Do you need to learn how to promote a small business online? Online marketing caters for much of today’s marketplace and if you don’t have an online marketing strategy in place, you could be leaving money on the table. People everyday are searching for a business like yours on the internet, so to stay ahead you need to have an online marketing strategy.
Google has the largest market share as far as search engines go and this can be your first stop. Google Adwords is a fast and effective way to build a steady stream of customers and visitors to your shop or service. Creating an account is easy and you can be up and running in no time. With Adwords you create adverts which will appear in the search results whenever someone types in your search terms into the search engine. Say for example you had a tyre shop in Birmingham, your main keywords would be ‘tyres’ and ‘Birmingham’ or other variations of this. Â You bid for these keywords against other advertisers and pay per click for every time someone clicks on your advert.
Google Places is a free resource for anyone with a business which has a physical location. If you own your own business it pays to have a Google places advert since these are often shown first in the organic search results on Google. To create your own Google Places listing do a search for ‘Google Places’ and create a listing. You must verify your physical address by entering in a code which will be sent out to your business address.
Google organic search results are another free resource which can be used to promote your business. Regularly blogging or creating interesting articles around your specific area is the best way to increase your organic reach through the organic search results. By creating content which is targeted to your specific market niche, you can pick up free customers and visitors with your keyword targeted articles. Of course there is often a huge competition for the organic search results, depending on your niche, so you need to be choosing long tail keywords which your customers are looking for and targeting these with your articles. See target marketing articles.
Facebook is a huge resource for advertising businesses now and its ability to target a specific audience by geographical location, age, interests and a number of other demographics makes it a very useful advertising tool. You can create a business page through your personal profile and advertise and promote to your target audience. You can also create specific adverts and target a specific demographic appropriate to your business.
If you don’t have one a website is an obvious first step to help to promote small business online. Websites can be built quickly and cheaply and you don’t need huge expertise to be able to do this yourself. If you want one built for you see my website building service here at basic website where we offer cheap SEO services UK and internationally (providing you have a remote access website).
These are just some of the ways in which you can promote and grow your own small business with an online presence. There are also a number of other social media sites which can help you reach potential customers. To learn more about any one of these techniques and for a free video series which explains the potential of marketing an online business follow this link.Â