2009 was a tough year for small business. Two-thirds of respondents characterized the recession’s effect on their business as “negative.” Almost one-quarter of respondents characterized the impact as “very negative.”

Not surprisingly, 34% of respondents said that managing cash was their biggest challenge last year. (Maybe they are not using an integrated cash flow spreadsheet, such as the one we have available for free at BusinessMorgue.com??) What is surprising is that 24% said that, in retrospect, they should have done more sales and marketing. (Hmm…that doesn’t sound like the small business owners I know…)

Read TD Bank’s press release here.

Before we get into where Wix falls on this spectrum, let’s talk about how you would use a free website. This is a service that’s targeted to individuals launching hobby sites and solo entrepreneurs launching micro businesses. For those who need to keep their launch costs to a minimum, the free site can be a decent option. But there are drawbacks, and you shouldn’t go down this road unless you are comfortable with those drawbacks.

First, truly free websites come with ads on the pages. Whether those ads negatively impact your business really depends on what business you are in and how you are using the site. Check out your competitors’ sites to see what they do. If you are trying to sell something on your site–particularly something that’s readily available elsewhere–think about the sales impact of having competitors’ ads on your pages.

Second, if your site takes off, you will eventually want to transition away from the free platform. You may not be able to take your site’s design with you and you may not be able to redirect the free site. If you can’t redirect it, you will have to contact all of your customers and give them your new URL. That can get expensive, and could result in lost business.

Free sites by Wix

I am not personally a fan of free websites in general. The issue I have with them is that the site designs are boring and not adaptable. Wix breaks this mold with a full selection of modern, flashy templates. The templates are organized by category, and the offerings include eCommerce sites, business sites, consulting sites, real estate sites and several other hobby- and interest-oriented categories.

You can preview the templates, but you have to register on the site to launch the editor. You can also build your site from scratch, using Wix’s editing tools.

Another nice feature is the detailed tutorial section, complete with how-to videos.

Premium upgrade

Wix also offers a premium upgrade, in the event you grow out of the free version. With the premium service, you can get rid of the ads and use your own domain name. You also get extra storage and bandwidth, plus access to Google analytics data.

I note the fame of Twitter only to make the point that the microblogging platform has solidified its place in modern communication practices. And that means that people are probably using it to talk about your business, your industry or your products/services. If you’re not convinced of that last point, go to Twitter’s home page, type in a general term for your industry or product category into the search box and hit enter.

See?

Now the results you get from running that search may not be particularly helpful to you. Chances are, they are mostly comprised of your competitors in the act of promoting themselves. If you scrolled through the results pages, you might eventually find someone asking for a solution to the problem that your product or service solves. That would be the ideal marketing opportunity, wouldn’t it–to present yourself to a target customer at the very moment she needs your help? It doesn’t get any better than that.

The problem is, it’s going to take you way too long to find that tweet. So here’s a better alternative, known as the “anyone know” search. I first read about the “anyone know” search here, at searchengineland.com. The implementation of an “anyone know” search is pretty simple; just type in “anyone know” along with your product name into Twitter’s search box. Note that when you search, “anyone know” should be in quotation marks, but the name of your product or service should not be. For example, I typed in “anyone know” copywriter and immediately saw several tweets from people who were looking for copywriters. These are legitimate prospects for me, and all I have to do is sign in and hit reply to make contact.

Try it out for yourself and let me know what you find.

If your answer’s yes, you’ve probably already seen a zillion articles outlining the latest and greatest sources of Web traffic. Heck, I’ve probably written a zillion articles on the topic. Well, guess what? It’s time for a reality check.

As Internet marketers, we get so involved in the process of staying “in the know” that we can sometimes overlook the big picture. And often, it’s the big picture that shapes our future success. So let’s take a step back now and assess the landscape: where does Web traffic really come from?

Web traffic is comprised of three broad categories:

• Search engine traffic
• Referral traffic
• Direct traffic

Search engine traffic can be bought via pay-per-click, sponsored listings campaigns. Free search engine traffic, on the other hand, must be earned. Since the search engines guard their algorithms carefully, there is no accepted list of what factors determine whether your site is worthy enough to rank well in organic search. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. Factors that are believed to be of importance include site content, incoming links, site age, page load speed, internal links, and quality/type of coding.

To capture a sizeable and sustainable amount of organic search traffic, you need two things: time and focus. If you don’t have time, then you need money. You’ll use that money to pay someone to identify the most profitable keywords, optimize your site and manage a long-term link building campaign.

If you need search engine traffic fast, you’ll have to buy it. You can keep your per-click costs down by selecting your keywords carefully and writing very strong ad copy. Google in particular won’t hesitate to raise your minimum bid if your ad is generating a below-average click-through rate.

Referral traffic, that is, traffic to your site from a link placed on another site, can also be free or purchased. You can buy referral traffic by purchasing a text link or graphic ad on a high traffic site. If your ad is compelling enough, users will click through. Free referral traffic is a by-product of having juicy and unique content. If you write something that people find enormously interesting, other sites will link to it; they may even tell their visitors directly, “hey, check this out.”

I’m going to state the obvious here, but bear with me. Referral traffic is transported from another site to your via incoming links. Incoming links also inform search engines on your site’s content and popularity. This is why a link-building strategy is a must: it can generate modest traffic in the immediate term, but will have more impact over the longer term as your organic search performance improves.

Direct traffic is just what it sounds like; users type your URL right into the navigation bar. Direct traffic results from your off-line marketing and brand-building activities. You pass out your business card at trade shows, you put your URL on a billboard by the 405 freeway, you have your domain tattooed on your forehead, etc. If you are fortunate enough to have a generic domain name, you may get some type-in traffic too. (Type-in traffic isn’t meaningful for most sites; this juicy and unique article has more information on that. )

When you look at the big picture, two strategies rise to the top of the efficiency scale: content development and link-building. Granted, this isn’t new advice, but staying focused on these basics keeps you from coming down with a distracting case of shiny object syndrome.

• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• StumbleUpon
• MapQuest
• QR Codes
• Blogs
• Pictures

You could also add YouTube, Squidoo, HubPages, Yahoo! Questions (don’t tell Yahoo! I said it though) and others to the list. While it’s great to have a list of resources, it doesn’t get an entrepreneur/small business owner any closer to strengthening sales or profits. Small business owners have the problem of having too many options available; there isn’t enough time or money to participate in every strategy that presents itself.

So how can an entrepreneur efficiently make decisions about where to spend scarce marketing dollars? The process begins with developing a detailed understanding of where the business is currently. By this, I mean knowing things like:

• Your average ticket 
• Traffic to your store (if applicable) and your website (if applicable)
• If you have an office or store, what percentage of your customers have seen your website 
• Your close rate (once you get them in the store, in the office, on the phone, etc., how many buy from you?) 
• Amount and frequency of repeat sales from existing customers 
• Demographics of your average customer

Getting a handle on your average ticket along with the close rate can infuse your marketing decisions with a small bit of certainty. For example, say 5 percent of the people who visit your Web site end up buying from you. If you also know those eventual customers will spend an average of $350 (for example) with you over the next year, you can then estimate what each Web visitor is worth to you.

Taking this one step further, if you also have a physical location, your close rate is probably much higher among those who come in to the store. If you know what that percentage is, you then also know that you can pay a lot more for programs that drive physical traffic. Further, the numbers also tell you not to be too aggressive with your Web marketing. If you shift too many ad dollars to online programs, you’ll end up replacing high quality walk-in traffic with lower quality Web traffic.

Remember too that the demographics piece of this informs you as to where you want to place your ads. If your customers and prospective customers don’t use Facebook, then you don’t need to be there either.

Of course, you have a bigger problem if you don’t have any data on your customers and you aren’t sure how to get it. If that’s your dilemma, check back soon; our next topic will be on customer surveys.

As an entrepreneur, you may weigh the costs of running print ads in your local newspaper and decide you’d rather take your chances with Twitter and Facebook–options which are free as long you have the available manpower. This decision may make sense from a financial perspective, but don’t make it lightly. Shifting all of your ad dollars to one medium is a mistake, unless you know for certain that that medium can reach all of your existing and target customers. Here’s some food for thought: in 2009, a poll on CNN.com indicated that 94 percent of CNN’s audience wasn’t using Twitter.

Now I know what you’re thinking…if you’ve read some of my previous posts, you know I’m a proponent of Twitter. But I’m not a proponent of putting all your eggs in the Twitter basket, the Facebook basket, or any other ad basket. Even if it may seem like all the world’s gone a-Twitter, there’s still a place for print, for cable, for radio. And actually, one of the most effective ways to use repetition in your advertising is by reaching the same customers through different media.

Of course, these days, you have to be creative with the dollars you direct towards traditional media. Here are some ideas to get you started.

Direct Mail: Find a vendor that does postcard printing and mailing. Print up some loyalty postcards to encourage repeat purchases and send them out. Consider putting a time limit on the card, such as, “make X number of purchases within X number of weeks” or something like that. Use what you know about your customers to set the number and time limit. For example, if you know that your typical customer makes three purchases from you every eight weeks, offer a discount or reward to those who make four purchases within eight weeks.

Newspaper Ads: Start a club. If you sell women’s clothes, start a women’s fashion club. Approach your local newspaper about covering the club and its activities. You should at least try to get a mention in the paper’s “upcoming events” section. Then run ads to complement the publicity. You will of course host the meetings in your store, but resist the temptation to hard-sell your members. Getting a group of potential customers into your store twice a month is the best kind of repetition there is.

Radio: Contact your local radio station and ask about opportunities to sponsor a contest or giveaway. Think about giving away something kwirky and unique. If you are willing to give away a sizeable prize, you should be able to get repeat mentions as the station builds up the contest.

Finally, remember that your best advertising opportunity happens when someone walks into your business looking for a product or service. If your budget is too tight for anything else, then focus on continually improving the customer experience.

a. An immediately visible, powerful but short statement in big, bold text
b. An image of your logo
c. A picture of your product
d. A paragraph describing your business
e. A link to an “About Us” page

2. How many courses of action can your user take to engage with your site?

a. Unlimited, e.g., she can search, research, buy, leave her email, live chat, meet up with friends, leave a comment, check her pulse, do her laundry (wouldn’t that be nice?)b. Two or three, e.g., she can buy, subscribe or leave her email

3. How does your site lead your users to the desired action?

a. Compelling offer or short call to action
b. Paragraph explaining the supreme quality of your products/services
c. Main navigational bar giving the user quick access to all the options
d. Fancy flash intro that your user must watch or “skip”
e. Contact us button in the footer

4. What color are the links on your page?

a. Black
b. Yellow
c. Red
d. Old-fashioned royal blue

5. How long does your site take to load?

a. I don’t know, seems pretty fast
b. I don’t know, kinda slow
c. I don’t know, does it matter?

Answer Key

Before we get to the specific questions, I have a short disclaimer. The “ideals” for any Web site are dependent on the purpose of the site. This quiz is slanted towards sites that sell product. Although these concepts can be used to improve the user experience on any site, some may be hard to implement on a brochure-type site or a content site.

Question 1: Why am I here?

The best answer is a. A visitor lands on your site because she needs something. If she doesn’t immediately feel she’ll find that special something, she’s gone.

When you open up your home page (or any page on your site), your eyes should be immediately drawn to a quick and bold statement that clearly explains what you have to offer. Well-established businesses (we’re talking Nike and Coca-cola here) can use their logo to achieve this impact, but that doesn’t work for the little guys. Logos only come to mean something after years and years of mass media advertising. You put your logo on your Web page and other marketing materials because you’re working towards achieving the swoosh effect, not because you already have. That’s why your logo shouldn’t dominate your home page; it just doesn’t mean anything to most of your visitors.

A picture of your product might be effective, but only if it’s a unique and readily recognizable product. An example would be an image of a themed cell phone case that only you produce. Just make sure you use a short statement with that picture, so your users know they can’t get that uber-cool case anywhere else.

Question 2 and 3: Which way do I go?

The best answer is b. for Questions 2 and a. for Question 3. You want to define a finite set of options for your visitors. Successful direct sales sites have one option: buy. That means no navigational bar, no outgoing links. The user is funneled through the sales presentation and is only given a second option after he declines the purchase. That second option might be to leave an email or it might be a less expensive product.

This strategy is a little extreme, particularly when you have a whole catalogue of products or services to sell. The concept, however, holds value. Too many options leave your visitors feeling confused. Once confusion sets in, you’ve lost them. Here’s where Question 3 comes into play. Try decluttering your site so that the most desired course of action is most prominent. You might do this by placing a large icon on the home page that tells visitors about a compelling special offer, for example.

Also, you want to eliminate all distractions that could prevent your user from navigating into your product catalog. Get rid of news feeds and third-party ads.

Question 4: Stop or go?

The best answer is d, royal blue. Don’t let design get the best of you. Red is a nice color for lipstick and stop signs–not for links. Keep things simple and comfortable for your users. In the early days of the Internet, it seems that all unvisited links were blue. Go with this heritage. Hopefully you’ll be tapping into that early Internet promise of information on the other side of the click. If so, your users will click without thinking.

I once tested the performance of Adsense on a content site by changing the color of the links. The blue links clearly outperformed red links.

Question 5: Does this site work?

A faster site delivers your message more quickly. Don’t ask your users to wait for your images and widgets to load, no matter how cool those images and widgets may be. If you are having problems with site speed, start with your images. Host images on your own server, use PNG files instead of JPEGs, and define your image sizes. Then get rid of widgets, even the sharing widgets. You can write those links manually. There are other, more technical solutions to this problem, so you might need the help of a trusted Web developer.

The world of Web marketing seems, at times, like auto repair or psychotherapy: the customer is at the mercy of the service provider. When the service provider says you need a new timing belt or six months of biweekly sessions, you may not have the know-how to doubt the diagnosis or the recommendation. In Web marketing, sales people routinely diagnosis your problem as poor search visibility and recommend expensive and unnecessary solutions to get you “to the top of Google.”

For that reason, I’ve had the nagging feeling that being honest and straightforward with people can be a liability. The slow and steady marketing campaign that builds the value of your online assets over time isn’t nearly as sexy as being Number 1 in Google tomorrow. And so I find myself explaining the fine print of Google dreams and trying to dispel the myth that it takes magic to buy sponsored search listings. All the while I’m wondering why my prospect suddenly wants something quite different from what he initially asked me to do. How can someone’s objectives change so significantly in such a short period of time? And how do I address the sky-high promises made by an unscrupulous salesperson, without sounding like a rejected girlfriend?

Despite that nagging feeling, I still stick to the honest, consultative approach. We may not close all the deals this way, but we tend to keep the ones we do close. It’s a very bad thing, in my mind, to retain a customer who has unrealistic expectations; this inevitably ends in disappointment for everyone involved.

How is your business impacted by the aggressive sales actions of your competitors?

We reached the goal by using various free and paid Twitter tools. Here’s the run down of the tactics we used:

• Socialoomph.com. We created a free Socialoomph account and starting using the Auto-follow and automated welcome message feature. Auto-follow checks your follower base periodically and automatically follows anyone who’s already following you. The welcome feature, as the name implies, sends out a welcome message to new followers.
• Twellow.com. We listed our account for free at Twellow.com. A quick Google search will point you to many other Twitter directories.
• Tweepsearch.com. We used Tweepsearch.com to search profiles for various keywords pertaining to our business. Tweepsearch allows you to run broad searches, and then narrow your results down by searching within a certain user’s follower base. Once you hone down your list of results to a manageable number, a “Follow All” option appears. This task is implemented by TweepML.org, and it empowers you to follow dozens of users at once.
• Hootsuite.com. Hootsuite.com has an efficiently laid out interface that lets you view all of the activity on your account pretty quickly. You can also manage more than one account, without having to log in and out of Twitter. We used Hootsuite to tweet (of course), but also to track mentions and retweets, and to respond to others’ tweets.
• Mentions. Promoting your existing followers attracts new followers. Mention your followers and retweet your followers’ most interesting posts. Join the conversation and you’ll make new friends.
• Hummingbird 2. Hummingbird was the only paid Twitter tool we used. The software is $97, which isn’t cheap, but we found it to be a huge time-saver. Hummingbird monitors conversations for your specified keywords and automatically follows users who meet stated criteria. If you reach the 2000-marker, where you are capped on following more people, Hummingbird automatically unfollows those who aren’t following you back, one at a time. Once you set it up and turn it on, Hummingbird can run in the background.

If you’re not ready to spend the money on Hummingbird, you could duplicate the functionality on your own. Set aside 30 minutes a day to search keywords and reach out to new users.

Keep in mind that the above list references only a tiny slice of the tools and strategies available for promoting your profile on Twitter. Also remember that mass following and unfollowing can get you banned, so don’t get reckless in your actions.

The above actions helped us get to 1000 followers in a relatively short period of time. The next challenge is to get to 2000…and that may take a little longer. We’ve hit the 2000 limit on the number of people we can follow. So we’ll keep you posted.

What are your favorite Twitter tools?

*Post disclosure: this post contains an affiliate link to Hummingbird. All opinions are mine.*