Where do your customers come from?

Increasingly, the answer is "from the Web."

Most Americans now go directly to the internet, rather than the phone book. 80% of people in their thirties and forties shop online, as do more than half of senior citizens. 25% of shoppers in a recent survey said they always begin their shopping online, even when they plan to finish the transaction in a brick and mortar store.

There are some inplications here for your business.

First, you must have a web presence. This is no longer optional for any business. If you don't have a web site, your business will be invisible to a large percentage of your prospective customers.

Second, your web site needs to be good. The days when a simple page put together by a hobbyist could compete online are past. Since all your competitors are on the Web with you, you need a professionally designed, well-optimized web site. 

Third -- and this one might be less obvious -- you won't always be able to recognize the leads from your web site. If you thought that you could guess who found you online, or that your online sales or emails were the way you could measure your web results, you'll need to change your mind.

How do your online leads reach you?

• They call you. Since most of us now use the internet the way we used to use a phone book, your online visitors will find your phone number and call you.
• They walk into your business. Using the internet instead of the phone book brings your Web leads to your door. Using the internet for comparison shopping also brings customers into your place of business -- as long as your web site is designed with that in mind.
• They e-mail you. When customers e-mail you, you probably recognize them as online visitors. However, if your customer base includes young shoppers, you should know that they are less likely to e-mail than people in their thirties or forties. If you cater to the teen or student crowd, your web site should offer alternate means of online contact, such as Twitter or instant messenger, as well as phone numbers.
• They buy online. E-commerce continues to grow, in spite of economic uncertainty. In fact, since consumers believe that they can get the best deals online, economic uncertainty encourages online shopping. If you currently have an information site without an e-commerce option, it might be time to change that. Offer free in-store pickup to encourage local sales and benefit from the e-commerce boom at the same time. 

What are your action steps? Make sure your web presence carries the message that strengthens your business. Make sure you're providing the range of contact options your current and potential customers and clients need. And don't discount the power of your web presence to grow your business.

Contact Onsharp  -- by phone, in person, or by e-mail -- to learn how our exclusive 3D process can increase your leads and empower your business. 

With the growing demands of today's business world, who in your organization is taking the time to ensure that your company is thinking and acting strategically when it comes to doing business on the Web?

If you are like most businesses, then the answer is nobody.

Your marketing people may be more experienced and at ease with paper than with the Web. The truth is, people experience and interact with online marketing differently from how they interact with and use paper marketing pieces. Your marketing experts are very valuable for your online marketing efforts, but only if they partner with someone who really understands how the internet works.

Your IT people know your hardware and your software. They may not know about marketing, design, how search engines operate, or how your customers use the Web.

Your sales force knows your products and your customers. They may not have the technical skills needed to keep your web site fresh and profitable.

And if you're like a lot of businesses, and you don't have people who spend all their time on marketing, IT, or sales, you may not have the time to put into the online aspects of your business.

Onsharp's team is at the forefront of changing realities and technologies for the Web. Chance are, we can meet the needs of your online business faster, more successfully, and therefore with a better return on investment than you can achieve within your organization. Contact us today to learn more about our services.

If you've been reading this series of blog posts, you've made some progress with your web marketing strategy. You have a web site. Your customers can find your web site. They have a reason to come and visit your website repeatedly. Now, harness the power of hyperlinks to help your site reach its full potential. Hyperlinks -- usually just called "links"-- are words or phrases like the ones underlined in the previous sentences, which you can click on in order to visit another site that's related to the subject you're reading about. In this case, our links are heading to Parts I and II of this series of blog posts on "Making the Most of Your Online Investment."

Links are the internet's energy source.  Search engines use them to decide which sites are most trustworthy and important, and even to confirm the subject of a site. Perhaps even more important, they can bring traffic to your web site. When another site links to your web site, visitors to that web site can click on the link and visit yours. And, since a web site that they've already chosen to visit has suggested to them that they should visit you, they're likely to do so.

How can you gain links?

The easiest way is just to ask for them. People who do business with you can often give or trade links with you. Your suppliers, your vendors, and your customers will often be glad to offer you a little space on their web sites. Be ready to explain how your web site can be interesting or useful to the people who visit their web sites. And you might want to add a links page or section to your web site, too, so you can include links that will be helpful to your visitors. That allows you to swap links with businesses which share your target market.

Sometimes you can create links yourself. Do you have an account with any social media or business network site? Most of them allow you to post links to your business web site.

Here are some to consider:

• Facebook
• MySpace
• LinkedIn
• ZoomInfo
• Twitter
• Care2
• CafeMom
• Multiply
• Ryze
• Spoke
• Yelp

The thing to remember about social network sites is that they're for relationship building. You probably can't really build strong relationships at all the possible social media sites -- at least not if you still have a business to run. Set up a profile at each, with a link to your website, but don't try to keep up with all of them. Choose one or two and spend time there and get to know people. This will give you the maximum traffic -- and it can be fun and useful for networking, too.

You can also add your website to local directories in your area. Go to your favorite search engine and type in the name of your town and “local business directory” to find the truly local ones. Also consider these national sites with local pages:

• Hotfrog.com
• ShowMeLocal.com
• MerchantCircle.com
• MyHuckleberry.com
• Brownbook.net

It's time-consuming to add all these links, but worthwhile to establish your web presence. Choose your most tech-savvy staff to take on the job. If you'd rather not divert staff from essential tasks, contact Onsharp to learn how easily you can have our specialists take care of it for you. 

In Part I, we talked about ways to help the search engines -- and therefore your customers --  find your website. Onsharp's basic philosophy about successful web sites is simple: less is more, content is king, and outcomes determine success. "Content is king" refers to your initial web design, but it's also true that ongoing efforts with content can improve your web site's results.

Let's put this at its simplest. Now that you've made your web site findable, you need to make sure that your customers want to come to it.

Some visitors will visit your web site once, and contact you immediately. Others may need multiple visits to your site before they make up their minds to buy your goods or services. Others will become regular customers, making your web site a routine stop in their daily internet surfing.

If your web site is useful, entertaining, or a pleasure to visit, your customers will return regularly. Then, when they need your goods or services, they'll naturally think of you.

You need to give them a reason to come back. Here are some proven ways to encourage your visitors to bookmark your web site:

• Write a blog. A blog gives you the chance to update regularly (search engines love new content), and a way to share useful information with your customers. Answer the questions they often ask you in your shop, share tips for getting the most from your products, or provide news about your organization.
• Share links.  If your website is the easiest place for your customers to find those useful websites, they'll come to you first. There's an added advantage -- when you link to related web sites, they'll often link back to you, giving you more "votes" with the search engines.
• Give your customers something to do. If a game, contest, or survey fits your business or organization's image, you can expect your customers to stop by on their coffee breaks and play. Maybe your business is more suited to a downloadable page of safety tips or a practical checklist. Whatever suits your style, giving your visitors something to do will keep them at your web site longer and encourage them to visit more often. 

There are so many options for enhancing your web site, you may find it difficult to choose. You may also find that having Onsharp implement your ideas is a more cost-effective way to achieve them than diverting your staff to these tasks. Contact Onsharp's web strategy team to plan the best approach for your business.

SmartPay will be attending the Electronic Transactions Association Annual Meeting and Expo on April 22 and 23, at the Mandelay Bay Resort in Las Vegas.

We'll be there with our partner InterceptEFT for this year's big networking and training sessions. The Electronic Transactions Association is the professional network of the electronic billing industry. This year, educational sessions will cover issues like the future of checks, the implications of the current economic crisis, and the challenges of international payments.

It's an exciting time to be in this industry. Consumers are less likely to use cash (41% of American shoppers report this) and more comfortable with electronic transactions. This means that many businesses are having to go to electronic billing whether they feel ready or not. Some business owners are intimidated by the technology or concerned about the cost of installing software and training staff to use new programs.

At the same time, extensions of HIPAA regulations make security a bigger issue than ever. Any computer which stores sensitive information may have to be locked and require special security measures that can be time-consuming and costly to enforce. Ironically, while there are still some who worry about the security of online transactions, using secure online invoicing like SmartPay is the easiest and least expensive way to achieve HIPAA compliance. With SmartPay, all consumer payments take place online, at a secure portal, and no sensitive data resides in your office computers. Onsharp's SmartPay offers businesses of all sizes a secure, cost-effective way to initiate electronic transactions without an investment in software, new security measures, or specialized technical skills. ETA's commitment to consumer and business education makes them a great fit for us.

We look forward to seeing and being seen at the ETA Expo.

Congratulations! You have a new website. Now what?

You want to make sure that your customers can find you. Americans are now more likely to turn to the internet than to a phone book when they want basic information about a business. It's essential that your customers -- current ones and the ones who don't yet know that they're your customers -- can find you when they look for you at Google, Yahoo, or their favorite search engine.

Here's how that works: your customer visits Google, for example, and types in the name of your company. Google quickly searches around the web, looking for the best match for the words the customer typed in. Google finds your website, and offers it to the customer. The happy customer clicks on the name of your website, and ends up there. Unfortunately, it doesn't always happen that way. Sometimes your customer is offered other websites instead, and clicks on those sites' names, and doesn't end up at your website at all. Your goal is simply to make sure that the search engines recognize that your website is the best choice for the customer's search. 

How can you accomplish this?

The first and most essential step is to have a well-optimized website. This means that your site is designed, written, and built in such a way that search engines can easily find it and understand it. Onsharp web designs are always well-optimized, so you don't have to worry about that.

The next thing is to call the search engines' attention to your website. While all the major search engines send "spiders" -- electronic searchers -- all over the web, the truth is that large parts of the information online aren't indexed, or visited by the search engines. You can make sure that your website is found simply by telling the search engines that you exist. Click on the links below and follow all the instructions carefully to be sure that the search engines know you're online now.

• Yahoo!
• Google
• MSN
• DMOZ
• GetListed

We'll give you more ways to make sure the search engines offer your website to your customers in Part II.

Still, we know that you have a business to run. We'd like you to know that if you find the process of web marketing too time consuming or confusing, Onsharp can do it for you. Contact us to find out how easy it is to improve your return on your online investment.