Author Archive for Lisa

Small Business Website Gets a Face Lift

By Lisa · Comments (0)
Wednesday, April 6th, 2011

Sometimes just a little botox will do it. But in this case, our client’s website was overdue for a complete face lift. Touchstone Sports launched their website in 2005, featuring their sports memorabilia products to Vancouver retailers and restaurants. It was created in (much like many websites of its era) Front Page. Needless to say, this website needed a bit of a ‘freshening up’ so to speak. So, the web design team at Stand Out Online recently gave Touchstone’s website an overhaul- building it within WordPress and optimizing it for search engines. TouchStoneSports.com now features a full online catalogue so that their purchasers can scout out the hottest sports memorabilia prior to making an order. The best part about their new website is that they can maintain it completely on their own! They can upload new products with the click of a button and their website automatically puts the new memorabilia item on its appropriate page. It doesn’t get better than that! Oh- actually, maybe it does. TouchStoneSports.com is completely iPad and iPhone compatible and they are already getting more calls than with their old website. We think you’ll agree that TouchStoneSports.com looks 10 years younger with her new nip and tuck!

small business web design before small business web design after
Before After
(click the above website thumbnails to enlarge)
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Categories : Search Engine Optimization, Small Businesses, Stand Out Online Marketing Inc., Website Design
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4 Tips to Grow Your Small Business’ Email List

By Lisa · Comments (0)
Monday, December 13th, 2010

increase-email-subsrcribersEmail marketing is a great way for your small to medium size business to get lots of leads and keep your customers informed about your business. However, you will most likely find that after the initial flurry of the first sign-ups the subscribers have dwindled. Here are some tips to make sure that your email list keeps growing.

  1. Ensure your sign up form is on every page of your website….and your Facebook page too! Making sure it is easy to find is gold.
  2. Is your offer compelling, make sure that the value of your messages to your subscribers is the incentive that your small business targets.
  3. Make sure you are using social media in conjunction with your email marketing to strengthen your following.
  4. Are you encouraging your email to be forwarded by your subscribers? If they find the information of value then they are likely to forward to there friends. Be sure to include a link to your sign up page.

Having a large email and social following is not easy! It takes a lot of work and time. But the end result is that your customers win with valuable information that will keep them coming back to you!

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Categories : Email Marketing, Facebook, Foursquare, Linkedin, Small Businesses, Social Media Marketing, Twitter
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Google Places Pages Are More Important Than Ever For Small Businesses

By Lisa · Comments (0)
Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010

Did you hear!? Google introduced their new ‘Place Search’ recently. With over 20% of searches on Google related to location, what does this mean for small businesses? Our take on it is that it is now more important than ever to not only have a Google Places page, but it is also extremely important to optimize it, and link to your website.

Google Places for Small BusinessGoogle’s local ‘Places’ pages have been given more prominence in Google’s results, which in turn is drastically changing the way the organic search results are displayed. This is most likely a result of Google’s constant movement towards delivering the most relevant results to their users. Yay, Google we say!

The Google Places results will now be front-and-center when Google determines that a local search is being conducted. If not, the Google user can still use the ‘Places’ link that appears in the left-hand panel of the search results. The ‘Place’ search marks pins on a map for the given location by grouping together the search results. The map is now appearing on the right-hand side of the results page, where traditionally the 4th to 6th sponsored links appeared- now the right-column sponsored links are moving down.

Did you know!? Google Places allows you to upload your business logo, specify your hours, methods of payment and even add specials and promotions on a monthly basis. You can even embed videos, showcase photos and more. If you aren’t on Google Places, you may have an ‘unclaimed’ listing and you may even have reviews from your customers! Get on Google and check it out today- claim our listing and start using the restructured ‘Places’ pages to your small business’ advantage! The best part? It’s FREE- you just have to take the time to set it up. Or, if you are a Stand Out Online customer- we will set one up for you included with most packages.

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Categories : Google, Search Engine Optimization, Small Businesses

Hootsuite For Small Businesses

By Lisa · Comments (0)
Friday, October 22nd, 2010

A common question that we get asked by our small business website clients is “How should I manage updates to my Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn?” There are so many options out there! You can have your Twitter updates feed your Facebook, you can have your Facebook feed your Twitter updates…. So what do you do?

To simplify the whole process, we recommend Hootsuite. It is like a social network ‘hub’ and allows you to easily update your Twitter, Facebook status, Facebook Page, LinkedIn and WordPress  all in one place- even for multiple profiles. Hootsuite helps time-starved small business owners keep their sanity.

hootsuite for small businessesHootsuite not only helps you streamline all your updates through one place- it also allows you to easily launch marketing campaigns, identify and expand your audience and deliver targeted messages across multiple channels.

The social media dashboard within Hootsuite allows you to schedule updates to Twiter, Facebook, LinkedIn and WordPress through their web, desktop and mobile platforms (yes, you can get Hootsuite on your iPhone!)

What could be better, right? Well, Hootsuite also allows you to track your campaign results so that you can quickly and confidently adjust your marketing strategies.

Stop wasting time! Go sign up at Hootsuite.com now! Did we mention it’s FREE? If you’d like a mini Hootsuite training session, please contact us and we’ll come help you out!

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Categories : Facebook, Linkedin, Social Media Marketing, Twitter, WordPress
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5 Reasons Why WordPress Rocks for Small Business Web Design

By Lisa · Comments (0)
Friday, October 8th, 2010

We’ve talked a lot about our love for WordPress, but we haven’t elaborated as to why it is far better than all the typical offerings pitched to small businesses as a website solution (products from Yahoo!, Microsoft, Google, YellowPages.ca and others). It’s the tool that many of the Pros use and there are many good reasons for that. Here are five:

  1. wordpress for small businesGet Found!

    WordPress provides good search engine optimization (SEO) right out of the box. Google loves WordPress websites!

  2. Easy Updates!

    It is easy to update content on your website without knowing HTML.  There is no need to learn a complex HTML editor tool like Dreamweaver! Do you have to pay your webmaster every time you want to make a small change to your website? Well no longer – once WordPress is set up for you, you can easily edit your pages using a simple rich text editor. If you can use Microsoft Word, you can update your website. It’s that easy.

  3. Combine Your Website & Blog!

    It can be a web site, a blog or both. Having a blog on your website not only adds additional content for your customers, it also helps to boost your search engine ranking- and it can be built right in to your website! No need to have a separate blog!

  4. It’s Free!

    It really is free! It is called ‘Open Source’ software and it is available to anyone who wants to use it. If you need design and set up help- For less than $500, you can get a custom-designed web site and blog for what you’d pay a designer or programmer $2000-$5000 for!

  5. It’s Customizable!

    Infinite design and feature customization. Because it is open source software, thousands of programmers create plugins for it every day. That means you can expand your website and blog easily by installing any plugin that suits you!

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Categories : Search Engine Optimization, Small Businesses, Website Design, WordPress
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5 Reasons Why Small Businesses Need a Website

By Lisa · Comments (0)
Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010

Despite the rapid growth of the internet, surveys have shown that the majority of small business do not have a website. As more and more people are turning to the internet to obtain information, it is becoming expected that a business has a website. If you don’t, your business may be bypassed for your competition that does have an online presence.

  1. Your Competition is Online.

    Chances are your competition is online which gives them a huge advantage over your business- especially if they are leveraging online marketing potential and have a website that is optimized for search engines.

  2. Extend Your Hours.

    Many people look for information on the internet after business hours. With a website, information about your busines is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This allows your business to be as good as open, even if your establishment is closed.

  3. Offer Significant Information.

    Nowadays, more and more people are turning away from the traditional methods of finding information and looking online. Printed materials such as the Yellow Pages directories are being used less and less. Having a website allows you to offer a limitless amount of relevant information about your business.

  4. Canada is Online!

    With over 80% of Canadians online, you can’t afford not to have a presence there.

  5. Improve Customer Confidence & Your Corporate Image.

    With a professional website, you will instill confidence in your customers while improving your overall corporate image.

  6. Bonus Reason: Increase Your Revenue.

    According to the Small Business Administration, small businesses with websites average $1.07 million per year in sales more than small businesses that are not online. That equates to 39% higher revenue.

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Categories : Small Businesses, Website Design
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Google is the New Yellow Pages

By Lisa · Comments (2)
Saturday, September 11th, 2010

A hot topic over the past 12 months has been the future of Yellow Pages. What will happen to Yellow Pages in 5 years? Ten years? Is Yellow Pages dying? With their recent logo adjustment to remove the printed book and simplify to just walking fingers, it is clear that Yellow Pages is adjusting it’s approach in order to keep its advertisers and its users alike and switch to a online and print focus instead of their primarily print-focused perspective of the past.

That said, 80% of Canadians are online, and while Yellow Pages claims that 16 million Canadians use their network every month,  82% of all Google Searches are looking for local results as well. That’s some seriously tough competition.

google vs yellowpagesI decided to do a little digging on this topic as I’ve got one client who gets great ranking on Google and also does some decent Google AdWords advertising every month as well. He has also got a lot of eggs in Yellow Pages basket, but for this experiment I am looking only at his online Yellow Pages advertising. My recent number crunching concluded this:

  • His Yellow Pages advertising brought visitors to his website at a cost of around $7.50 each and accounted for 2% of his website’s traffic.
  • His Google Advertising brought visitors to his website at a cost of around $1.80 each and accounted for 35% of his website’s traffic.
  • Google Organic results brought visitors to his website at no cost and accounted for 40% of his website’s traffic.

That means that in total, Google brought my client 75% of his website’s traffic! Amazing.

After digging up these results it was amazing to me how successful Google is at bringing traffic to websites. That is what they do best. Deliver relevant results to their end users. In fact, Google is the highest traffic-driver for all websites that we host.

So in conclusion, Google is the rock and Yellow Pages walking fingers are the scissors. I think you know what happens next.

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Categories : Google, Search Engine Optimization

We Heart WordPress

By Lisa · Comments (0)
Tuesday, September 7th, 2010

Seriously. We at Stand Out Online <3 WordPress! It never ceases to amaze us every single day and we love to learn new things that WordPress can do. Not only is it an optimal solution for (we think) ALL websites as it allows you to update your website by yourself (read: you don’t have to pay us to do it!) from any computer that is connected to the internet. Our most recent discovery is the WP-Table Reloaded plugin. Dang. It does a heck-of-a-lot-of-work-for-ya!

Keep it coming, WordPress and keep it coming Plugin Programmers! You guys are awesome.

WordPress, will you marry us? Sincerely, Stand Out Online Marketing Inc. :)

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Categories : WordPress
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Where Did Stand Out Online Come From?

By Lisa · Comments (0)
Friday, September 3rd, 2010

Wondering how we came to be? Sometimes we ponder this also. Kidding.

Last year, Jason and Lisa (Co-Founders of Stand Out Online) decided that starting up a web design company that serviced Vancouver and area would be a great idea. There are a lot of great web design companies already in Vancouver, but Jason and Lisa wanted to offer a more affordable website option for small to medium sized businesses. Hence, a lot of conversations later…. Stand Out Online was born.

Through our wonderful content management system called WordPress, we are able to offer websites as cheap as $499 to get you started online. After all, we feel that everybody should have an opportunity to be online without breaking the bank.

Then come the updates, yes- the wonderful website updates. Many companies out there will charge you an arm and a leg… maybe even your first born…. to update your website. That’s not so fun for you, the business. At Stand Out Online we believe in empowering our customers to make their own website updates.

Yes, that means you, the business owner can update your website all by yourself. We will even train you how to do it and provide you with a leave-behind ‘How-To’ guide so you don’t get scared at the thought of having to do it yourself once we leave.

Even after we DO leave, you are never alone. We will always make ourselves available for you to walk you through or even do it for you if you need.

We make getting a website easy and affordable so that everyone can have one. “Websites for everyone!”, we say.

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Categories : Stand Out Online Marketing Inc., Website Design, WordPress
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