Do you need a website?
I frequent a local cigar shop near my home town called Good Old Times Cigars. The owner (Bob) is a good guy and has been in business for a long time. He has built a good business based largely on word of mouth, but up until this point hadn’t done a lot with online websites or marketing. He does have a a Google My Business account and ranked first for various terms such as Cigars Near Me and Cigars Tavares Florida in which his GMB listing came up. Potential new customers could search and see the many reviews that his customers have left, as well as his phone number and address. For the most part, that alone will do a lot for any local small business. However Bob felt he should probably get a website, and since I build websites for a living I agreed. So we began to discuss what was the right website for him.
What do you plan to do with Good Old Times?
The only issue that I had was I don’t primarily focus on the types of websites that Bob needed. He really just needed a basic two to three page website that allowed customers to not only know his location and phone number, but to also give some insight to his product offerings, as well the experience you might have when visiting the cigar lounge. He also hosts events with different vendors from time to time, so being able to create articles on the site and then sharing the event on his Facebook page was a good idea. Allowing people to come to the website from Facebook could create additional benefits that a single post or two on social media doesn’t offer. Eventually I would like to see Bob list the types of cigar brands that he offers in more details as well as the other products that he offers, such as pipes, tobacco, and cigar accessories. However he isn’t planning on selling products via e-commerce so I suggested we keep it simple and use a platform such as Squarespace.
What is the right website platform for Good Old Times?
Bob also isn’t interested in doing a lot of heavy stuff like content creation, email marketing, Good Adwords, so Squarespace was a great choice for Bob. Squarespace is simple to set up, they have tons of great looking templates, and provide all of the basics for a small business. Squarespace can actually do quite a bit more if in fact he decides to expand later. Many of the other businesses I work with have different needs, therefore I suggest using a platform such as WordPress, but for Good Old Times we got him up and running with a domain and a website for less than $150. To compare, I sell website packages up to $3000, plus monthly costs, but he really did’t need anything like that. My goal is to provide each client with what is right for them.
What did Good Old Times Need to Get Started?
So once we made a decision we first needed to created an account in Bob’s name, and then I added myself using my own account as a collaborator in order to work on his behalf. Bob didn’t really want to do the heavy lifting, so I took care of it for him for an additional fee. However, If you are decent with a laptop and can take a few pictures, you can get started on your own in an afternoon. He also needed a domain such as https://www.goodoldtimescigar.com. The cost for that on Squarespace is around $20 annually and could be more expensive depending on the domain you choose. We then added the necessary pages, wrote some keyword rich content, and took some pictures that gave people some insight into what his cigar lounge looked like. And just like that Bob was up and running!
Beyond Getting Started
There a few other things to consider when you start a new website. We wanted Good Old Times to rank for a few keywords such as Cigars Near Me, Cigars Tavares Fl, and others, so I did some additional work to make the site more complete. Here a few basics that you should consider when setting up your website. I have listed these items below. I won’t go into detail here on these items, but if you have the time you can learn them online, or of course you could just hire me to take care of it should you decide to do so.
Here are some of the basics items you should do….
- Fill Out Meta Data for SEO purposes
- Add Open Graph Data for Social Media to your website
- Submit a Sitemap to Google Console
- Open a Google Analytics account
- Make a list of some other business that could provide a backlink to your new website to give your domain authority (credibility). This is especially important if you have a new domain.
- Wait a few weeks for you site to begin to rank in Google. This can take days orweeks depending on multiple factors.
Just get started today!
There is always more to do, but these basics are a great start. When starting out, I suggest you open these accounts under your own name so you are the owner and aren’t tied to any one web developer. You can always invite web developers and/or marketers in to help you with your project. You can also remove them should you decide that you don’t want to work with them any longer.
I hope this has provided you with some insight to get you started. You really don’t need a lot to get started, and this will help to legitimize your business online. It will also help potential customers decide if your business is right for them. By the way, If you are looking for a good cigar, stop in and see Bob and tell him I sent ya!