Internet Marketing Tips for Small Businesses

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By Stephen Nelson (c) 2009

In this economy, any marketing tool you can use to find new customers is worth considering. But perhaps the best marketing tool available to many small businesses is a yellow-pages-style web site. Such a site means prospective local customers looking for a business like yours know that you're in business and ready for their patronage.

But a word or two of explanation... While the traffic statistics of the typical small business web site may not impress Google, eBay or Amazon.com, many small business web sites do generate significant numbers of prospects compared to the other marketing tools available. Commonly, for example, small business web sites can attract anywhere from a few dozen to a few hundred new unique visitors on a daily basis. And that's a lot!

What's more, setting up one of these Internet marketing web sites just doesn't have to be that complicated or expensive. Often times, employing the following half a dozen tips lets you enjoy surprising success:

Internet Business Marketing Tip #1: Evaluate Your Competition

A first and very simple tip is this: Start out by sizing up your competition. Do see what the other guy or other guys in town are doing. Look at the information they're providing. And check out the number of links that point to their site.

In a nutshell, you need a better site than your competitors in order to beat them at the Internet marketing game. You need more pages of on-topic content. And you need more inbound links pointing to your pages.

You can check the number of inbound links pointing to your web site by visiting the Yahoo search engine page and then typing link:www.yourcompetitorsdomain.com into the search box. (Replace the smooshed together word yourcompetitorsdomain with the real domain name.) Yahoo then lists the number of links pointing to your competitors' sites.

By the way, if competitors' web sites provide only a few sparse pages and a handful of crummy in-bound links, you'll find it very easy to make your site a rip-roaring success.

Internet Business Marketing Tip #2: Pay for an Inexpensive Professional Design

Another quick and easy tip: If you have an extra couple hundred bucks for marketing, spend that money on a professional web designer.

In other words, once you have a few pages of text about your business--perhaps a welcome letter, a page that provides directions and then a page or two that describes your products and services--pay some professional to setup your web site.

Web sites like elance.com make it pretty easy to find extremely talented designers who can create outrageously attractive web sites for modest costs.

Internet Business Marketing Tip #3: Get Smart about your Domain Name

One caution: You won't want to make the mistake that I made. In other words, if you can avoid it, you don't want to name your business using your name or some meaningless if clever phrase.

For my Seattle area CPA firm, I named my domain name stephenlnelson.com and have spent the last dozen years telling people, "No, with a 'ph'...not a 'v' and don't forget the 'l'...."

Rather you want to use search words, also known as keywords, in your domain name. For example, if you operate a drycleaner located in town named Pine Lake, try to get something like PineLakeDrycleaners dot com.

Putting search words in your domain name will make your website easier to find when people use those search words. In other words, search engines are more likely to display a website named PineLakeDrycleaners.com when someone searches on phrases like "drycleaning pine lake," drycleaners in pine lake," "pine lake dryclean," and so on.

Internet Business Marketing Tip #4: Add Your Site to Google Maps

If you include your business address on your web pages--and you should--Google will probably, eventually, display your business's website when people search for a local business like yours.

If your business's web site isn't appearing when someone searches for local businesses like yours, you can visit the Google maps page and then click on the Put Your Business on Google Maps link to begin the process of adding your business to Google's local search results.

Internet Business Marketing Tip #5: Win the Local Links Competition

You're going to need to get more inbound links pointing to your site than point to your competitors' sites in order to rank highly when people look for a local business like yours.

If you've done a bit of research on your competitors as suggested in the first tip, you already know how many and what sorts of links you need. With that information in hand, try the following:

1. Request that your site be added to free directories. Free directory links are not worth very much, quite honestly, but in a local search competition they can help. Search Google or Yahoo on the phrase "líst of free directories" to get a decent, reasonably-fresh listing of freebie directories, and then begin submittíng your site to the directories listed. Also, note that you can pay a directory submission service like DirectoryMaximizer.com to submít your website to around a thousand free directories for about a hundred dollars.

2. Grab, beg or pay for links from the websites of the local business and community groups you're associated with, including the chamber of commerce, community organizations, the public library, the local newspaper if you advertise there, and so forth. These links, especially when coming from a trustworthy local web site, can help your search engine visibility a lot.

3. Attempt to duplicate the links that your competitors show. In other words, if your principal competitor in town has purchased some links in paid directories like Yahoo.com or Business.com, do the same thing. If the competitor participates in and gets links from social networking sites like facebook and linkedin, do the same thing. Imitating your competitor will eliminate rather quickly any link advantages he or she possesses.

Internet Business Marketing Tip #6: Experiment with Pay-per-click Ads

A final quick though general tip: Pay-pay-click ads like those offered by Google can be quite costly. But the ads also often work wonderfully well for certain types of businesses.

If you can pay $2 for a click and 15-20 clicks usually seem to turn into a customer, for example, that means you can "buy" a customer for $30 to $40. In many businesses, acquiring a customer for $30 or $40 may be a steal of a deal. For more information about how Google's pay-per-click advertising works, visit adwords.google.com.

10 Best Strategies to Massively Increase Your Visibility Online

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By Donna Gunter (c) 2009

Increasing online visibility is the goal of most online business owners. After all, without visibility, you have no traffic and thus no business. However, when you start to research how to improve your online visibility, you discover many options, but find that there is little time for research and implementation. Where does an online entrepreneur turn first to get the visibility (and traffic) to promote an online venture?

New tricks and gimmicks come out every day, but unfortunately, most of them are like so many recording artists and become one-hit wonders. In my business, I've discovered that there are a handful that are able to stand the test of time. Some have been around for as long as websites have been around, while others are newer kids on the block. Here are my 10 most effective strategies to massively boost your visibility online:

1. Press releases. Press releases are a well-known marketing strategy that have worked for years with print and broadcast media. In recent years they have found new life as an online visibility tool. Just like in the old days, your release should carry some newsworthy angle that has been optimized with a select few keywords by which you want your business to be found. Don't waste your time submitting your release to the free press release sites -- the release simply sits on the site and goes no where else. Instead, invest in a fee-based service (I prefer PRWeb.com), which will ensure your release gets the recognition it deserves.

2. Social Networking. A "johnny come lately" to the online visibility scene, social networking now ranks near the top in terms of attracting visibility to your business for a very low cost. If you don't yet have accounts on the two most popular social networking platforms, Facebook and Twitter, today is the day to hop on board and begin to network. Choose 1-2 social networking platforms where your target market hangs out, and then begin to work it by making connections, joining groups or networks, sharing resources, and asking questions. Dedicate 15-30 minutes each day to your effort to begin to see results.

3. Article Marketing. Writing and submittíng articles to major article directories has definitely stood the test of time for online visibility. Article marketing will drive traffic to your site, establish you as an expert in your target market's eyes, and give you valuable content to repurpose into information products. For maximum effectiveness, your article needs to contain a strong resource box (author's bio) that drives traffic back to your site, needs to contain useful content that solves a problem of your target market, and be written in a tips-based fashion, like this one, since it is the easiest format for a website visitor to read and digest.

4. Blogging. Business blogs (a web log or journal), have gained popularity over the last few years as an online visibility tool. Blogs use RSS feed technology to immediately get new posts and updates out to your blog subscribers through a feed reader. Unlike ezines or traditional websites, search engines index blog posts almost immediately, which help you generate traffic to your website. To use effectively as an online visibility tool, you need to post 2-3 times per week to keep your readers interested and coming back.

5. Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Optimizing your site or your blog for organic (naturally-occurring) searches has been around from the beginning of Internet marketing. Use a keyword research tool and create a listing of keywords applicable to your business. Don't forget to add things like "how to", "tips", or short descriptions of your target market's problems to your research. Then, take a look at your page titles, page descriptions, page headlines, and formatted text on a page (bolding, italicizing, underlining) and include your keywords in those areas, as well as sprinkling 1-2 keywords throughout the content of your page. Make the SEO appear to be natural, not forced, and the search engines as well as your visitors will love you.

6. Email Newsletter (Ezine). Regular publication of an email newsletter (weekly is most effective) will enable your prospects to get to know, like and trust you and have you be top of mind when they are ready to solve the pressing problems that fall within your line of expertise. If you make opting into your ezine the primary call to action on your website, you continually build your list with prospective customers. Best of all, if they like what you write, they are more likely to pass along the issue to their contacts, thus increasing your visibility yet again.

7. Signature Teleseminar/Speech. Have you created your signature speech or teleseminar that you can present whenever you're asked to speak to any type of group (face-to-face or virtual)? If not, design a signature speech or teleseminar that demonstrates your knowledge and expertise without giving away the store (focus on the what and the why but not the how) that compels your listeners to visit your website or request your client attraction device and get on your líst.

Then, begin to research groups that contain your target market both in your geographic area and online. Once you've landed a speaking gig, strategize your best call to action for the group -- do you want participants to sign up for your ezine, purchase a product, or book a consultation? Add that call to action to your presentation.

8. Videos. With the popularity of broadband Internet connections, it's much easier for almost anyone to view online video these days. And, with high-quality yet low-cost web cams, video cameras, and screen capture software readily available, anyone can make a video today. You might record a live Q&A session on UStream.com and post it on your site. Or, perhaps you want to record a "how to" tutorial using screenshots from your computer and upload that to your YouTube.com channel. Remember to include your call to action in your video so that you drive traffic back to your site. Just think -- your video may cause you to become the next YouTube star!

9. Expert question sites. Most people conduct online searches to find free information that answers their questions. Many online entrepreneurs are registering as experts on an expert or answers site, like Yahoo Answers or AllExperts.com, in an effort to get visibility online. To be an effective expert on these sites, you need to seek out questions that you can knowledgeably answer as an expert. Your answer needs to be very detailed and as specific as possible. The more thorough your answer, the better chance you'll have of getting chosen as the "favorite" answer, which is the one rated highest on the site and in the search engines.

10. Viral marketing. Viral marketing involves creating a marketing piece (ebook, video, software) that gets passed along free of charge from person to person. Publicity Hound Joan Stewart does this quite effectively each year when she compiles the best tips she's written about in the previous year in a "best of" ebook compilation that she gives away free of charge on her site. She also encourages her líst and website visitors to "regift" it.

You've got two options when you try to get online visibility: the "steady and effective over time" method or the "quick and short and probably get banned" method. I prefer to use methods that have stood the test of time and won't result in my site being removed from the search engines. Use one or more of these time-honored strategies to get you the visibility you deserve online.