EPR Creations LLC

The Website as the Hub

There are so many choices out there for promoting your company online. You can now have a Facebook fan page, multiple company Twitter feeds, a Linkedin profile, a Google places account, etc. Which ones should you choose for your company?

Are they all necessary?

No, they are not. There is no one size fits all answer for which option to choose. It really depends on your industry and where your potential clients are located.

Another important question is, with all of these additional options, how important is your website?

For some companies, a simple Facebook Fan page may do the trick. You actually might not need a full-blown website. You can now add a store to your Facebook fan page to sell your products, music, or services on your Facebook page. That may eliminate your need of setting up an Ecommerce website. I bought horse riding lessons for my wife a few weeks back and the time slot sign up calendar was on the horse farm’s Facebook page instead of their website.

However, Facebook is the only option from the list above that at this point could really take the place of your website. And even with the benefits of a Facebook fan page, it is still a good idea to have a website be the hub for your company. Use the profiles (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) to do what they do best – connect you to people and potential clients. But use your website to do the following:

• Your website should be the place where people interested in going deep into your company information should be able to search and find everything they want. Most users will not require that level of information, but make it available for those who do.
• Your website should connect to a database so that any information that users choose to provide are collected in your records forever.
• Your website should point to all ways that users can connect to you. Some users prefer Facebook others twitter, and some may just want to follow your rss feed. But give them a way to connect and stay in touch.

2011: The Year of the Video

I’ve been telling a number of my clients that 2011 needs to be the year of the video for their websites. I just heard recently that 52% of searches are now for videos. YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google. I personally prefer to watch a 60 second video clip instead of reading a page of content.

So how do you begin to incorporate video into your website? Here are a few ideas:

• Home page highlight video of what your company/organization does. (keep within 30-90 seconds)
• Add a video at the top of your most popular pages. You can keep the text below it, but have a video up top. For example, have a video about you on your about page. A well-done video of you describing yourself and your business will say a lot more than static text.
• Use videos for teaching purposes. There are a number of screen capture software solutions where you can capture a video of how to do something on your computer. These can then be added as videos on your website.

Once the video has been created, how should you add it to your website? My recommendation is to use YouTube or Vimeo. If you upload your video to one of these services, you can then embed the video right on your website page. Then, the video will not only be on your website but will also be added to the millions of videos online and will be searchable within the search engines.

Additionally, YouTube is a video format that works on mobile devices such as the iPhone. Vimeo also has this capability, but you have to pay to have your videos work on mobile devices. YouTube is the better option for search engines and playability, but I like how Vimeo looks. It is much cleaner.

In the videos you make, be real. If you are the CEO of a plumbing service, don’t get in front of a video camera in a suit and tie and talk about your business. Show your plumbing crew and how they handle problems. People don’t want a CEO to fix their toilet, they want a plumber. If you can add humor, do it wisely. And in all videos, put your potential client first. Don’t make a video of what you would want to see. Make a video that would entice your potential client.