In 2006, Karen Azari had high hopes for her company, Stone Group Miami. With nearly $2.2‚million in sales that year and more than a dozen employees on staff, her company — which manufactures countertops made of granite, marble and other stone for installation in residential kitchens and bathrooms — was on the fast-track for unprecedented growth.

Fast forward three years to 2009, and you’ll find Azari with a much different outlook on where her business is heading.

“The dismal state of the economy and a declining real estate market have taken their toll on my business,” said Azari, whose main clients were residential and commercial real estate developers. “It’s tough out there right now.”

Azari has felt the pain in her company’s shrinking bottom line. In 2008, with sales of only $1.5 million, Azari was forced to reduce her staff to just eight.

“Developers stopped calling because the homes they were building weren’t selling,” said Azari. “I looked around and realized I needed to find a new approach to getting clients.”

Azari is determined to use the economic downturn to her advantage. She wants to more effectively market her company to new clients through her website, www.StoneGroupMiami.com.

“I don’t have money right now to put into marketing the company the way I used to with expensive ads in design magazines,” said Azari. “I know the Web is where it’s at, so I want to do more in that regard.”

To help Azari develop her Web marketing mojo, BizBytes 101 brought in Jacques Hart, CEO of Miami-based Roar Media, and Jon Phillips, lead Web designer at Spyre Studios, based in Montreal, Canada.

UPDATE FLASH “There are a couple of things she can do right away to improve her site,” said Hart, who leads his firm’s interactive efforts. “First, it’s too heavy on Flash, which makes it difficult for search engines to crawl her site content and display it in search results.”

Flash, a program created by Adobe to add animation and interactivity to Web pages, has long frustrated Web designers. While the pages may look pretty, Flash sites are almost invisible to search engines, making it nearly impossible for potential clients searching the Web to find Azari’s business online.

To solve the problem, Phillips recommended ditching the Flash and replacing it with HTML, or Hyper Text Markup Language, used to create and control the appearance of Web pages and content on the Web.

THE HTML SOLUTION “A website built using HTML would ensure that all visitors can see the content of the website,” said Phillips. But with an all- Flash website, Azari runs the risk of losing visitors and, ultimately, customers.

Next, Hart recommended Azari add a strong call of action to the homepage of her site.

“When I log on, I’m not sure exactly what I’m supposed to do,” Hart said. “She needs to tell her visitors what she wants them to do.”

Phillips found the company’s mission a bit confusing. “It is obvious their website has something to do with stones, countertops and home renovation because of the images on the homepage,” he said. “But the fading orange line of text that reads ‘Countertop Fabrication and Installation’ is placed below the content area. It should be at the top, closer to the logo.”

MAKE MESSAGE CLEAR One important message missing from the site that Azari shared with BizBytes 101 is the fact that buying stone directly from her is less expensive than buying from Home Depot, Lowes or other big-box retailers. She said this is because when customers order from those stores locally, retailers then turn to companies like hers to fill the orders. That message definitely needs to appear on her website’s homepage.

In addition to beefing up her company’s message, Azari is going to work on incorporating the type of engaging content search engines love. Hart recommended that she add her desired search terms, such as “countertop fabrication,” to each page of her site multiple times.BEFORE AND AFTER There are some good things about Azari’s current site that small business owners can learn from. The photography of the stone and the company’s work is great. Adding a series of before and after photos would make it even better.

“Pretty pictures after you complete a job is not enough,” said Hart. “As a visitor to this site, I would love to see what a kitchen or bathroom looked like before Stone Group Miami got in there and made it beautiful.”

Once her current site is revamped and relaunched, Azari can use it like a digital business card, referring people to it when she meets them.

CREATE A NETWORK Azari is also intent on promoting her new site online to bring in potential customers. One of the quickest ways to do that is to create a social network. Sound complicated? It’s actually easier than you think and you can create one for your company, too!

With online platforms like Ning and CrowdVine, you can become the CEO of your very own social networking site without having to spend millions of dollars to do it. With a few clicks of a mouse, you can create a group for your company and engage thousands of people in a dialogue about what you do.