If you are a small business and you don’t have a website, you are not alone. Recently, the Wall Street Journal featured an article on small businesses that use various social sites to form their web presence in lieu of building a website. It seems most small business owners recognize the value in establishing a website, but find the process of building a website intimidating, costly, or time consuming. Free social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Manta, make it easy for SMBs to upload their profiles and establish a brand message for their business.

At Manta, we have more than 64 million small business profiles on our site. Most of the small business owners we work with are not marketing experts. When these owners fill out their business profiles, they often make mistakes that can cost them valuable search engine rankings.

So what should be on your profile to help you rank higher in the search engines? Here are some tips on making the most of your free profile on the various social sites like Manta.

• Correct spelling and grammar is essential. Not only does spelling and grammar show you are a professional, it also is really important to search engines. As search engines evolve, they are beginning to process not just keywords, but the quality of the text found on a page.
• When you reference your company online, use the same format on every site. The more consistent you are with your brand identity, the easier it is for customers to find you. It is also easier for search engines to identify your brand.
• Do not enter extra keywords in areas such as your website address, phone number, or location.  This does not help your search engine rankings and it appears unprofessional.
• Completely fill out your page. Include as much information as you possibly can; the more details you can supply, the more confidence you will build with potential customers and the more quality your listing will be for the search engines.
• When you have an important change in your business, be sure to update your online profiles.  The more current and consistent your online profiles are, the more relevant you are to your customers.

While social sites like Manta can’t fully replace a company’s website, in our experience the small business owners who take the time and care to accurately fill out their company information are the ones who have the most success when using social site to manage their web presence.

At Webbed Marketing, we’ve always believed in investing in our employees—they are truly our greatest asset. This might come as a shock for some small businesses, but rather than cut spending, we actually increased spending in some areas this year. For example, we awarded raises well above the average cost of living raises, we doubled our training budget for employees, and we added more benefits, including dental, a matching retirement plan, life insurance and disability. While in the short term this will cost Webbed Marketing, over time, it will pay off greatly.

Webbed Marketing serves 60 clients with 20 employees. And we are known for our responsiveness and service. How do we do it? We automate the things that can be automated and save our brain power for the big things. People are also shocked to learn that we license the type of software that larger companies cite as too expensive, and we build our own tools, as well. Without question, the No. 1 mistake I saw businesses make during the recession was “saving themselves into bankruptcy.” They didn’t invest in the right tools. Then their employees had to work on things that a robot should do. That means employees were pulled away from high-value work, clients were unhappy and things fell apart. I can think of half a dozen companies in Columbus that fell into this trap.

That said, we do a good job of controlling spending in other areas. We keep our overhead quite low and we make use of technology to cut costs.

Here are a few things small businesses can do to cut costs and better serve their customers and clients: 

• Use GoToMeeting and host meetings, rather than expense travel costs.
• Use free Google tools like Google Talk, Google Calendar, Google Voice and Google Documents, rather than licensed products.
• Go for company-sponsored mobile phones, rather than an expensive phone system.
• Utilize an office that is an open, collaborative work space, rather than expensive offices and cubicles.
• Use software.. a lot… for everything from project management to media outreach:
  • We use Vertabase to manage tasks and projects
  • We use Doorbell to manage new business
  • We use Quickbooks for accounting
  • We use Vocus for media relations
  • We use a customized social media tool for tracking online conversations
  • We use a customized SEO reporting tool
  • We use GoToMeeting for online collaboration
  • We use GoToWebinar for online training

Another key element in running a small business is the ability to say “no.” There is a high demand for search, social media and mobile marketing services.  Over the years, we’ve learned what clients are the best fits. About 50% of the leads we receive are not good fits. Is it hard to walk away from business?  A little. But we’ve learned that bad fits don’t pay a dime –  in fact, they cost quite a bit!  Having a bad fit with a prospect or client means sales cycles that are too long, and a relationship that won’t work. Today we have a 94% client retention rate. I want to keep pushing that higher by keeping our clients happy and only taking clients that are the right fit.  

My best advice for small businesses is to hire the best people. Pay them the highest salary you can. Give them the best training. Give them the best tools. Does this cost a lot? You bet. Is the return with it? Absolutely.

Let’s say you’re looking for a good Chinese restaurant in Columbus. You search Google and find a series of results that look…. different. Instead of “regular” listings you see a list of phone numbers, addresses, reviews, maps and links that say “Places Page”.

Welcome to Google Places.

The last few weeks we’ve received calls that go something like this “Someone just called us and said they are on our website but there’s some blurry picture and a bunch of reviews on it and ads from our competitors.”

Welcome to Google Places.

Whether or not you know it, your business probably has a listing on Google Places. If you haven’t claimed the profile then it’s going to be comprised of information Google pulls from various sources.  That means your hours of operation might be incorrect, or your address may be wrong, or your phone number may be outdated. And since these pages tend to rank very well in Google searches… often in the very top position, it means this is often the first impression you make online to a potential customer. And while you know that the Places page is not your official website, your potential customers might not.

So how can you claim your profile? It’s simple. First go to Google and search on your company name, city and state. Then click on the link next to your name that says “Place Page.” On the top left side of that page you’ll see a link that says “Business Owner.” From here, you can claim your listing and make sure your information is presented as accurately as possible.

While you’re at it you’ll want to claim your profile on Manta.com, based here in Columbus, Manta is the third most visited business website on the Internet hosting 25 million visitors or more per month. To claim your Manta profile, search for your company name on Manta and then click on “Edit Company Info” on your company page. Why is Manta important? In addition to attracting a huge number of visitors, Manta also ranks extremely well in searches. Go to Google and search on your company name followed by the word “profile” – you may find that your listing on Manta outranks your own website.

Finally, take a look at your LinkedIn company profile. To find your LinkedIn profile, simply select “Companies” from LinkedIn’s top drop down menu and search on your company name. Visit the LinkedIn company page and start editing.



I mentioned in an earlier post Top 10 reasons why it is hard to be an interactive marketing/digital marketing professional that marketers are from Venus and technologists are from Mars. Meaning no disrespect to either profession I am simply asserting that  marketers and technologists often think very differently. Two parties that think differently can either do something amazing  or do something  that misses deadlines, comes in over budget and exceeds no one’s expectations.  Layer on the issue that these professionals are working in an environment as dynamic as the internet and we start to skew the likely result to the latter.

The differences between marketers and technologists often become highly visible on interactive projects around “small, last minute changes”.  These last minute changes can cause  frustration that often creates a team divided with a good bit of scar tissue on both sides. If we can fix the challenge of the of those “small, last minute changes”  we take a lot of stress off the relationship between marketer and technologist.

Let’s look at it this from the technologist’s side. Late in the project there are NO small changes. Technologists are last in the process to make something “live”  and they are where all the pressure ends up when everyone is pushing to meet a deadline. It is only a small change when browser capability, search engine optimization considerations (site construction supports seo goals), analytics (being able to measure what we said we would measure), web content management (changes work on the wcm platform that is being used) and proper testing (to make sure things work as intended) are not important….

Let’s look at it from the marker’s side. There are always going to be changes. Clients change their minds and that is often late in the process. We have to impress the clients with how easy we are to work with so the client will not go somewhere else. We have to create a great result so the final product will be a brilliant demonstration of our abilities so we can can win more new business.

There is no silver bullet to solve these challenges but I have some suggestions to alleviate a bit of the pain:

1. Education for marketers on  why changes are hard (technologists really aren’t just complainers!) Sharing your documented  production process is a great starting point to give marketers a high level idea of  how real the challenges are. If you don’t have a documented production process then that is part of the problem!

2. Education for marketers on scope management in a sophisticated production process. When something changes other things must  change…cost, time lines, or other desired functionality removed or phased in later.

3. Strong interactive project managers and project management processes that are adopted and supported. This is addressed my my earlier post titled Interactive project management is often the missing link.

4. Education for technologists on why changes often occur (marketers are not purposefully trying to ruin your production schedules!)

5. Collaborative communication between the marketers and the technologists around what is to be achieved with the changes . Often there is a better, easier, why to achieve the desired outcome if we get everyone talking.

I imagine I have missed quite a bit. What tips do you have to help marketers and technologists work together as productively as possible on interactive projects?

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Post contributed by Mark Whitman of TeamBuilder Search. Contact Mark at mwhitman@teambuildersearch.com.