If you have an offline business, the primary goal of your website is probably to attract new local customers to your door. But how do you track the effectiveness of your website?

Sure you can track the number of visitors to your website with free tools like Google Analytics and the new Google LBC Reporting Dashboard, but how do you measure which of these visitors turn into actual customers?

Enter Google Voice

Well Google is starting to open up a free new tool that can help you do this. With Google Voice you get a new local phone number that you can use to route calls to your business, cell or home numbers.

It also provides voice mail capabilities and transcribes these voice mails so you can read them in your email. And you can manage all of this from a simple web interface.

Tracking Calls From Your Website

Since all of these calls are logged, if you use this number on your website you can tell how many phone calls your website is generating for you.

Google Voice provides you with a “Call Me” Widget that you can put on your website, and if people click it and enter their phone number, the service connects you with your potential customer instantly.

I was lucky enough to get Google Voice number back when the service was called Grand Central. They’ve made a lot of improvements to the service and I’ve been using it as the primary local phone number for my business for about a year.

The service works well, and gives me a lot of flexibility in how I route my calls, check my voicemail and enable my customers to reach me from various websites that I run.

Watch the video to learn more:

Getting a Google Voice Number

How can you get a Google Voice number? Well the rumor is that they are opening up numbers in the U.S. this week. So what are you waiting for – Go put your name on the invitation request list!

You can also follow the Google Voice team on Twitter – @googlevoice for real-time updates.

Note: If you are interested in this you may also want to read my series on Virtual Phone Systems.

WordPress and Thesis are a powerful combination for building great websites. Some of the hottest blogs today are using Thesis, with new ones converting over every day.

But did you know that you can use Thesis and WordPress to create highly effective small business websites that get great local search results too?

Why Thesis?

In addition to my SmallBiz WordPress theme, the Thesis theme is a valuable tool in my toolbox for building small business websites.

Thesis provides some powerful capabilities that help you build websites that both look good and perform well in the search rankings.

First of all, it is based on WordPress, which is a powerful foundation for building a small business website that is easy to update and search engine friendly.

And Thesis brings benefits to the table over and above that:

• Built-in SEO capabilities. You can set your page title, meta description and keywords for the entire site, and over-ride them on a page-by-page basis.
• Infinite customization. Thesis allows you to add content before or after any section, for the entire website. For example, adding your business address to the footer of every page is a good idea for local search optimization. Thesis enables this and the free OpenHook plug-in makes it easy to do this without any coding.
• Elegant design and readable typography. The out of the box design is simple and elegant. Maybe too simple for some tastes, but the opportunities for customization are compelling. And the typography is set up to be very clear and easy to read. So many of the themes I see have basic Arial and other Sans Serif fonts that are too small to read and are not used consistently throughout the site.
• Powerful options panel. The Thesis Options panel makes it easy to change almost anything on the site – from the number of columns to the font sizes, feature areas, and many other things.
• Easy upgrades. The theme was architected so that all of your code and style changes can be isolated to a single directory. That means when you need to back up your changes or upgrade the theme, all you need to do is save the /custom directory and your upgrade is completely seamless.
• Great support. Thesis has a thriving community, including a support forum that is monitored by a crack staff, a Twitter hashtag (#thesiswp) and many blogs that cover the theme. This means it is easy to get your questions answered quickly.

But What Are The Drawbacks?

The power of Thesis is its flexibility. The design is clean and simple, and a great starting point for customization. By simply adding a header graphic and a few pages you can have a professional looking website.

But the out of the box styling is too simple and plain for many people’s taste. It does require some customization to get it to look unique. So for people who do not want to take on a little bit of work, they might be better served by a theme that has more visual “pop” out of the box.

So if you are a small business owner looking to build a professional website for your business, or a consultant who helps small business owners, take a look at WordPress, and the Thesis theme and decide if it is right for you:

Thesis Demo Site — See the Thesis Theme in action!

Free eBook Guide – Thesis for Small Business Websites

I’ve put together a lot of small business websites using WordPress, and many of them with Thesis. So I wrote this guide to share some of the things I learned. If you are interested in learning how to set up websites with Thesis, this guide will walk you through it step-by-step.

This free 37-page guide walks you through installing WordPress, installing the Thesis theme, and configuring them both to create a professional website for your small business.
 
 

RingCentral just released an iPhone application that gives you access to some of their services.

The app is free, and you need to have a RingCentral account to use it. It allows you to use your iPhone to make calls, and to make your business phone number (i.e. RingCentral phone number) show in the caller ID instead of your personal phone number on your iPhone.

This is a nice feature for a small business owner, but unfortunately, it doesn’t allow you to use some of the other cool features of a virtual phone system like RingCentral such as:

• Auto receptionist
• Company greeting and hold music
• Multiple extensions
• Dial by name directory
• Call routing to existing landline and mobile phone numbers
• Multiple voicemail boxes
• Internet fax

What I think would be extremely useful is if they allowed me to get into my Admin Panel and access things like Call Logs, Answering Rules and other things.

I’m hoping since they have added the iPhone app, they have plans to add capabilities like this in the future!

Update: I grabbed some new screen shots for the new version of the RingCentral iPhone app:

Screen shots from version 1.6 of the RingCentral iPhone app

Last week I was able to get Jay Blazensky, VP of Business Development at Ring Central on the phone for an interview.

In the interview, Jay addresses common questions that I hear from small business owners like:

• What is a virtual phone system?
• What is a RingMe or Click-To-Call button, and how can it provide a compelling call to action on my website?
• How can small business owners use a system like this to track their marketing efforts, both online and offline? How can you tell how many calls your website is generating?
• Is it better to use an 800 number or local number on your website?
• How can business owners use a virtual pbx or virtual phone system like RingCentral to save money?
• Some examples of businesses are using the web based interface for managing their call routing, company directory, fax and voice mail.

Listen to the interview below:

I’ve been using RingCentral on my website, and for some of my clients as well. Be sure to check out the Expand2Web series on Small Business Phone Systems for more on this topic, I think it is a valuable tool for small business owners.

What did we leave out? Let me know in the comments and I’ll get your questions answered quickly.

I recently discovered a great new web site called TalkTech.tv. In a recent video on the site, Kristin White interviewed RingCentral’s VP Strategy, Praful Shah. The interview did a nice job of summarizing what a “virtual phone system” is, what RingCentral does, and how small business owners are using the service as a more flexible, cost effective phone system that traditional PBX solutions.

Key Take Aways From The Interview

What Is A Virtual Phone System?

RingCentral is essentially a virtual phone system or “virtual PBX” that connects all the phones in an office together, even if the employees are working remotely. The service provides voice applications over the Internet in a way that is easy to set up and use in virtual offices, starting at $10/month.

Contrast this with buying expensive hardware PBX systems that are much more expensive to purchase and maintain. Conventional multi-line business phone systems require hardware, professional installers, special types of phones, and are hard to change and modify. The initial cost is expensive, the technology is complex, and the ongoing maintenance is expensive too.

What Are The Features Of A Virtual Phone System?

Small companies want to look professional, and at the same time their work forces are distributed and more mobile than ever before. RingCentral makes features available that you would expect any large, established business to have when you call. Features like professional voice greetings, a company directory, direct extensions for employees, etc. The key is to connect everybody in the organization easily with whatever their existing numbers are, whether that means a home office, cell phone, or voice over IP (like Skype.)

A short list of the features that enable this include:

1. Auto attendant greetings – thank you for calling, company directory, direct to voice-mail, etc.
2. Multiple extensions – the ability to set up separate extensions for sales, billing, customer support and others without buying new equipment.
3. Call routing – based on schedules of each employee, you can set up rules that specify with number to call at what time of the day, and when to go to voice mail.

Click-to-Call And Call Tracking

One capability they did not touch on in the interview, is the ability to set up a “click-to-call” or “RingMe” button on your website, making it easy for prospective customers to contact you, and making it easy to track which calls come from your website. This is something that I recommend to my clients, and has been very useful to them. I use this on my website as well.

The Video

Here is a link to the article on TalkTech.tv – Interview With RingCentral.

Coincidentally, earlier this week I recorded a phone interview with Jay Blazensky, VP Business Development for RingCentral. We go into depth on how to use RingCentral to set up click-to-call functionality on your website, and how to track calls from your website and other marketing campaigns. I’m finishing up production on that and will be posting it early next week, on my Virtual Phone Systems resource page.

You can sign up for a Free Trail of RingCentral here.

How many visitors come to your small business website? Of those, how many take action and contact you, and how many simply leave?

For small business owners who have a physical store front, usually the primary purpose of your website is to get potential customers to call or stop by your place of business.

Many of the sites I see don’t have a clear “call to action” that asks a visitor to take the next step. Without this, all the hard work you’ve done to get people to your website is usually lost.

One great way to provide a specific call to action on your website is to add a “Click to Call” button. This is a capability that most hosted small business phone systems or hosted PBXs offer, and it is easy to implement. It allows your visitors to press a button to get connected to you on the phone.

Click to Call Benefits:

1. Provides a call to action for your visitors
2. Allows you to track which calls come from your website
3. Many people prefer to contact you by phone instead of email or a contact form

If you have a virtual phone system like RingCentral, you can add a “Click to Call” or “RingMe” button to your website in five minutes with three easy steps:

1. Choose your button
2. Get the code snippet
3. Add it to your site in the footer or sidebar

Video: How to add a Click to Call or RingMe button to your website

In this short screen cast video, I walk through these steps to show how you can add a click to call button  quickly and easily on your blog or website. Take a look at the video and let me know in the comments if you have any questions.

If you are using click to call or call tracking on your website I’d love to hear how it is working out for you. If not, get a free trial at RingCentral and try it out on your site!

Small business owners, mobile professionals and people who work from home have more options than ever for communicating with customers and partners.

New virtual phone systems like RingCentral and Phone.com provide some exciting new ways to project a professional image for small business owners like realtors, contractors and independent consultants.

Buying a PBX is Old School

photo credit: Seattle Municipal Archives

In the past, small business owners who wanted to present a professional appearance had to purchase a small business phone system or “PBX.” PBX is an acronym for private branch exchange, which makes connections among the internal telephones of a private organization, and connects them to the public switched telephone network. The PBX allows a company to have an “extension” for each of its employees, fax machines, etc.

Purchasing a PBX was a complicated and expensive decision for small business owners. With the advent of “hosted PBX” or “virtual phone services”, projecting a professional presence for your business has become incredibly easy and cost effective.

Going “Virtual” With Your Phone System

While I worked at Microsoft on the Office Live initiative, I had the opportunity to meet with many small business owners to hear their challenges and concerns.

Most small business owners I talked to had very limited time and budget, yet still wanted to project a professional appearance to their current and prospective customers.

During this time I learned about virtual phone systems and how they provided small businesses a more flexible and cost-effective approach to managing their phone and fax services.

One of the partners I met during this time was a company called RingCentral. RingCentral has a very strong virtual phone service offering that is used by tens of thousands of individuals and small businesses for things like 800 numbers, call forwarding, and internet fax. The people there are also very good to work with, and we build a successful partnership for offering these services to Office Live customers.

At first I didn’t quite get the concept. I was asking myself – what exactly is a “virtual phone service?” And how is it different from VoIP – voice over ip services or a PBX public branch exchange, or even the public phone system?

Well, in this series of articles, I want to break this down for you based on what I’ve learned. First let’s start with some definitions.

Small Business Phone System Terminology

When talking about phone systems for small businesses, there are three rapidly growing areas:

• Virtual Phone Systems – These phone services provide a web interface that allows you to easily control and set up call forwarding, multiple extensions, voice-mail, directories, hold music and other capabilities. They can route incoming calls to your cell phone or land line, or use VoIP – voice over IP.
• Voice Over Internet protocol (VoIP) - Voice over IP is the ability to make and recieve phone calls from your computer, using the Internet. Many Instant Messenger clients provide the ability to talk using your broadband internet service using VoIP, and some services can also connect you to the PSTN – public switched telephone network – so that you can call out and connect to people not using a VoIP services system as well. Microsoft, Cisco and other large companies have recognized the opportunity and have developed entire Unified Communications strategies to leverage this technology for businesses and individuals.
• Internet Fax – This is the ability to send and receive faxes using your computer and the Internet rather than having a physical FAX machine.

There are many other terms used to describe these features, such as “hosted PBX”, “virtual PBX”, “hosted phone service” and “Internet phone service.”

There is an abundance of terms, so I’ll try to simplify things in a series of articles designed to explain how real businesses are using these types of systems to interact with their customers and partners.

Subsequent articles in this series will go into more depth on the benefits of these systems, and how real businesses are using them to cut costs and communicate with their customers and partners better.

Here is the link to the main page for this article series on Small Business Phone Systems. And if you want to give a virtual phone system a test drive for your business right away I recommend RingCentral. They have plans as low as $9.95/month and offer a free trial as well.

If you have a story to share about this, please leave a note in the comments or contact us so I can include it!