Posted by Jared Prazen on October 20, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Many small business owners make the mistake of assuming Internet marketing is only for big businesses and corporations. But the fact is that any company can benefit from advertising online. Of course, you need to know which marketing methods work best for local business.
It goes almost without saying that the things that work for corporations like Coke or Pepsi, probably won’t work on a local level.
Where should you begin?
Well, for starters you need a website to drive traffic to. If you already have a website up and running, then you’re most likely aware of the fact that potential customers don’t just wander in off the street, or the web. Just like you do in the physical world, when marketing on the internet, you have to put up “billboards” and “signs” to lure them in. You must be proactive, otherwise your website will be pretty much useless. It will not help you grow your business.
So what can you do right now?
One of the most popular and effective ways to increase traffic to your website is to improve your SEO rating. A SEO, or Search Engine Optimization rating, is used when a person performs a web search on a search engine like Google. For example, if someone searches for, “Mexican Food Restaurants in Durham, North Carolina,” and you have a Mexican food restaurant website and a high SEO rating, your listing will most likely appear at the top of the results page.
As most businesses owners who advertise on the Net already know, the higher your listing on the results page, the more likely it is that potential customers visit your site. This is an effective way to increase traffic on your website and to find the right kind of targeted traffic: people already looking for what you have to offer. Targeted traffic is an industry term that refers to consumers who are looking for a particular product or service, perhaps even in a particular area; and if you own a small business, these customers are your lifeblood.
How is it actually done?
Well, there are actually two factors at play here: what is happening ON your website, and what is happening OFF your website.
The easiest factors to control are what happens on your site. You need to make sure that you include relevant keywords and text on your site. This will increase your SEO rating and it will improve the likelihood that your listing shows up on results pages. When it comes to local businesses, make sure that you include your location along with the keyword several times on your site.
Going back to our earlier example, if your keyword is “Mexican Food Restaurants” make sure that you use your location, Durham, North Carolina after your keyword. This will help you target your local market, so when the search engine looks for local Mexican food restaurants, your listing will appear on the page.
Off-Page Factors
In addition to the keyword optimization on your site, the search engines will also look very closely at whether or not there are other sites on the web that link into yours. It’s a bit technical actually, but the basic idea is that the more web sites there are linking back to yours, the more “authority” Google or another search engine will give your site when determining your overall site ranking in the search results.
The search engines will also look at a number of other factors like:
- How many other web sites are linking back to yours.
- What kind of anchor text is being used in those links.
- What pages on your site are being linked to specifically.
- The overall authority of the websites linking back to yours.
- Whether or not the web pages linking to you are relevant for the subject matter of your website.
This list could actually go on for a while. The key thing to know is that a comprehensive SEO strategy will take into account factors both on and off of your website. If you take a methodical approach and are consistent with your efforts, most local markets are well within reach of hitting the top of the search engine results.
So They Clicked Your Link… Now What?
Getting people to visit your site is only half the battle. If they don’t like what they see, they have countless other sites that they can visit. That is why it is important to create a site that is both easy to use and highly interactive. A great way to get potential customers interested in your business is to post videos or blogs on your site. These blogs, articles, or videos can then be posted on a variety of sites to help promote your business even more.
Posted by Jared Prazen on October 20, 2009 · Leave a Comment
As every business owner knows, when it comes to advertising what you need to do is locate and communicate with your target market. It really doesn’t matter if you own a small auto body shop in Northern New Jersey or a Multi-national corporation – you need to identify your potential customers, where to reach them, and what they want.
Though the Internet is a great promotional tool, it is only a tool, and you need to know how to use it. This is where many small businesses fail. They believe that by simply throwing up a website and publishing some articles on EzineArticles.com they will increase web traffic. Well, this might be true at the outset, but it won’t help generate the right kind of traffic unless you identify your market and speak directly to them.
But how do you learn to generate targeted traffic?
One relatively new option for local business owners is to join a social networking site for small businesses. These online communities are open and free to everyone and can be used to exchange ideas and learn from others. If your business has just opened its doors, sites like these can be an invaluable resource.
Online community sites often have forums members can visit at any time of the day or night. If you have never been on an online forum before, it’s easy to contribute and can be quite fun. The only concern is that they can be a bit addictive, so you might only want to limit the time you spend on each visit.
Most small business communities also have reviews and articles others can read and gain valuable insights and advice from more experienced members. You can also describe your business and even add a link to you website when you create your user profile. Simply adding your website URL can actually improve your site ranking, so make certain you do that.
As you gain experience on small business sites, you may find that you want to contribute by writing articles and reviews of your own. You may even decide to submit a few of them to article directories to help promote you business.
Another effective option is to market you local business on some of the larger social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, or MySpace. For example, you can create your own business page on any of these sites and reach out to people in your own community.
How many people can you reach? According to a recent report, two-thirds of Americans use a social networking site and about one-third of American adults use them at least once a month. This means that most of the people in your community most likely have an account on a social networking site, which can be a fun, creative and inexpensive way to communicate with them.
It is even possible to post articles and videos directly to your Facebook or MySpace page. This is a very affordable and effective way to promote your small business in your community. Because, let’s face it, these days even local businesses cannot afford to sleep on technology. By promoting your company on social networking sites, you are letting everyone in your neighborhood know that your small business is moving up in the world.
Posted by Jared Prazen on October 20, 2009 · Leave a Comment
When Internet commerce and advertising began to really take off a few years ago, many small businesses stayed away because they mistakenly believed online advertising was only for the big boys. But after the introduction of a few new online marketing methods, many local businesses are now starting to advertise online.
As you might expect, not every business has the advertising budget to pay for pop-up ads or extensive online marketing campaigns, but many do not need them. Fortunately for small business owners, we live in an age where advertising on the internet is extremely inexpensive when compared to more traditional forms of promotion like radio or television or print media.
In this article, we will be taking a look at one of the most popular new forms of online advertising: Video.
Why Video Content is King
The two most popular forms of Internet marketing these days are article writing and video posting. For years now, small businesses have been writing and submitting articles to popular directories like EzineArticles.com, and generally speaking, the results have been good. These directories give small business owners the opportunity to reach their target audiences’ free. They even allow them to post a link to their website on the article page.
But the rise of video sharing sites like YouTube, Viddler, and MetaCafe has knocked article writing and directories out of that coveted top spot. Whether you like it or not, the truth is that people would much rather watch online videos than read articles. That is why YouTube is currently the second most popular online search engine, after Google. In fact, according to recent numbers, more than a billion videos are viewed on the site every single day.
On average, a YouTube video receives about a thousand views. Articles on directories, on the other hand, are often only read by about a hundred people. We needn’t say any more here – the numbers speak for themselves.
Making Videos
However, in spite the growing popularity of video sharing sites, many small business owners remain apprehensive about investing in video. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why this is. Perhaps they feel only trained professionals or tech savvy people can record and post videos on the Internet. Or maybe they believe the process is expensive or time-consuming.
All of these are, of course, misconceptions. Recording your own videos to post on your own site or on video sharing services couldn’t be any easier. All you need is an inexpensive video camera, access to Power point, and a decent script.
If you have reservations about appearing on camera, as we said, you can simply produce a slide show by using PowerPoint. The entire process takes no longer than half an hour.
But why exactly should you make videos, besides the fact that they are popular? That’s an easy one.
When you own a small, local business there is nothing more important than getting to know your customers and establishing a relationship. Videos allow you to quickly and easily introduce yourself to potential customers and let them know exactly what you do and why they should give you their business.
In effect, you get to start positioning yourself as the expert in the minds of your target customers before they even walk through your door, and THAT is extremely powerful in building your business.
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