1. How to Get the Most Out of Your Website
. US Kickstart America welcome address
Gene Marks intro
December 12, 2012

2. A website is a critical tool for doing business in today’s world
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3. Agenda Actual benefits a website can bring to your business
Best practices for localizing and optimizing your website for search
How to maximize your online leads via your website
Easy tips and tricks to keep your website up-to-date, protected and appealing to new customers
Why and how your domain name should align with your brand

4. Are SMBs visible online?
A recent Neustar survey found:
56% of SMBs have a website
44% do not have a website
Of those SMBs with a website:
75% said their website best serves business goals
The following is the demographics of the respondents of the Neustar survey:
SMBs in all regions of the country participated in the study.
76% have 10 employees or less.
Only 7% employ more than 100 people.
57% generate under $100,000 in annual revenue, with 22% grossing one million dollars or more each year.
The top industries were retail at 14% and technology and home goods/services both at 12%.
40%checked “other.”
33% have been in business less than 5 years
31% have been operating between 5-10 years
36% have been in business for longer than a decade.
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5. A website can help you… Raise awareness and reach new customers
Convert visitors to the website to new customers
Increase revenue and company performance
Protect Your Brand
Compete on a local and global level based on you customer base
Use social to complement your website, not replace it. (i.e.) customer engagement and drive traffic to website
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6. Key Benefits
The web is vital component in helping SMBs reach business goals and ultimately obtain new customers:
More than 7 out of 10 Internet users are online buyers
82% of local internet searches follow up offline
73% of online search activity is related to local content
Nearly all online consumers use online media when researching products and services, even if the purchase is made offline
Over a 3-year period, SMBs with a high web presence grew an average of 10%, compared to those with a medium to low presence, whose growth declined 5%  
The following stats came from this source: Pay Per Click marketing Blog, “The Local Web and How Brands Are Advertising Online,” May 7, 2012:
More than 7 out of 10 Internet users are online buyers
82% of local internet searches follow up offline
73% of online search activity is related to local content
Nearly all online consumers use online media when researching products and services, even if the purchase is made offline
Growth of 10% stat from Boston Study Group -
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7. Ways to Gain Value From a Website
Align website with brand
Feature Contact Details and Information Request Form
Highlight Products/Services
Leverage an Easy-to-Use Content Management System (CMS) or Hire Web Services Support
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8. Localized Listings and Ad Targeting
Local listings (Google Places & Yelp)
More advanced:
Hyperlocal targeting – targeting ads beyond zipcode
IP Intelligence/Geolocation – IP address intelligence
Tool that can help: Local Readiness report (coming soon to .US customers)
About Local Readiness Report:
Helps local small-to-medium businesses gain tactical advantage over the competition through valuable insight into their overall online visibility and how similar businesses are reaching customers.
Provides a centralized source where a local small-to-medium business can go to get a comprehensive view of how they are doing online, how they stack-up against top local competitors, what customers are saying and to receive targeted suggestions to improve customer outreach in places like Yelp, Google +Local and Facebook.
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9. Optimize for search
According to Google, 97% of consumers search for local businesses online
Take advantage of local directories as well as listings on large search engines, such as Google Places, Yahoo!, and Yelp
Optimize your website for search engines with smart page titles, meta descriptions, keywords and more
Tools that can help
Consider a mobile website (howtogomo.com, YOLA, name.com)
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10. Maximize new leads with your website
Prominently feature contact details and provide an information request form on your website to maximize online leads and increase ROI
74.7 percent of SMB websites lack an link on their homepage for consumers to contact the business
65.7 percent of SMB websites lack a form-fill option to enable consumers to request information
Incorporate RFI forms on website
Integrate your website with your internal database and CRM system
SMB websites can’t help reach new customers if they fail to provide a way for customers to reach them
Source for stats:
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11. Highlight Products/Services
Use your website to sell products and services – many SMBs fail to take advantage of this opportunity
By featuring product / service pictures, descriptions and testimonials, you can make a measurable impact on ROI through both online and offline sales
You can also integrate with popular ecommerce and shopping sites like Yahoo! and Google
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12. Keeping Your Website Updated
Have an easy process in place to update your website content in a timely manner
Providing up-to-date content to customers and prospects makes you more credible (plus this helps improve search rankings)
Whether outsourcing website creation & maintenance or putting an easy-to-use CMS in place, a website can only be as powerful as it is built and updated
Ongoing maintenance and support is a necessity
Stat from Neustar SMB survey.
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13. Protect Your Website Website Monitoring Load Testing DDoS Mitigation
Companies like Neustar offer a service to help you monitor your site to immediately detect unavailable or pages load slowly – saving you $$ and customers.
Load Testing
Ensure your site can handle your growing Internet traffic. Test site traffic capacity, identify bottlenecks and be ready to launch new applications.
DDoS Mitigation
Protect your website from common, inevitable attacks (denial-of-service)
Stat from Neustar SMB survey.
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14. Align domain name with brand
Domain name should include brand name, followed by a visual design that mirrors the brand
.US SMB survey found that: 80% of SMBs would prominently include brand name within the website address (Example:
Consider SEO in choosing name
Explore options other than .com to get the name you want
Geographic names - .US or other up-and-coming business names like .biz or .co.
Tools are available to find and test domain names (Name.com)
Source for stat: Neustar SMB survey
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15. Conclusion
We believe in the power of small business to kick start America.
By maximizing your website presence, you will be able to reach more customers and increase your business ROI.
Find more information and toolkit to help you get started on your website, visit
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16. Q&A
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