Final Piece Consulting, LLC

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So, you are a small business owner. You know you need customers, cash flow and a product or service to sell. Once the particulars of that to-do list are figured out, not too far behind needs to be the creation of a website for your new company.

If this isn’t on your radar in 2011 then you may as well not start your business (in my humble opinion). It doesn’t matter if you are a painter, insurance salesman, artist, photographer or CPA – you MUST have a website that is easy to find, easy to navigate and one that sufficiently showcases your business offerings and personality.

Now comes the hard part – should you pay the money to develop your site on HTML pages or use the WordPress platform?

This isn’t an easy question to answer in that it ultimately will depend on your individual needs, but I firmly believe that a customized WordPress website can offer up a lot of great advantages and at a much lower cost.

1) Enhanced SEO – Your email signature, business card and marketing materials should all point to your new website, but more importantly you want people to find you that otherwise never would if the website didn’t exist. That is what the Internet is for, right?   You can optimize an HTML site, sure, but it is extremely time consuming for a web developer/designer. As far as what the “Ruler of the World” Google tells us – HTML websites and WordPress websites are looked at the same. In my experience however, WordPress sites tend to outrank HTML sites early and often. Google, Bing, Yahoo and every other search engine want updated content that is relevant to search terms, and since WordPress is “technically” a blogging platform you immediately have an advantage.

2) Ease of Use – There is nothing worse than a clunky CMS (content management system) or one that takes you an hour just to upload a new photo.  With HTML sites, the quality of your CMS typically depends on how much you are paying for your website. WordPress has a relatively robust CMS system that is open source and can integrate with MySQL, PHP and others.  There will still be a learning curve for website owners that have never used WordPress, but I am willing to bet money that it is much smaller than a cheaply built CMS. Plus – if you want to add new pages to your site, switch up navigation or add a new logo you can do it without having to even look at any code!

3) SPAM! – I will tip my hat to HTML sites in that they are typically more secure. It is much easier for the Prince of Zimbabwe to get your credit card number on WordPress. I will say though that there are many new and expanding plugins that a good WordPress developer can install to protect you at a much greater rate than ever before.  If you are using a decent developer – your site should be safe using either HTML or WordPress.

4) Plugins - The one word and major reason WordPress continues to get better and better every day and I have fallen madly in love with it. Developers continue to make great plugins that are free or extremely cheap. Just don’t forget to donate sometimes to help the cause! Would you rather be able to add a new contact form, post a video and integrate your social media accounts with one click or design the functionality on your own each time?  Of course you can do that in HTML if you want, but again we are talking about ways to have a great website for a small price.

So in conclusion, if you are a small business owner I highly recommend you go with WordPress for your website. You will not only get a great looking site that ranks high and has great functionality, but you will have the ability to maintain your website without having to always pay a developer.

But enough about my opinion – what do you think?

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If you have any questions about whether or not a WordPress website would be good for your business – feel free to add a note in the comment section or contact us!

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It’s funny how one of the main social media tools you are an advocate for can fall to the back burner when you get too busy.  Being a business owner is certainly not easy and effective time management is truly the key to success.  But even when you feel great about all the client goals and deadlines you’ve met – you can still forget to look out for your own business.  I’m speaking about blogging of course, and not only its importance, but finding the time to do it for yourself and not just your clients.  I spend a large portion of my time building blogs, creating content for blogs and measuring the success of blogs.  This makes it hard for me to find time to blog for myself anymore.  This poor blog died a quick death almost right after it started and my personal blog hasn’t been updated in months.  I love writing and miss finding the time for it.  I’m hoping this post is therapeutic and I force myself to schedule blogging into my calendar right along with everything else.

I miss blogging.

My website misses the benefits that come from blogging.

My mind misses speaking for the world (or my mother) to hear.

I know and sell to businesses the importance of blogging, social media and really all inbound marketing. I need to get back to it and I hope you can help me. Otherwise I might forget what got me here and turn into one of the morons who responded to the survey below.

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I had the pleasure of being interviewed via email over the last few weeks by a young up-and-comer in the social media realm, Cole Watts.

I previously worked with Cole when he served as an intern at 919 Marketing.  Now he spends his time putting together great blog content while looking to land that great social media job that I know is out there for him.

Below is a brief excerpt from our conversation, and feel free to travel over to his blog IDreamInTech to read the entire interview.

Most of us know you as the Social Media presence behind 919 Marketing, but you recently left to start your own company.  What can we expect from your new company “Final Piece Consulting”?

 First of all, I’m excited to hear that “most” people may know anything about me since I’m just a guy that loves working online. At 919 Marketing, I did my best to integrate social media marketing into as many client accounts as possible while still handling day-to-day PR tasks and account management. After spending the last 3 ½ years working at Triangle firms, keeping up with emerging trends and working them into my everyday tasks, I finally had a “Eureka” moment and thought – maybe there is something MORE I could be doing with all this great knowledge I’ve been able to soak up.

That moment was when I decided to start Final Piece Consulting. I view the company as place small businesses that can’t afford large retainers can turn to for help in social media marketing with a splash of traditional marketing, public relations, event planning and copywriting. Small Businesses are the lifeblood of our local economy and many of them flounder because they can’t afford high quality marketing help.  With the emergence and effectiveness of social media marketing I firmly believe you can propel your small business to success with the right guidance and expertise.

I also realize that cash flow and the bottom line is even more important to a small business than a larger entity able to take financial risks. That is why I will come in to your organization and make sure I fully understand it before I will even create a plan or offer up any inclination as to what you can expect if you work with me. Once I understand your goals on a holistic level I’ll head back to the Final Piece “cave” and create a full-scale 3, 6 or 12 month strategic plan.  The plan will include everything you need to achieve those goals, from what tools we should use and how we should use them, to what complementary PR and traditional marketing we need to elevate the campaign. Most importantly it will involve metrics of measurement (financial and non financial) that can be tracked so at the end of our (hopefully) long partnership you can see how your investment in Final Piece Consulting has paid off.

You’ll also be able to expect an honest guy who can sometimes be a little too sarcastic and is passionate about what he believes in. That belief can range from his approach to social media marketing to why the 1999 Virginia Tech Hokies were the greatest team to not win a National Championship.

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Over the course of the last few months I have been moving non-stop in an effort to get my initial entrepreneurial endeavor off the ground. It has been extremely gratifying to see something I have complete control over come together but at the same time it has been overwhelming.  The one thing that has gotten me to the point where I am at now though (two clients and a good deal of freelance work) is my friends.

I can’t overstate the importance of reaching out to those friends you trust for advice, expertise, insight and an occasional kick in the pants as you begin a business. I consider myself an intelligent guy, but I know what I am really good at, and it’s the work I’ll be doing for this company – not the starting the company part.

Luckily I have a great group of friends I was able to look to when it came to choosing a business entity (Thanks, Bardin), getting my finances in order (Thanks, Theresa), designing a logo (Thanks, Ty) and searching for advice, insight and support (Thanks: Carrie, Mom, Dad, Dane, Mike, Ryal, Barbara, Lane, Will, Tom, Sean, Marshall, Kate, Ashlie and many others).  You may not have even known what you said or did was helping me at the time – but it was.

I know this isn’t going to be easy. I know I’ll have to work twice as hard. I know 100% of my livelihood and finances are now in my own hands. I know and understand all of this and that’s why I started Final Piece Consulting.

I thrive in high stress situations and love working for and with people I know have strong ethics and at the end of the day want to offer a quality product or service.

I wanted to be my own boss and you all helped that dream become a reality.

Thanks.