Online Marketing for Small Businesses
Small businesses in Charleston SC have begun to see the value in promoting themselves online, however, they don’t always maximize their online efforts. It is great that small businesses are now realizing that they need a website, but, if you ask them why they need one, they really don’t have the greatest of answers. It’s more of “everyone has one now” type of thing. Many are missing the power of online marketing.
It is just as important to market your website as it is to have one built. Some businesses don’t put their url on all of their marketing materials (business cards, etc.) and most don’t seek assistance in having their site optimized. To their defense, many do not have knowledge of internet marketing, its opportunities and how to maximize them.
We all know that a small business does not have the deep advertising budgets that larger corporations have, but there are a lot of inexpensive ways to promote online. For example, having your webmaster change the title tags to match some of your most profitable product or service niches. It is also a good idea to make sure your business shows up on all the local sections of search engines and directories. What I mean by this is services like Google Maps, Google Base, Yahoo! Local Listings and online phone/yellow page directories to name a few. The more places you are, the greater chance you have that someone searching for a product of service you offer will find you.
Being a small business owner means wearing many hats and learning a little about as much as possible. I suggest small business owner’s research online marketing or talk to an experienced professional about some of the cost effective possibilities to maximize their online presence.
Peter Caputa Says:
Entirely agree with you that online marketing is pretty foreign to most small businesses. But, that’s the opportunity, right?
The analogy I like to use is to compare online marketing to a networking event. Almost all business owners go to networking events as ways to meet prospects and referral sources. So, if they picture the internet as one big 24×7 networking event where every connection and interaction is recorded, cataloged and made searchable, they start to see the power of it.
They then just need to learn the processes and tools that are needed to make everything work. I’d highly encourage business owners to find an expert who has an established training program in place that starts them in the right spots (Content management selection, keyword research, content creation, on page seo, link building), then moves them into blogging, social media and ppc advertising. It’s critical to create lots of great educational offers like white papers, prerecorded webinars, etc and launch landing pages so visitors turn into leads. Finally, it’s critical to measure the source of traffic, leads and sales using closed loop marketing so they know what online marketing activities and techniques to repeat.
Posted on December 2nd, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Zack Says:
Thanks for the informative comment Peter! You made a great analogy for the internet like a networking event for small business owners.
Posted on December 2nd, 2008 at 6:33 pm
bill Says:
Well said, finally a good report on this stuff
Posted on March 12th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Jinguam Says:
emm… bookmarked..
Posted on April 11th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
John Taylor Says:
I found your blog on Google. I’ve bookmarked it and will watch out for your next blog post.
Posted on April 23rd, 2009 at 4:32 pm
KrisBelucci Says:
Hi, good post. I have been wondering about this issue,so thanks for posting. I’ll definitely be coming back to your site.
Posted on June 2nd, 2009 at 7:05 pm
AndrewBoldman Says:
Hi, good post. I have been wondering about this issue,so thanks for posting.
Posted on June 4th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Ollie Says:
It takes experience to see that a natural and slow (but steady) link-building campaign is best for rankings. A site that shoots up from PageRank of 0 to PageRank of 3 or 4 can just as easily slide back down to 0 again if the linking pattern was unnatural. What do you think?
Posted on June 15th, 2009 at 9:57 am