Remember when you didn't know what you know now?

I have, naturally, been talking to friends and colleagues about topics for this blog. One suggestion was to discuss what challenges I have faced being a small business owner myself. This led to the topic of how hard it is to unlearn what you already know. I amassed a lot specific knowledge of this business, but it's hard to go back and remember what I didn't know when I started out, and I bet it's the same for you.

When clients are planning their websites, I advise them to think like a user, but it's much easier to impart what you know than to think as if you didn't have that knowledge.

Think of how they found your site— what did they search for? Did they even do a search, or did they find a link and follow it? Who do you expect your users to be?

If you sell widgets, you can likely narrow down your audience and have a good idea of what they hope to learn at your site. If you can think back one more step, you can discover what sites your buyers may have come from. Aside from a search engine, they may have been on an industry or trade show journal site, or maybe a social networking site. This shows you where to look for links/referring pages. If you use a particular material to make your widgets, maybe the manufacturer of that material would like a reciprocal link. Or perhaps both you and your buyers are members of the same industry association- be sure you have a listing there that includes your website address as well as your contact info. Associations that cater to your target buyers will benefit you more than associations that include your competition. If you sell services, look for general business sites, publications and groups.

If your services are used by more than one industry, you can configure several sites, each catering to one of them. This will incur additional costs, so start with one main site first and add others later. You can have different referring links point to different pages within your site, too. If you sell blue widgets and red ones, refer blue widget buyers to the blue page and red widget buyers to the red widget page. Remember, links to your site boost your search engine results, and other website owners are looking for links for the same reason.

Put our knowledge and expertise to work for your business— visit our webpage and then contact Canzani Graphics today!