Tuscaloosa businesses increasingly a target of cyber attacks
An important part of our business here at VandalsSmile is advising small businesses before, during and after a cyber attack or hack. The recent DCH ransomware hit was world news and rightly gets the attention, but a big piece of the story is lost for most readers:...
Absolute Musts: Digital small business marketing in the time of Coronavirus
We've purposefully held off penning this blog since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in February because we wanted to gather data on how small businesses in general, our existing clients, and new customers are behaving amid these financially harsh times. Now that...
Focusing On a Good Looking Website is Hurting Your Small Business
Do you know what the number one request of us is when we engage a new small business website customer here at VandalsSmile? Well, we typically ask all our clients, "So what are you looking to do?" and we get: "I really want a good looking website for our business!"...
New Real Estate Lead Generation Service for Brokerages
Last week here at VandalsSmile we launched the first in a series of industry-specific digital lead generation solutions to help businesses grow their revenues from leads on the web, mobile, and social media. Real Estate Seller Leads are Hardest to Get Aimed at helping...
Focusing on SEO Isn’t Enough to Grow Your Business
Google had revenues of $110.8 billion dollars in 2017. By comparison, the entire GDP of New Zealand is around $180 billion. Yeah. And, what's more, a whopping 86.9% of Google's revenue last year was generated by digital advertising sales to help businesses market...
Using Google My Business Posts to Boost Your Site’s Search Visibility
About a year ago, Google enhanced their business registry for search, called Google My Business, with something they call "Posts." These posts are kinda like mini-advertisements that appear alongside your Google My Business listing when a web visitor searches for and...
3 Ways to Tell If Your Website Sucks
If you're a small business owner, one of the most difficult things to gauge about your marketing efforts (and your business performance as a whole) is how well your website is doing at getting you visibility and - most importantly - new customers. Not only do you have...
Guide to Small Business Web Marketing for Owners
Growing a small business in today's age of technology can be tough. Not only is technology moving ahead faster than business owners can keep up, it's confusing and costly too. Plus, the local and national vendors that provide web marketing services more often than not...
Most Tuscaloosa Small Business Websites Don’t Grow Business
As a web designer and mobile software developer, I frequently use the tools and expertise at VandalsSmile's disposal to scan and analyze the websites of small businesses in the local area I frequently interact with as a consumer. In fact, for...
Why Twitter is So Important for Your Small Business Website
Now that Donald Trump's tweets themselves are huge daily news, it's a good time to revisit the ubiquitous social media platform and how Twitter can help small business owners grow their business through their small business website. A few years ago, Twitter and Google...
How to Get More Search Traffic for Your Small Business Website
There are just under 30 million small businesses in the U.S. That's about one business for every ten people. As a small business owner in your city, you compete with dozens of others who offer the same or similar products and services in your regional or local market....
How much money is your website costing your business?
Is your small business website doing well in Google search? If not, why are you sticking with it? Because, on average, search engine leads close at a rate of 14.6% as opposed to a 1.7% close rate for the more traditional, outbound marketing most common in small...
Small Business Owners: Learn to Work Digital Leads or Fade Away
Despite lots of technology scattered around everywhere, small businesses today obtain customers largely as it's traditionally been done. In fact, the majority of local pros focus on getting new business using the same techniques they've been using for the past 50...
Most Small Businesses are Paying Good Money for Bad Websites
One of the first - and most important - things you need as a small business is a website. In fact, for most owners, websites should be their #1 lead generation and marketing tool. After all, the majority of all consumer transaction start with an online search in...
HomePocket Merges with VandalsSmile to Offer Broader Set of Digital Services
Tuscaloosa, AL - HomePocket, a residential real estate marketing and website design company, has merged with VandalsSmile. The Homepocket brand will cease to exist and be replaced solely with VandalsSmile branding. Already under the same management team as...
Cheap Websites Actually Hurt Your Business
If you're a small business owner out to get a website, you're probably doing it to get into the now all-important digital marketing and get new customer leads by building a place where local shoppers can find you on the web and mobile when they search Google. You're...