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eVENALICIUM | Web Design and Development for Local Small BusinessesIn the early days of the commercial web, small business owners who wanted to stay ahead of their competitors knew they had to be early adopters of this new technology and as such became website owners.

Then at the dawn of the new millennium, blogging became the next great way to promote your small business. Probably the first mass adopted online self publishing tool that very soon changed the way we used the Internet back then.

Just a few years later Web 2.0 emerged into the public domain as this hip new buzz phrase. It referred to the new interactive web. This consisted of websites that suddenly gave Internet users the chance to publish various  content online with NO financial commitment and hardly any know how. This all with a whole new social element.

New Media – AKA Social Media was born!

This new social media phenomenon meant that websites were no longer dull static notice boards. Just look at the popularity of social networking sites, which are filled with interactive features encouraging relationships, community, conversation, sharing, voting etc – suiting us social animals and giving power back to the people. We vote with our mouse and click away when we don’t find what we are looking for. RSS and Email RSS are other great web 2.0 tools, giving visitors the option to subscribe to your updates and encourage repeat visits back to your site. Interaction and repeat visits are particularly important for your small business because:

Offline, only 2% of sales are generated on the 1st contact and

A huge 80% of sales are made on the 5th to 12th contact!

Online, this gets worse – with less than 1% of first time visitors resulting in a sale!

So you see, your business is losing out on a massive 99% of sales if you don’t have the right strategies in place to attract your visitors back time and time again. If you do they will become loyal customers and part of your  tribe.
Unfortunately, we still see websites created today which although they may look modern and pleasing to the eye, have not evolved much from the early days. These sites are what we jokingly refer to as “not fit for business consumption”.

That brings us to the privileged few local small business owners that discovered the power of Social Web Design.  If you are serious about having the edge over your competition,  to dominate new media and achieve high organic (free) listings in the search engines, a social site can truly pay for it’s self many times over.

The formula for online success

Attract

  • Getting found in searches
  • Stirring up conversation
  • Joining existing conversations

Connect

  • Building your reputation
  • Creating new connections
  • Improving your rapport
  • Strengthening bridges of trust

Convert

  • Automatically motivating customer and loyal prospects to take action
  • Getting people to opt-in to your email list
  • Directing to free downloads
  • Making sales

We like to think of social web design as a new “online democracy” where we all have a vote and can voice our opinion, if we choose to use it! How do you feel about the social web? Let us know below or feel free to like, share, email or subscribe.