There are four main components that absolutely should be part of your business success strategy for 2011. I will be writing a four part series on these pillars that will not only help hold up your business during lean times, but will help expand it as well. Read on for the first installment: Pillar I- Location.
Location is not referring only to your business's physical location, but also to its virtual location. Your location on the internet should be easy to find and be found by pre-qualified individuals. In other words, it should be easily found by those looking for a business like yours. Take advantage of free online search based tools such as Google Places and Bing's Local Listing Center. Both of these tools will help get your business up to the top of the search results with a map and info on your business along with a link to your website. Be sure to utilize keywords that are relevant to your company and you will fare even better in search engine results.
Location based tools such as Foursquare and Facebook Places are eating up bandwidth and like crazy. These are fun tools for your guests and are something that you can easily leverage for your company to build both loyalty and repeat visits. Give a prize to someone who becomes the new mayor of your location. It could be as simple as a T-shirt with your brand on it or even a complimentary dessert. Have a "check in" contest on a certain week and pick a random winner for a grand prize. The limits are only your imagination.
The palm of your customer's hand is a great place to be found. If you have not updated your website in a few years, it may not be optimized for mobile phones and their browsers. Websites that are heavy with Flash elements or other items that may look great on a laptop may not be seen at all on a mobile phone. Many in the "connected" generation won't keep trying to view your site if it does not load properly, they will just check out your competitors instead. There are many of the larger companies who have built a separate mobile site to pander to the ever growing masses of the mobile user. But fear not, it is not necessary to build a separate site to have your location found while mobile. Simply give your current website an update and a fresh look. Make sure you let your web designer know what your goals are and you should be happy with the results.
When thinking about the above items associated with the first Pillar remember that the three most important things about real estate (both online and real world) are location, location, location!
