During the pandemic and the subsequent changes to shopping, dining, and business practices, websites have been indispensable.

"More and more during COVID, (the internet) becomes the place where transactions happen. (People are) placing orders and buying products (online)," explained marketing expert Adam Grim. "Websites are the first impression for the business. In most cases these days, people are looking at your website before they're willing to have a call with you or stop by your location."

Grim has worked in digital marketing in Lancaster County for nearly a decade. With a business partner, he built Sparrow Websites before recently shifting his focus from doing the design work to helping business owners develop content and opening Bootstrap Local.

"I have a passion for those businesses who have a great idea, a lot of grit and determination, but don't have a huge budget for marketing," Grim said.

Grim is a member of the Southern Lancaster County Chamber of Commerce and has been a guest speaker on the subject of effectively using the web to market small businesses. Additionally, he offers marketing advice with Lancaster SCORE, which provides free mentoring and education for business owners and entrepreneurs.

"I'm on my second business, but I got a SCORE mentor. She's been fantastic," Grim commented. "Every business should have a SCORE mentor."

With how important websites are, Grim advocated spending time, if not money, to develop one. Domain names can be purchased relatively inexpensively from Google, and free or low-cost site builders like Wix, Weebly, and Webs are available. Grim recommends using SquareSpace, which has a strong search engine optimization (SEO) framework that helps websites become visible in searches.

Before starting, however, business owners should plan a good messaging strategy by identifying their target audience and how the business' service or product can solve customers' problems, and they should create a mood board, which will lead to the creation of a style guide. Grim recommended visiting http://www.mystorybrand.com to help with that process.

Once the site is live on the web, the next thing is to update it on a regular basis through blog posts, video content, and voice recordings. These can be uncomfortable at first, Grim noted. "For most businesses, in order to grow, (owners) need to step out a bit," Grim shared. "For a while, I didn't like being on camera, so I didn't do anything, but then I discovered podcasts. I got comfortable with them, and now I do videos."

Podcasts are a significant missed marketing opportunity, Grim said, as there are large databases of podcasts looking for guests. Even if a podcast is not local, the link will point back to the business page, which will improve rankings in search results.

Other resources for business owners include http://www.canva.com for creating attractive visuals and http://www.answerthepublic.com for discovering what questions potential customers are asking. "(Go here) if you want to create helpful (website) content but don't know where to start," Grim advised.

Readers may also visit https://lancaster.score.org and http://www.bootstraplocal.com for free resources. Those with questions may email Grim at adam@bootstraplocal.com.