Image is everything on the Web. Big pet care companies can look small, and small pet care companies can look big. What follows are my seven tips and heads-ups to help you build and maintain a successful lead-generating “web presence.”

Shorten Your Home Page Content
Website visitors are overwhelmed with long paragraphs of essay-style text on home pages and service description pages. If overloaded, your visitors will either leave or won’t get a strong impression about why they should call you. Write with concise clarity, and describe your services in short sentences or with bullet points. Look at your home page. In a 15-second scan, does it clearly say who you are, what makes you different from other pet care companies, and what geographic areas you serve?

Add More Photos and Video
Photos of your facilities or staff help personalize your web presence, distinguishing it from others. Videos of you or customers talking about their pets are an excellent way to engage with potential customers and keep their attention long enough for your message to get through. With video, just use any digital video camera, talk into the camera for 30 seconds to a minute, upload to YouTube, and link to it from your site.

“Convert, Don’t Divert”
Focus your brain on converting site visitors into leads. Many business owners focus too much attention on design details instead of the basic task of generating business. Look at your home page. Do you see your phone number and service area at first glance? If not, you are missing the most critical website element when it comes to converting leads. If you need the phone to ring, an easy-to-spot phone number is your web page’s best salesperson.

Google Places
Right now, go to Google Places (their maps section). Find, claim, and then fully complete your business profile listing. These profile listings are free and a key to getting noticed when people search for local businesses like yours. These profile pages, when complete, will give you an edge when it comes to getting in front of more people.

The way these profiles are organized and displayed makes it really easy for searchers to hop from one to another. Make your business look better than your competitors’ by having a full profile that lists all the neighborhoods or towns you serve, descriptions of services that match those on your website, and pictures of you or your staff. There are services that will do this work for you for a nominal fee ($200-$500).

Web Analytics
It’s been a while since I thought this was worthy of making the top seven tips for web marketing, but I have recently come away with the impression that everyone is better off staying in touch with how real human customers are using your site. Most site visits will consist of a journey to your home page, your services page, and then maybe to your “contact us” or “about us” page. You will be able to create better content and convert more leads if you can gain even a basic understanding of your customers’ on-site behavior.

Online Reviews
Leading search engine and local directory sites have areas for customers to rank your business from one to five stars and include comments on their experience with you. When I get asked about social media for small businesses, my top recommendation is to focus on getting your best customers to post reviews on one of the top sites. (Google, CitySearch, and Yelp are the top three I would pick.) Your web marketing strategy must, at the very least, include an understanding of online ratings sites.

Bold Design Change
Change is good. If you are building or overhauling your website, consider using a bold element that appears on your home page. Maybe use a textured background or consistent “wow factor” photo that appears on every page. What you are getting here is my sole opinion backed by a gut feeling, not a Harvard study.

When it comes to web design for newbies, the smart choice is to be conservative. If your business has evolved or grown and your image has become more distinct, it’s time to consider a design element that really pops off the page. Here are a few quick ideas: a large-scale, stunning photo; a single, bold color that ties into the logo; a landing page with simply a company name, elegant tagline, and phone number. Or keep the “wow” more simple by adding a web video to your homepage. These are just a few ideas that can help attract the attention of a potential new client.

I urge you to be bold but also careful. If you are a high-end provider or the leader in your market, work with your web designer to make one bold web design move. Customers’ eyes will appreciate a single bold element but will be distracted if you go overboard.

Griffin Davis is VP of Marketing for Market Hardware, Inc. (www.markethardware.com). Griffin has worked in Internet marketing and small business marketing since 1993. Market Hardware helps pet care professionals compete on the Web and offers special discounts for association members. Ask Griffin any website or Internet marketing question by emailing [email protected] or calling 888-381-6925. Follow his Web marketing newsfeed at www.twitter.com/markethardware.

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