Back in the day, small businesses could get away with a lot more than they can in the modern era. They didn’t have to worry about having a website or digital Marketing.
As traditional marketing becomes less effective, especially when targeting a younger audience, new and small businesses have to become experts at using the internet as well as thinking outside of the box.
What are some of the best and most cost effective way to market your small business online?
Keep reading. The devil is in the details. And we’ve got them in this post.
Blog Hard
Blog hard or don’t blog at all.
Blogging is a lot of things, but easy isn’t one of them. So even if you decide to blog hard, doing it wrong will do more harm than good. How should you blog? To make your readers and search engines happy.
To do this, you need to create content that has real information. You should also create content that is entertaining. If you can combine both elements into each post, then do it. If you can’t, that’s ok. Some businesses require more professionalism and tact than others.
As an example, you wouldn’t try to be entertaining when writing blog content for a non-profit that helps victims of sexual assault. But for a cleaning business, you can be entertaining to make your blog and website to stand out from the competition.
The key is to know your audience and write content your customers will learn from and enjoy.
Sounds simple? The good news is that it is simple. The bad news is that it isn’t always easy. Especially when you start to fold in proper SEO into your website and content.
SEO Tips
Keywords are what makes your blog posts really shine in the eyes of Google and other search engines. This is why it’s so important to properly research your Keywords and to sprinkle them in without overstuffing.
You want to go after keywords and phrases that are low-competition. This means, at least for the purpose of our exercise, you want to focus on long-tail keywords. As an example, “shoes” is not a long-tail keyword. It’s a high competition word that will forever be dominated by major brands. “Black 3 inch pumps with gold trim” is an example of a much better keyword.
How often should you use them? You only need to sprinkle your keyword 3-4 times through your content. One should be in a header, one should be in the introduction, and the rest elsewhere throughout your content. You can also use multiple keywords per post.
Personally, we like to have post-specific keywords as well as secondary keywords that we use in posts all over the website. You don’t have to adopt our style but it’s definitely something to think about.
As a small business, you want to include your NAP info on your site and make sure it’s exact with what you have contributed to other listings such as the Yellow Pages.
Remember to write scannable, easy to digest content. Try to stay away from industry jargon that may annoy your target audience.
Promotion
Promoting a blog and a brand takes quite a bit of work. While it can be easier than blogging, it isn’t easier by much.
It’s not as hard or as technical, either. Its difficulty lies within the sheer variety of options you can use to do it. Let’s go over some of the most popular and viable.
Social Media
Social media has always been a major part of blogging and brand-building.
Which platforms are going to work the best for you depend on your niche and how you want to promote.
As an example, let’s use the idea of a do it yourself home improvement website. People who want to read your blog are also going to want to see a lot of images. While you should include pictures in your posts, no one is going to see them unless they visit your blog.
You can use images on Pinterest, Instagram, and even Facebook to draw people in and then funnel them to your blog. Once they get to your website, they can see nice, well-written blog posts included with the images.
Audio and Video
Podcasts are a great way to get your content to a new audience. When people are on their way to work, on a road trip, or any other similar scenario, they listen to podcasts.
You have three options. The first is to start your own podcast. The benefit of this is that you control all of the content. You can host this right on your blog. You can also upload it to other platforms, such as YouTube, Soundcloud, and iTunes.
The second option to become a perpetual guest on various podcasts in your niche.
If the opportunity never comes up, then take the assertive approach and just ask. Podcasters are always looking for people to have on their show as it helps to remove the weight of having to create their own content for every show.
The third option is to do all of the above. And why not? If you’re going to invest in the equipment needed then you should promote as often as possible.
If you want to promote your words, using video to do it is a good idea. Especially in the age of YouTube!
Creating a YouTube channel is much easier than you think and there are tons of tutorials online to help get you started with both a YouTube channel and a podcast. For more info on marketing your business, go to this site to learn more.
Conclusion
Creating and promoting your business website and then promoting is a ton of work. This is why marketers typically do pretty well for themselves.
However, doing everything yourself has some advantages and is a great learning experience. Give it a try. As your business grows you can always outsource it to professionals.
What do you think, readers? Do you handle your own blogging and promotion? Let us know in the comments below.
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