Small Business Internet Marketing

Using the right local Internet marketing tools will give you a powerful advantage when it comes to building your business.

But it can be overwhelming when it comes to planning out a local Internet marketing strategy.

Let me make it simple. Get the right tools first, and you’ll get new business in spite of yourself…

Quality Website (hint: simple is better): If you don’t have a website, or your site is not showing up for some keywords or all of the keywords related to your business (locally for sure), you really need to get an overhaul, or a new site entirely.

A quality website should also have a blog attached. Google loves blogs and the back links from the blog to your site help improve your rankings.

Properly listed Google Local Business Center: Fill out as much information and include as many pictures and videos as you can. The better you do this the better your site will list in the local search results.

Facebook Fan Page: Did you know that Faceook has over 300 Million active members? That’s more people than the United States! Social Media is the rage and will be for a long time. You need to be involved and active because that is where many of your clients are gathering and sharing. The next level from having a Facebook Fan page is to create a social medial marketing campaign. You can watch a video on this here.

Side Bar: Linkdin.com is also where you need to be if you are b2b. It may help you in the b2c market as well. But I am trying to keep the basics to the bare minimum to help you get a handle on this whole local internet marketing thing.

Mobile Website: Do a search for your business on a mobile phone. Look at it. If it looks terrible (and 99% of all websites do), you need a mobile website. Why? Because that is where more and more people are doing their local business searches from…a mobile phone. And my own test results prove this . And Google is betting big money that it is the future and are building an entire search engine just for mobile phones. If you get one now you will be ready for the wave of mobile search results before your competition does.

Youtube Videos: Youtube gets more searches than Yahoo.com and MSN.com. Guess who number 1 is? Google.com of course. Youtube videos will help you generate new business, and you can host your videos there as well and then embed them in your blog and or website. Video is a must because it gets people more involved with your business, and that is the key to nurturing your relationship with your prospective clients and current clients. This is usually the last thing that businesses do because it requires a little more work. But you can create stunning videos simply using pictures and audio or music.

Like I said, these are the basic tools that will form a foundation for all your internet marketing campaigns. And you’ll even get clients from simply setting some or all of these tools up (correctly done). Now all you have to do is wrap them all together and start promoting. Here are three simple and free ways to start generating more prospective clients…

• Include all your links in your email signature.
• Include them on your print material.
• Promote using Google Adwords and Facebook
  Ads!

You are probably thinking, “What do I do first?” or, “How do I get started?” The answer is to take baby steps and do one thing at a time. Or, get it all done at once.

If you want to do one thing at a time I suggest…

• Getting your website built if you don’t have one or
  if the one you have is not working well. And then attach a blog to your site or get a blog separate from your site. Then, make sure it’s listed and confirmed properly (and optimized) in the Google Local Business Center.
• Then, get a Facebook Fan Page. And after that get a mobile website.
• Once you complete these areas get a few videos created.
• After you get these things accomplished begin a social media marketing campaign.
• As you get deeper into the social media marketing campaign begin your paid online advertising campaign (Google Adwords, and Facebook Ads).

The good news is that you can get listed in Google’s local business center fast. You can get a website, a blog, a mobile website, and a Facebook Fan page created quickly as well.

You can even get a nice video or two created quickly as well (using pictures and audio or music). But in order to maximize their effectiveness, you they have to be done right. I strongly recommend you hire someone who understands these areas (Yes, that includes myself and my crack team of coders).

Do you need help with any of this? We can offer a hand. Contact us to get your basic foundation up and running.

Brian Maroevich
(415) 320-1526