hi I’m Evan Carmichael welcome to the
edition of ask Evan today I’m going to
answer question from one of my facebook
fans Roger who wrote in about looking at
his website business raider calm so
we’ll go check it out and see what kind
of advice we can give for Roger load it
up come on business writer here we go
okay so my first thought I looking on
the site is there’s no value proposition
or tagline so what do you do all right
there’s no one sentence business writer
does this right so I’d want to have that
in here somewhere you kind of get a gas
by looking at this that it’s a it’s
about reviewing different businesses but
I I’d want to have that one liner to
quickly get the sets of what it is if
you do the next thing I think about is a
lot of competition for this why would I
go for you instead of Yelp or google
local or any other thousands of websites
out there to do this there’s a lot of
competition and the technology is pretty
easy to put together it’s more about
getting critical mass and getting the
users and the businesses on board so why
you over somebody else and I’d want to
have that really clearly laid out here
from both a business point of view and
user point of view so maybe you split
this and you say you know for businesses
here’s why you sign up and for users
here’s why you leave a review that you
know to make it valuable why why I
should come back and use your website
because when I think about this I think
about Yelp but I think about Google
Local so that’s that’s your first
challenge right away ranking is going to
start getting a challenging for a lot of
these keywords as well let’s look at
some of these so you have rick case
honda
and euclid so let’s see what you’re
trying to rank for rick case honda
euclid so let’s pop that into google and
see how it goes so if i’m searching for
rick case honda i’m looking for some
reviews to see how good of a place this
is so okay i think they would come up
first and make sense right here i got
the google local page that’s huge
competition going up against 11 reviews
16 rating overall you’ve got a facebook
page mystore411 it’s got to be some kind
of directory youtube videos another
directory on cars com autotrader yelp
and then business finest so you made it
there on the first page but at the
bottom so this is going to be your
constant struggle is how do you get
there oh sorry this is new this is
business business finder so it’s another
you’re not on the first page is a lot
competition there instead of your
business raider so how do you how do you
come up against all these big guys right
that people are searching you’re not
going to I mean maybe some of your
results will show up that’s gonna be a
big challenge if we look at your site
what’s your Alexa ranking 800,000 so
you’re so it’s not it’s not huge yet you
know you got to build it up obviously
but that’s going to be a big challenges
I don’t think of you when i’m thinking
about local businesses and when i do a
google result and this is for one of
your highlighted business cases you’re
not showing up on the first page and
you’re going up against massive
competition here from google plus and
yep so you need to give somebody a
strong case for why they should go with
you or somebody else so i don’t know why
this should be highlighted there’s no
reviews maybe that’s something to think
about it’s great to show their hours
here you know the link to the website is
good there’s a phone number again most
of the stuff we’d get from other places
as well it says two reviews but no
reviews so
that’s a little confusing I guess
something to think about maybe an option
for you is to pick a niche so my you
know second tip so first tip is is have
that value proposition really explain
why you’re different because I’m not
seeing it yet so something to think
about it I’m sure you know why and what
your plan is but it’s not it’s not
clearly communicated to your your
business customers and then your
consumer users you might want to pick a
niche so this is great to say that
you’re one of the top 10 companies to
watch in 2013 for auto success magazine
maybe that’s where you focus on the
start is just the auto stuff when I want
to hit the home page you see a whole
bunch of different categories that
you’re trying to rank for it seems to be
taking a while here all these different
categories but maybe you want to focus
on one niche be the dominant player in
that and then expand out from there this
is a big range so let’s click on
professional services as an example here
and see what kind of results we get so
you have you have you know reviews and
businesses from what three areas in the
US and one in Brazil probably not going
to be a lot of value for people who are
coming to the site say i click on
attorney see what’s in here no results
okay so you probably don’t want to have
showings the category listings if you
don’t have any results in there doesn’t
create a great user experience but there
are other directories for lawyers right
I would try to focus in on where you
have momentum like maybe it’s not auto
auto market and be known as that market
and then expand from there if you think
of a lot of successful companies they
started with a niche and built up so if
you look at facebook they started around
college campuses University campuses and
they explained it from there as they got
more well-known so start around autos
you have momentum you have listings you
have the sort of you have the
recognition from the magazines build
around that and then
expand afterwards so just something to
think about and then one last thing I
noticed was on the homepage so we have
popular businesses best in category is
recent review so here today i’m looking
at april eleventh i knows april the tent
so there’s it’s three-thirty afternoon
on april the 10th we’ve had two reviews
so far today and i don’t know how many
you had yesterday with this showing two
from yesterday this doesn’t look great
you know to only have two reviews on a
website that’s supposed to cover every
single business category doesn’t look
great so I’ll probably take off that
date it’s good to show the recent
reviews that people are leaving reviews
you know I don’t know how helpful it is
I don’t know where melt metals
barbershop is or can go d i’m in Toronto
so I don’t care what’s happened in San
Diego maybe customize these results to
my local area if you can or also take
off the date to show that you know that
you don’t want the site to look dead
doesn’t leave a good impression for
people who are using the site but also
for the business customers I think you
have some opportunity here right I see
still you know there’s more auto here
another dealership so I think if you can
focus your niche and build momentum
around it and also clearly explain your
value proposition to them then you have
an opportunity to grow this within that
nation and expand beyond but I think
there’s a little bit of work to do on
that front before you can kind of take
it to that next step so hopefully it
helped in terms of design I think it
looks it looks pretty good but my main
concern coming back is I don’t really
know what differentiates you from the
other companies that are out there and
again I’m not saying you don’t have
anything i’m sure in your mind you have
something no you don’t you don’t start a
business thinking now i’m going to be
number two to google or number two to
yelp but just do the same thing they’re
doing i’m sure you have a road map and a
plan and some things that are awesome
about your business that if somebody
sees they’re going to want to sign up
and get involved in but that message
isn’t coming across when i come visit
the
so it’s just better communication so
hopefully that helps for those of you
watching if you liked the video please
give it a thumbs up below and I’d love
to hear we have to think you can leave a
comment under the video they always make
my day I love waking up and seeing new
comments come in and if you have a
question about your business feel free
to leave it in the comment section below
as well so thank you and I’ll see you on
the next episode
you
edition of ask Evan today I’m going to
answer question from one of my facebook
fans Roger who wrote in about looking at
his website business raider calm so
we’ll go check it out and see what kind
of advice we can give for Roger load it
up come on business writer here we go
okay so my first thought I looking on
the site is there’s no value proposition
or tagline so what do you do all right
there’s no one sentence business writer
does this right so I’d want to have that
in here somewhere you kind of get a gas
by looking at this that it’s a it’s
about reviewing different businesses but
I I’d want to have that one liner to
quickly get the sets of what it is if
you do the next thing I think about is a
lot of competition for this why would I
go for you instead of Yelp or google
local or any other thousands of websites
out there to do this there’s a lot of
competition and the technology is pretty
easy to put together it’s more about
getting critical mass and getting the
users and the businesses on board so why
you over somebody else and I’d want to
have that really clearly laid out here
from both a business point of view and
user point of view so maybe you split
this and you say you know for businesses
here’s why you sign up and for users
here’s why you leave a review that you
know to make it valuable why why I
should come back and use your website
because when I think about this I think
about Yelp but I think about Google
Local so that’s that’s your first
challenge right away ranking is going to
start getting a challenging for a lot of
these keywords as well let’s look at
some of these so you have rick case
honda
and euclid so let’s see what you’re
trying to rank for rick case honda
euclid so let’s pop that into google and
see how it goes so if i’m searching for
rick case honda i’m looking for some
reviews to see how good of a place this
is so okay i think they would come up
first and make sense right here i got
the google local page that’s huge
competition going up against 11 reviews
16 rating overall you’ve got a facebook
page mystore411 it’s got to be some kind
of directory youtube videos another
directory on cars com autotrader yelp
and then business finest so you made it
there on the first page but at the
bottom so this is going to be your
constant struggle is how do you get
there oh sorry this is new this is
business business finder so it’s another
you’re not on the first page is a lot
competition there instead of your
business raider so how do you how do you
come up against all these big guys right
that people are searching you’re not
going to I mean maybe some of your
results will show up that’s gonna be a
big challenge if we look at your site
what’s your Alexa ranking 800,000 so
you’re so it’s not it’s not huge yet you
know you got to build it up obviously
but that’s going to be a big challenges
I don’t think of you when i’m thinking
about local businesses and when i do a
google result and this is for one of
your highlighted business cases you’re
not showing up on the first page and
you’re going up against massive
competition here from google plus and
yep so you need to give somebody a
strong case for why they should go with
you or somebody else so i don’t know why
this should be highlighted there’s no
reviews maybe that’s something to think
about it’s great to show their hours
here you know the link to the website is
good there’s a phone number again most
of the stuff we’d get from other places
as well it says two reviews but no
reviews so
that’s a little confusing I guess
something to think about maybe an option
for you is to pick a niche so my you
know second tip so first tip is is have
that value proposition really explain
why you’re different because I’m not
seeing it yet so something to think
about it I’m sure you know why and what
your plan is but it’s not it’s not
clearly communicated to your your
business customers and then your
consumer users you might want to pick a
niche so this is great to say that
you’re one of the top 10 companies to
watch in 2013 for auto success magazine
maybe that’s where you focus on the
start is just the auto stuff when I want
to hit the home page you see a whole
bunch of different categories that
you’re trying to rank for it seems to be
taking a while here all these different
categories but maybe you want to focus
on one niche be the dominant player in
that and then expand out from there this
is a big range so let’s click on
professional services as an example here
and see what kind of results we get so
you have you have you know reviews and
businesses from what three areas in the
US and one in Brazil probably not going
to be a lot of value for people who are
coming to the site say i click on
attorney see what’s in here no results
okay so you probably don’t want to have
showings the category listings if you
don’t have any results in there doesn’t
create a great user experience but there
are other directories for lawyers right
I would try to focus in on where you
have momentum like maybe it’s not auto
auto market and be known as that market
and then expand from there if you think
of a lot of successful companies they
started with a niche and built up so if
you look at facebook they started around
college campuses University campuses and
they explained it from there as they got
more well-known so start around autos
you have momentum you have listings you
have the sort of you have the
recognition from the magazines build
around that and then
expand afterwards so just something to
think about and then one last thing I
noticed was on the homepage so we have
popular businesses best in category is
recent review so here today i’m looking
at april eleventh i knows april the tent
so there’s it’s three-thirty afternoon
on april the 10th we’ve had two reviews
so far today and i don’t know how many
you had yesterday with this showing two
from yesterday this doesn’t look great
you know to only have two reviews on a
website that’s supposed to cover every
single business category doesn’t look
great so I’ll probably take off that
date it’s good to show the recent
reviews that people are leaving reviews
you know I don’t know how helpful it is
I don’t know where melt metals
barbershop is or can go d i’m in Toronto
so I don’t care what’s happened in San
Diego maybe customize these results to
my local area if you can or also take
off the date to show that you know that
you don’t want the site to look dead
doesn’t leave a good impression for
people who are using the site but also
for the business customers I think you
have some opportunity here right I see
still you know there’s more auto here
another dealership so I think if you can
focus your niche and build momentum
around it and also clearly explain your
value proposition to them then you have
an opportunity to grow this within that
nation and expand beyond but I think
there’s a little bit of work to do on
that front before you can kind of take
it to that next step so hopefully it
helped in terms of design I think it
looks it looks pretty good but my main
concern coming back is I don’t really
know what differentiates you from the
other companies that are out there and
again I’m not saying you don’t have
anything i’m sure in your mind you have
something no you don’t you don’t start a
business thinking now i’m going to be
number two to google or number two to
yelp but just do the same thing they’re
doing i’m sure you have a road map and a
plan and some things that are awesome
about your business that if somebody
sees they’re going to want to sign up
and get involved in but that message
isn’t coming across when i come visit
the
so it’s just better communication so
hopefully that helps for those of you
watching if you liked the video please
give it a thumbs up below and I’d love
to hear we have to think you can leave a
comment under the video they always make
my day I love waking up and seeing new
comments come in and if you have a
question about your business feel free
to leave it in the comment section below
as well so thank you and I’ll see you on
the next episode
you
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