Special thanks to the good folks at ABC the Tavern -Uptown in University Circle – 11434 Uptown Ave. – Cleveland, 44106 (off Mayfield Road at Euclid Ave.)
ABC Uptown, abcthetavern.com/menu – Terrific menu! Fantastic Beer Selection & of Course Full Bar….
In our VLOG this week Barry talked about the Do’s and Don’ts of website design from the service industry standpoint, i.e. Restaurants, Taverns, Plumbers and other service related businesses.
Dos ——————
- Put contact info clearly on home page.
- Phone number is a clickable link for smart phones.
- Address is linked to Google Maps.
- Easy navigation.
- Must have a mobile version of your website.
- Blog at least once/week.
Don’ts —————
- Lay off the Flash:
- Don’t auto-load music or video.
One of the points mentioned was how important it is to have and maintain a BLOG, or better yet, a Video Blog. When we advise our clients about the importance of BLOG the first thing we hear is “There is no way I have the time to sit down and write a BLOG every week or every other week”.
Mark mentioned a tip we would like to share to those folks in the service industry who simply don’t have the time to write a BLOG:
Try this, think of a topic that is relevant to something that is happening in your business or better yet what is the #1 question you get from your customers other than ‘how much’? That will be your first topic for your Blog. Then, using the voice memo feature of your phone, record your Blog. Answer the question exactly how it is asked.
When you’re finished, email your voice memo to an online transcription service. For a few dollars, usually $1-$2 per minute depending upon the transcription service, they will transcribe your audio file into text. They will send you the text and then copy and paste that text onto your Blog page. There’s your first BLOG and it didn’t take a whole lot of time to produce. It’s that easy.
Edwards Communications uses speechpad.com; they are good people, have great rates and do fine work. Check out their web site; their pricing is based upon the length of the audio file and how soon you would like it. For example, we go the most inexpensive route – it takes about 5 days. but they only charge $1 per minute transcribed. So for a 5 minute VLOG we pay $5.
