It’s understandable that internet marketing can be challenging to small business owners. Besides lacking a full understanding of how search engine algorithms and internet technology works, many entrepreneurs are too busy with other tasks to devoted the necessary resources to the most important tasks of internet marketing. While all good internet marketing requires some time, it takes less know how than many would think. Here are four simple ways small businesses can improve their internet marketing.
Publish a Blog
One of the easiest and most effective ways to promote a small business online is through a blog. By writing blog posts that answer the questions commonly asked by potential customers, a business greatly increases their chances that these customers will find their company in search engine results pages. To illustrate, a lawyer who writes about their area of expertise will get many hits from people who have questions about the subject, which can then turn into a lead. There is a lot of data that supports the importance of blog for SEO and internet marketing as was discussed in a previous post. B2B companies that blog generate 67% more leads per month than those who don’t. Blogs give websites 434% more indexed pages and 97 percent more indexed pages.Use Keywords Strategically
One of the main pillars of internet marketing will always be search engine optimization. Even with all the sharing done on social media, large majority of traffic to a website begins with search query. Estimates range from 80 to 90 percent. With SEO being so vital, small business owners and marketers need to take the time to carefully research their desired keywords, write content that uses them frequently and effectively, and continually monitor their rankings to look for ways to improve. Just as Google is constantly tweaking their algorithms, webmasters need to tweak their content to achieve the best results.Publish on Social Media Channels
Social media channels offer business owners multiple platforms they can use to promote their content, website and services. Social media networks already have huge followings and people use them heavily to find new content and to share it with their friends. According to Pew Research Center, “some 73% of online adults now use a social networking site of some kind” and “42% of online adults now use multiple social networking sites.” Besides having a huge audience, most social media platforms offer tools that can be used to promote content directly to target audiences. Using these tools is an effective and efficient way to introduce people to a brand or website.Promote Your Brand with Original Content
One thing that can’t be stressed enough is the importance of original content. One of the pitfalls that many first time internet marketers fall into is the temptation of posting content from somewhere else on their own website so their website has more depth. Even if the content is taken from a source that allows republishing, doing so is bad for the business owner. Search engines don’t want SERPs with the same content on different sites, so they try to push the original content producers link to the top and all others are pushed down in favor of different content. So from an SEO standpoint, republishing or scraping content from other sites is counterproductive.Creating original content is also better for promoting a brand. As was discussed in a recent post on this blog, there is a lot of statistics that show that producing original content is good for a business. According to some reports, 61% of consumers say they feel better about, and are more likely to buy from, a company that delivers custom content and 78% of consumers believe that organizations providing custom content are interested in building good relationships.
Whether a business owner chooses to do it themselves or outsource the tasks to someone else, good internet marketing takes time and commitment. The simple truth is that with so many people and businesses online vying for the attention of the public, there is no magic trick that will grant a business instant and continuous good internet marketing. Researching trends and implementing best practices is the only way for a business to gain an edge from internet marketing