Sell, Sell, Sell, Free!

So you have a website you're all ready to go and now you need to be able to have a true 24/7 shop?You need a shopping cart, and you need it to be easy to use and you would like it to be free or nearly free.

In addition to using PayPal, which does charge a fee when you sell your items I've found a new code-based tool called Fat Free Cart. It's a great way to get get your site up and running with an e-commerce feature.

If you're familiar with html this is helpful, but not necessary. They do have a code generator feature that I'm personally a fan of since all you have to do is insert your information and then click a button and a code is generated for you. Not to mention if you're unsure of how it will work, you can view it after the code is generated and see. Niice!

If you have a website, utilizing the 24/7 open feature is a must. There's nothing more frustrating than finding a cool website where you're all ready to order only to find out you have to call to place an order or have to worse yet snail mail a check or money order to....uuugh! Don't lose valuable customers this way, have a shopping cart and watch how many customers you'll Gain!

Need some assistance? We're here to help...and it's what I do.

Can your customers find you?

It probably sounds like a trick questions huh? Well if you have a website then you know if they are or not? And if you thrive on your local pet parents business then you can answer this question pretty easily.

But what if you do have a website and when you 'test' it on search engines to see where you show up you're on page 4 or worse? Here's a test, at the bare minimum you should be able to type in your business name or website name and show up in first place. This is a must! If your site isn't showing up on that first page at all, then my friend we have some issues to tend to.

How about this test, when you put in common keywords that should point to you and your website do you show up on the first page before the 'fold' (you know before you have to scroll down)? Yes...Fantastic! No? Well then we have got to remedy that.

As a business owner or budding one you know that without people finding you, you may have the next greatest thing. But if no one knows does it really matter? Not really.

I've had many friends and clients ask me, "ok so what do we do about it"? Well if you have a website that's great, because you need that! But what if you could take it a step further, without a full fledged website, or all the time and money associated with it?

My team and I are working on what I like to call Mini-Site Hot Spots. What they'll do for you is provide a search engine magnet for you, all tightly put together in a simple 1-3 page site. Full of rich keywords, content, images and information about you, your business and products, only smaller. They can be made quickly, and for a lot less than a typical website. We've even seen some use this instead of their big bulky websites. But we only recommend that if you have only a few products or a service or two to offer.

The idea is to have a page or two full of good changing content, keywords and systems working for you. Bringing you traffic, and ultimately business!

There's also other ways you can accomplish this, you can blog frequently with content rich posts. You can also hire an SEO firm to help you (usually very pricey), you can also post videos regularly ( which I'm a fan of because video's are a great way to engage your audience).

So: --> Great content = Traffic and Sales

The idea with mini-sties is that in addition to your website you also have another tool out there working for you all the time and pointing back to your main site, or supplying your customers with vital information and pulling rank on those search engines!

Now go and claim your Traffic!

Want us to get to work on your mini-site for you?

Email us at info at barkbusiness dot com

And you know you Have to have a website right??

You've heard it a million times and a million more. No matter your business you need a website of some sort. Even if you don't sell from there you absolutely must have one, there's no excuses anymore. Gone are the days of spending thousands of dollars on a flashy, hyper-designed website.

Nope today you can launch a website with e-commerce for FREE! Yeah no kiddin', and if you can get your hands on some backgrounds, or know how to play with photo editors you can really jazz things up.

So for this post we're gonna give you some Don't Chase Your Tail Action Points right away, because your website isn't going to launch itself, it clearly needs you to DO SOMETHING! Ok so let's go:

----> Big Cartel -- You can launch a Big Cartel website in literally a matter of minutes and be accepting new customers in a day or two (with the right launch anyway). I played around with Big Cartel and loved the ease of userbility and the fact that I don't have to know any html code whatsoever! Yeah none at all, so don't freak out over that. But I will tell you that knowing a little html like how to make a picture a link is pretty easy stuff and comes in handy later on *wink, wink*

---->Flying Cart -- Another easy to use and set-up alternative. I told you there were options out there when you wanna build and launch your site. I messed around with this one a bit too, and found it was easy to use and pretty fun to add in my stuff.

---->Wix -- Now this one I haven't tried just yet but I would be happy to just go in there and play around a bit. I kinda like that sorta thing. But the templates look top-notch and if you're really hooked on having some flash on your website looks as if you can have it here too. This one also features several cool add-ons like using your own domain name (ie www.yourname.com)


Here are a few other points to consider:

* When you've finally taken the plunge and you're going to design your site and lauch it, please do not make the mistake of keeping the http://www.yoursite.anothername.com/ moniker. It screams, I didn't want to spend $7 a year to buy my domain name. And we don't want that do we?

* Although time-consuming you probably shouldn't stop with just a website, a blog is also a great way to pull in traffic directly from big deals like Google, Yahoo etc. For some reason and I'm sure the SEO gurus can detail this for you, the search engines like to grab your blog and throw it high up on the search pages. So make a note, a blog is generally not a maybe option. -- if you want help with it there are people for that :)

* Transperancy is a great way to show your customers and visitors you're a real person and not some ghost vying for their attention or their wallets. Do so by adding an 'About us' page, 'Contact Us' page and how to best reach you. While some people will be against giving out your cell number or an address, I'm not. I think when people know that they can call me, it gives them piece of mind. So share, you can also opt for a prepaid cell phone too, if that makes you feel better :)

*Keep your site looking Professional, nothing says I don't know what I'm doing like a poorly designed website with elementary school colors and poorly done graphics. You know the kind the graphics look grainy or worse blurry! C'mon now seriously would You buy something from a site that looks like that? And the navigation menu is just a stream of categories running all the way down the page??? Please, please don't do this, it looks cheap and tacky and you don't need to stand for that. You can design a modern, professional site for next to nothing, you have no excuses!

---Need any advice or feedback on your design? Let me give you my.02! I like to do that :)