Internet marketing strategies for small businesses…
Any small business that now thinks that the Internet is a passing fad is blind to the facts. There is still much confusion among small business owners about how to utilize the web to the marketing of their own small business. Marketing your small business on the Internet does not need to be expensive, nor does it need to be complicated.
Opportunities to market your small business are many and varied, just like in the real world.
For small businesses Internet marketing can be a surprisingly low-cost way of promoting your local small business. This promotion can be targeted locally, regionally or across the globe.
So, let’s hear these strategies I hear you say. And, how does one apply them?
There are numerous approaches, and this is where most people get confused. In essence there are THREE main approaches to small business Internet marketing, being…
1. Paid search marketing (Pay per click marketing, and its numerous variations), and… 2. In-context link marketing (being commercial links within content on a specific topic), and… 3. Natural search marketing (SEO, content marketing, blogs and its numerous variations).
So, with these different approaches, what are the pros and cons?
1. PAY PER CLICK SEARCH MARKETING:
Paid search marketing is paid advertising. You pay for your ad to be placed before people searching on specific keyterms. The effectiveness of your PPC campaign is directly related to the keyterms you chose to use, as well as the sales path you set up on your landing page (where people land when they click on your PPC link).
The PROS: If correctly targeted, you get prospects looking at what you want to sell and/ or promote quickly.
The CONS: A) Specialist skills required. And, you can lose a lot of money, fast! B) PPC specialists are not cheap. C) You continually need to run your ads. D) Can be very costly (especially for commercial keyterms). You only get to play as long as you continue to pay.
2. IN-CONTEXT LINK MARKETING:
This approach uses other people’s web site content as the platform for your advertising. The links are embedded inside the content on their web pages. This content is usually keyword focused. For example, let’s say that you sell wood heaters. When you engage in in-context link marketing your hyperlinks are placed within content on specific web site articles and/ or web pages about wood heaters.
The PROS: Information is the currency of the Internet. When you use these embedded hyperlinked, and within context ads correctly they can be a very effective advertising medium for small business. The clickthroughs may be lower than the PPC model, but the quality of visitor is usually much higher.
The CONS: A) You have little to no control over what web sites your links are placed on, which means that links can be placed within content that doesn’t quite fit sometimes. B) Best results are achieved by driving prospects to especially designed landing pages. Skill is required to set up these sales funnel paths. C) The demand for good, profitable commercial keyterms always exceeds supply, thus pushing up the price for the good terms.
3. NATURAL SEARCH MARKETING:
Natural search is where people go to the Internet, type a keyterm into a search engine, and the search engine returns a list of the most appropriate web page on the web with has that keyphrase in it. When done correctly this marketing method has significant benefits for small business marketing their bricks and mortar businesses on the web.
Note: It’s important to understand that search marketing is different from SEO. SEO is a term used to describe the optimization of a web site and its pages for the search engines to be able to spider pages correctly.
The PROS: With natural search marketing tactics properly applied to the marketing of a small business it has a distinct advantage on the net. Why? Well, marketing analysis has determined that people purchase 90% of their needs from within a 10 miles radius of where they actually physically live. As people use the web more and more in daily life it is natural that if these same people find YOUR local business when they search the web for a solution to a problem that YOU then become their chosen solution. This is search marketing in action, locally.
The CONS: A) Search marketing strategies require more effort than the potential throwing money at the wall techniques of the other strategies. B) It can be a slower approach than the other methods discussed. However it has been proven time and again that search marketing is an ideal and cost effective method for small businesses to use on the net.
So, in summary… Small Business Internet marketing no longer needs to be the mysterious world it once appeared to be for small businesses. However, there is still a great divide between those small businesses that employ smart marketing strategies as the foundation of their online marketing systems, and those that don’t.
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Tags: Advertising, art, article, articles, blog, blogs, busines, Business, business internet, business marketing, campaign, content, design, form, information, Internet, internet marketing, internet marketing strategies, Links, Marketing, marketing strategies, medium, money, Online, online marketing, opportunities, paid advertising, paid search, pay per click, ppc, pr, promotion, sales, search, search engine, search engines, search marketing, SEO, site, small business, small business marketing, Source, technology, uaw, web, www
