the end of an arduous process, with many visions and revisions, I loved my logo and I love it still. It worked with business cards and packaging and printed materials and website and more. But, please, you be the judge. Does it do what I wanted?

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