• 40% of SEO campaigns aware of their ROI achieve returns in excess of 500%. - -Statistic from Intraspin.com

• 62% of search users click a link on the first page of search results. -Statistic from Iprospect

• 75% of internet users have the intent to purchase when using search engines. -Statistic from RedCroix

As a small business owner you understand you need to do some type of marketing. The problem is that you don’t know how to go about it. We have found some small businesses that just dive into marketing head first and end up wasting tens of thousands of dollars and are still not able to understand why their marketing isn’t working while other companies are seeing huge success.

Small business has been anxiously waiting for the right tools to come around to make it easy to advertise their businesses. Small business owners are looking for ways to grow their companies into the successful business they always hoped to build. Finally the tools have arrived and small business owners are able to get the word out about their products and services without a million dollar marketing budget.

The reality, if you haven’t realized it yet, is that people are turning to the internet to shop and to find goods and services that they want to buy. I can’t remember the last time I (or anyone I know) used a phone book to look for something I needed. Whenever I need something and don’t know where to get it, I jump on Google and find a company that offers the service I need. With Google I can find businesses close to me. I can read reviews from customers that have purchased from the company before. I can even look at store hours and get directions on how to get there. Google has revolutionized the way I shop.

The Google corporate machine has ushered in a revolution in online marketing. Before the internet, you made sure that your company number was listed in the phone book so that prospects could find you. Yellow Pages then offered marketing packages that made your company stand out to hopefully get more prospects calling. So my question to you is, have you made sure that your company is listed in the modern Google phonebook? If your prospective clients wanted to find you, how hard would they have to look? Who would they find first, you or your competitors?

There is an easy way to tell. Jump on the internet and do a Google search for a product your company offers. Which page does your company show up on? Can you even find your company? Typically the answers to those two questions are “I have no idea, after page 25 I stopped looking” and “no.” The whole goal behind internet marketing is to make it so future customers find your company before they find your competitors.

Small Business can accomplish this is several ways:

1. Web Design- a company website is the foundation for any online marketing strategy. Many companies we work with have websites but aren’t realizing their full benefits. Websites are no longer a brochure but a sales letter that is meant to both pique the interest of the prospect and drive them to call your business or convert them online. Your website should be seen as a full-time salesperson. A member of your staff that you pay once and he works 24/7 and never asks for time off.
2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – this is the practice of driving traffic to your awesome website by making it easy for search engines to read its content. If a search engine knows what your website is all about, it makes it more likely to be displayed higher in the search results for relative keywords. SEO, in practice, is much more complicated than that but that is the underlying concept.
3. Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC) – Is another way of driving traffic to your site. PPC is similar to paying for traffic that Google sends to your site whereas with SEO, traffic is free but you spend lots of time making your site ‘readable’. You set up an advertisement for one of your products or services and Google will place it on the search results page along with relevant keyword search queries. PPC is a highly targeted marketing method that drives traffic to your site and typically yields a very high ROI.
4. Local Business Search- this is the modern-day phonebook. All the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, Best of The Web) have their editions of Local Business Search. It’s basically the phonebook on steroids. Consumers have the ability to geographically search for businesses, find out company information (store hours, promotions, etc.), along with read other consumer reviews and get driving directions along with parking information. The best part is that it is free. But even here, if you don’t know what you are doing, your business will never get found. Click here- http://getlisted.org – and see which search engines have your business listed in their local business directories.

Discover more ways you can use online marketing for your business by visiting our conXs Blog.

Or call us at 801-576-9544