MicroEntrepreneur - The Magic of Being Small

12: Keren Lerner – The biggest mistakes business owners make with their websites


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In episode 12 of Micro Entrepreneur: the magic of thinking small, I speak with Keren Lerner (an early pioneer in business website design and owner of the highly successful company Top Left Design), about where business owners go wrong when it comes to their websites.

Passionate about helping small business owners and micro entrepreneurs improve their presence online, Keren and her team build and design websites that reflect the personality of the business, help keep prospects/clients engaged; and help business owners earn a clear return on their investment.

This week's guest

About Keren Lerner

Based in Soho with a team of 9, Keren has been running Top Left Design since January 2002 and is an experienced designer and an expert on usability and accessibility and using design to communicate clear marketing messages. She also regularly trains fellow business people and budding entrepreneurs in social media, blogging, the principles of good website design, creating effective email newsletters and improving their online reputation. Her mission is to 'clean up the internet' and empower clients to represent and promote themselves in a way they can be proud of.

What we covered in the show:

We started out by talking about the weird and quirky things that small business owners do to their site, that turn potential clients away. And then we moved on to look at the 'biggest mistakes' business owners make when building a new website, or are migrating from a legacy site.

By doing a deep dive into 'what not to do' we uncovered loads of tips that you can start actioning on your website now! Including:

How to approach 'budget' when engaging a designer (the questions you need to ask yourself before you begin)
Why you should start small and relevant to your 'current' needs
Using single page websites
Migrating from a legacy site - getting the word count and visuals right for your business messaging
What effective content looks like and why so many people get it wrong - (key messages, headlines, editing and proofreading)
What your Home Page should look like (key messages, navigation, contact links and your call to action)
How to approach sign-ups and newsletters and email marketing
The purpose of your blog (keeping up with content, content calendars, headlines and copywriting)
Visuals and images (sourcing images, delegating image sourcing, copyright, attribution and creative commons)
Useful links

Image Sourcing

Bigstock
Depositphotos
PicMonkey

Free images

Morguefile
Stock.xchng
Flicker (with attribution)

Copy Writing

Copyblogger

Please also check out Keren's Free e-book 'Not Loving Your Website' that you download from her site here

And if you want to know more about the legal aspects of image copyright and how it affects your business website, here is a post by our resident legal contributor Suzanne Dibble.

Great Quote

"If you aren't very good at choosing images and you like cheesy images, you should delegate sourcing them to someone else!"

About the Podcast

The Micro Entrepreneur Podcast is your place to come and hear me talk about all things business for the micro business owner. I speak with experts, authors and other micro business owners and what they are doing to build and grow a successful micro business.

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MicroEntrepreneur - The Magic of Being SmallBy Julie Hall - The School of Marketing