Emerge Connect - Small Business Resources We Recommend

In the olden days, just a bit more than ten years ago, businesses just had to decide between a text-only listing in the yellow pages, or a graphical ad. Then the internet came along and businesses also needed to have a website. Today that is not enough. You need a mobile site, a mobile app, Facebook page, a blog, a Twitter account, and interactive tools for your visitors such as calendars, surveys and more. Visitors expect you to already know something about them when they come to your site, including, perhaps, their precise geographical location. Where do you start?

Your Website Address (price: $20 per year or less)

Every website has a digital address, and for convenience a text address (URL) such as www.MySite.com is also given. You can register your URL way ahead of starting on your website, but you will get the best deal if you register your address through your website host. If you purchase your address for one year, it is about $20. If you do it for 5 years, it is less. Be wary of businesses offering free URL registration. If you try to leave them you may not be able to take your address with you. We recommend using www.Register.com.

Your Website – Do It Yourself (price: $7 per month or more)

There are many services online that offer you pre-made templates that require no programming whatsoever. You can upload your own images, sell products, and more. There are many good ones. We recommend VistaPrint, a small-business focused service that many local businesses use to print postcards and other materials. They also provide program-less website development services. www.VistaPrint.com

Your Website – Built by a professional (price: $100/page + features)

If you would like to have your website built to your specifications, a website development team can help. These teams come in all shapes and sizes, with varying ranges of expertise and cost. Some teams are more design-centric, some are more code and feature-centric. We believe that having good clean code is essential to providing seamless integration with you and your customer’s unique needs. We love our designers, but we will work with any designer of your choosing. We recommend…us! Call Wendy at 612-385-9502 to discuss your project.

Website Hosting Provider

Websites that are hand-coded are stored on a machine somewhere in the world. You can rent space on a machine from a hosting provider for $5-$30 for a small, average traffic site. The fee is based not only on how much space the files and images for your site, but by the volume of visitors you get, which requires more work from their machines. But don’t worry, the price change usually requires a hundred-thousand visitors or more. Often the company developing your website may rent out space to you on their servers. If that is not the case, we recommend Pair, which has excellent customer service and a lot of patience. www.Pair.com

Mobile Phone Websites ($100 – lots more)

There are two ways your website can be optimized for cell phones. The first is to duplicate your site and optimize it for mobile phones. The second is to create an actual application to be downloaded onto a smart phone. We would love to help you with this service. www.InfusionMG.com

Your E-mail Address (Free with hosting account)

You may wonder how someone gets an e-mail address with their company URL. Once you have a website, whether it be your development company or the online service like VistaPrint, assigning e-mail addresses is part of the process. There are two types: 1. A mail box container with a unique e-mail address that you log in to in order to retrieve messages, and 2. A “soft” e-mail address that automatically forwards to your currently existing address. There are various benefits to each, and the mail box container type can also be forwarded to your primary e-mail address.

Social Media Sites

There are many social media sites, but following are the most commonly used:

Facebook (Free)

Facebook provides the opportunity for anyone, a group, organization, or business to have a free page that other Facebook users can “fan” and thus promote your page within the community. You can also purchase banner ads for which you can set budgets and define the audience that you would like to reach. Your Facebook news feed can be forwarded to your Twitter account so that you do not need to maintain both. www.facebook.com

Twitter (Free)

Twitter is an online service that allows you to follow others and be followed by the Twitter community. You can post short updates on your day, promote specials, provide links, and etc.. www.Twitter.com

Blogs (Free)

Having a blog is like publishing your own newspaper dedicated to your expertise and interest. Like a news site, you publish articles with titles and keywords. You attract followers and create dialog. Following are some of the most popular. Each has its own set of features. Most serious bloggers use WordPress. www.WordPress.com There is also Google’s www.Blogger.com.

Marketing & Communications Management

E-mail Newsletters ($20/month)

We recommend using Constant Contact for sending out newsletters. They provide forms for you to collect subscribers on your website, along with easy-to-use templates. They are expanding their services as the environment changes, including interacting with social media sites. www.ConstantContact.com

Rotating Banners ($10/month plus tiny charge per click)

You may wish to put rotating banners on your website that link to somewhere in your site or to external sites. For example, you may charge other businesses to have a banner advertisement on your site. There are many different organizations that provide this service. We recommend Sparklit, which also offers other features for your website such as surveys and forum boards. www.Sparklit.com

Calendars (Free from Google)

There are many good calendar services out there. We recommend the Google Calendar option because it is so well intertwined with the Google community and beyond. Google has free calendar options, and if you have a fancy programmer, you can integrate the calendar seamlessly with other tools you may use. www.Google.com

Appointment/class/tuition & scheduling

For: yoga, pilates, personal training, dance, martial arts, day spas, and salons -- features support, and client list. http://www.mindbodyonline.com/

Printing

For all of your small business printing needs, we recommend VistaPrint, trusted by many small businesses. From business cards to post-cards, T-shirts & mugs, VistaPrint has great customer service, great rates, and an easy-to-use interface. www.VistaPrint.com

Google World

Following is a short-list of some useful free services you can get from Google: Blog: http://www.blogger.com/home Map Registration: http://www.google.com/local/add/analyticsSplashPage?hl=en&gl=us Key Word Stats: Search for Google Adwords Website Visitor Stats: Search for Google Analytics Online Documents: Search for Google Docs