I’ll admit, I’ve gotten lucky with my own small business and I’m booked solid with clients and projects. The downside is that I find myself turning down a lot of requests from other small business owners. So, this blog post is for them - for those small business owners, nonprofits and solo healthcare providers who might be able to do some of their own marketing work. Hopefully it’s helpful advice and my own recommendations for tools and tips that I’ve learned throughout the past 15+ years consulting with other small business owners  and nonprofits. 
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Put One Foot in Front of the Other.
In the words of Kris Kringle advising the Warlock, just get started walking forward. Commit to doing one thing to help your business each week or each month - whether it’s writing a blog post (see what I did there), organizing your email contacts, or crafting your own social media posts regularly, you can start the ball rolling on your own marketing.

Improve Your Website’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

​SEO is simply the art of improving your rankings with websites like Google. We don’t know the secret recipe to Google’s algorithm but we can play their game and set websites up for success by doing the basics.

For the past month, I’ve worked with dozens of small business owners in response to the pandemic and shutdowns. One thing is clear: every small business owner is impacted in some way. For some, business is better than ever (mine included). For others, they’re on the brink of bankruptcy. While these recommendations might not be able to help everyone, hopefully it will provide a lift for a few in this humble attempt to be of service during this weird world we’re all living in right now.


Below are 8 resources and suggestions that small business owners might find useful as they navigate the ebb and flow of running a business during a lockdown:


1. Small Business Loans
The Small Business Administration (SBA) are now providing targeted, low-interest loans (and some grants) to small businesses and non-profits that have been severely impacted by COVID-19.


2. Communicate Updates About Your Business or Nonprofit
Surprisingly, many small business owners have not added any language to their websites addressing any changes or updates regarding the pandemic and how it relates to their practice or business. Are you open or closed? It may seem obvious but it’s worth noting on your website. Also, several online tools are helping address changes by trying to make it easier for you to share updates. Google Business added a few tools so that you can provide a link to your website’s pandemic updates, post an update or mark your business as temporarily closed. You can also adjust your hours temporarily on your Google Business listing.

2020 - Wow. Here we are, in a decade we couldn’t have imagined back in high school but, thanks to television, had visions of flying cars, robots, and time travel in a DeLoreon. We’ve sort of gotten 2 out of 3 with self-driving cars and Roomba vacuum cleaners (wish I had invented that one). I won’t be holding my breath on the time travel, despite social media’s efforts to remind me what I did last summer. And now, let’s travel back to the topic at hand which is improving your small business website in 2020.
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I’ve had the luxury of working with scores of varying types of business over the years. I’ve helped countless small psychotherapy practices, chiropractors, small furniture stores, bed and breakfast inns and many nonprofit organizations. There are some things that cross all lines of business, so here’s my attempt to  cover most everyone with a few quick recommendations to help you improve your small business website in 2020.


1. Double check all those things you should’ve done in 2019 such as:

• Make sure your website’s address or url begins with https and not http. I’ve talked to several small business owners who thought their website was secured with an SSL certificate only to learn that it was never enabled. Without a secure website, Google has probably lowered your search engine ranking and lots of visitors may have arrived on your site only to be greeting with a scary security warning.
• Take a look at your website on your cell phone and your tablet device and make sure it looks decent. Your website should be responsive which means it should respond to the size of any screen. Another way to check your website’s responsive design is to simply shrink the size of your browser on any computer and watch as your site adjusts accordingly. If you shrink the size of your browser and your site doesn’t adjust the look & feel, then you do not have a responsive site. This is also problematic when it comes to your search engine rankings.

​2. ADA accessibility is becoming increasingly important for websites. There are a variety of standards for judging websites but if you’re a small business, you could simply add a widget or plugin to your site (for free) and that will help you become compliant on a basic level. Take a look in the lower right hand corner of my website, debbielamb.com and you’ll see a free tool called UserWay that is easy to add to sites and also provides a free accessibility statement template you can add to your site. You may not realize your website could give some people seizures do to your creative colors or animations and this app could seriously help those with disabilities. To check your website’s web accessibility, you can use webaccessibility.com, a free and easy tool that will even give your website a score and show you where you can improve.

Google Ads are somehow still mysterious to many small business owners so I thought it might be useful to give a top level mini-overview via my oh so awesome blog. 

On a very basic level, running ads on Google means that when someone searches for something on the internet, an Ad you create appears. It's noted with the word 'Ad' in front of it and is typically at the top of the page. Ads appear when the keywords we choose match a person's search online. So, if you're a Chiropractor, we add that word (and dozens of others) to a list of words or phrases people might type into Google when looking for a healthcare practice like yours. 

There are many ways to advertise using Google's Ad platform and the search method mentioned above is just one of them. Google also has partnerships with many websites that also show their ads. So, after someone does an online search, these ads will begin to appear on other websites that person/computer visits. A third way that ads are delivered to people is by matching the Advertiser's keywords with a news article or blog post's keywords. So, a person could be reading an article about back pain, for example, and Google would be showing ads for local Chiropractors on that page even though the reader might not have conducted a search yet for one.

Negative Keywords
In addition to creating keywords, I also recommend adding negative keywords. For example, if you're a Psychotherapist, we would add the keyword 'therapist' to your ad campaign. Meanwhile we would also add the word 'massage' as a negative keyword so that anytime a search term includes massage (i.e. massage therapist), the ads would not appear.

If you've ever had to edit a website in Wordpress then you'll understand what I know: Wordpress sucks.

Harsh words, I realize (sorry Wordpress, it's me, not you).

Here's the thing they don't tell you - it's clunky. And time-consuming. And NOT intuitive (don't believe anyone who tells you it's easy - because it's not). That said, I do recommend Wordpress for a small handful of clients. But you're probably not one of them.

Wordpress is loved by many. Which many? The many Coders out there, that's who. Honestly, unless you write HTML or CSS code and/or enjoy spending lots of time on computers, stay away from Wordpress.

I have created scores of websites for small business owners and individual health practitioners and the reason I often recommend web platforms like Weebly, Squarespace or Wix is because they are EASY. Many of my clients want their sites built for them but would like to be able to make simple updates on their own or train their staff to manage updates moving forward. Wordpress will take double or triple the time for folks to learn their platform and update their website. They're just not worth the time. And they might save you fifty or a hundred bucks a year if you go with their free version (which I don't recommend usually), but you'll lose that money in the time it will take to work on your site.

Your small business website might start having issues in 2018 if your domain doesn't begin with https:. The reason is that Google has begun lowering the ranking of sites without it. Since Google gets 70-80% of all searches in the U.S., this is important.

Years ago, you only needed an SSL certificate (which will convert your site from HTTP to HTTPS) if you were selling something on your site. But now, there are concerns that any website with a form (contact or email signups for example) could be hacked and therefore, require more security. 

How do you know if your site has SSL security or not?
Open your website up in your browser - Chrome, Firefox, Safari, etc. - and look for an exclamation point or error message near your website domain name. The image to the right here shows what it will look like in Chrome if your site has an http: address. 

How do you fix this HTTPS thing?
Many web hosting platforms like Weebly or Wix allow you to simply enable SSL security for free with any paid hosting plan. Once enabled, all you have to do is publish your site.

The next thing to do is change your settings in Google Analytics (there's a simple drop down menu for this change) and set up  a new site listing in Google Search Console (no, sadly you can't just switch the old one like with Analytics).

If you use Wordpress or another web host you may have to purchase an SSL certificate from your domain registrar (i.e. Godaddy or Network Solutions).

How urgent is this SSL stuff?
Not as urgent as making sure your domain is renewed each year but I'd recommend that no small business end 2018 without having fixed this.

Interested in getting help with updating the SSL on your site?
Why contact Lamb Consulting of course.

Interested in doing it yourself?
Here's a good tutorial on Google for you.

Eight days into the new year and many are just returning to work and wondering what 2018 will bring for their small business. As a small business consultant, Lamb Consulting sees a wide range of people running their own company but a few things cross all industries as ways nearly everyone can work to begin their new year on a better note. 

1. Update Your Email Lists
For many small business owners, this one falls by the wayside because they feel they are the only ones who know all their clients and industry colleagues. If that sounds familiar, there's no better time than January in a new year to get your email contact lists updated and organized. Referrals will always be your top driver of new business so why put this one off any longer? If using a mail service like Mailchimp or Constant Contact, make it easy on yourself and simply begin by making sure all your contacts there have a first name so you can personalize your emails. Once that's done, work on segmenting your lists into Groups so you can further customize messages. One group could be labeled clients, customers or patients while another could be sectioned off as friends/family. Trust me on this one - it's worth the time.

2. Backup Everything
If you remember Y2K, this is a no-brainer. Every New Year's is an opportunity to remember to backup your files, photos, data, email lists and your website. Dropbox is a great tool (free for the first 2 gigs of space) backing up on the cloud so you can access data from other devices but I'd also suggest a physical, external backup device. For my clients, I download and backup their websites every year - easy to do if you're using Weebly or another web service that doesn't charge extra for such services.

For the 3rd year in a row, Lamb Consulting is so grateful to have been named the winner of the "Best Graphic Design" award in Solano County by the readers of Vallejo Times-Herald newspaper. 

"Vallejo has been such a great place to call home for 17 years, and it's the perfect place to win such an honor" said Debbie Lamb, Owner of Lamb Consulting marketing agency. "I'm really blessed to have so many clients here in Vallejo, Benicia and Solano County and I have a  feeling some of these fine folks are responsible for this "Best Of" award. 

Lamb Consulting is also proud to announce several clients were also included in this year's honors, including The Inn at Benicia Bay, Vallejo Chiropractic and Axelrode Orthodontics. For a full list, visit the News page on this website. 

​In the world of advertising and marketing, there's one thing I often tell my clients: It's not brain surgery. I'm not saving any lives but I do try to respect my client's budgets. It may look difficult to some, but at the end of the day, your business (especially if you're a health practitioner) is probably way more difficult than mine!
 
That said - online ads aren't easy for everyone. Below is a common mistake in advertising and advice for folks who've tried it or are considering trying online ads.