Effective Search Engine Optimization Strategies For The Small Business Owner

Consider This:

• Internet Advertising Reaches $5.5 Billion in First Quarter
• There are now 1.5 BILLION people online (210 million on Facebook alone)
• Your customers have changed the way the shop and buy. Have you changed your strategy?

For small business owners the Internet has proved to be extremely beneficial. Unlike traditional forms of broadcast marketing the Internet provides several advantages that help small businesses reach more potential customers. Often referred to as “non-interruptive,” or “inbound” marketing, internet marketing does not require interrupting your potential customers to get you message across. Quite the opposite actually, search engine marketing is reaching out to those already looking for you!

While traditional advertising requires organizations to spend thousands of dollars on branding and promotional activities, online advertising and effective search engine optimization (SEO) yield better results and can be achieved with a much smaller investment. Moreover, results achieved online offer more lasting benefits than conventional promotions and your return is measurable.

More than 83% of people searching for goods and services begin their search online. Therefore, if a small business can attract just a fraction of these potential customers to its website and convert then into buyers it will increase its revenues significantly.

Internet marketing, which includes SEO and SEM, requires formulating and implementing effective strategies to draw more targeted traffic that can eventually be converted into customers. Although every business must optimize their websites in the search engines, for an e-commerce website it is an ‘absolute must’. An e-commerce site is a website specifically built for the purpose of transacting business online.

Small business enterprises engaged in e-commerce face fierce competition today. To stay ahead of the competition they need to be visible to their audience and quickly draw the attention of prospective customers.

Ranking higher in the search engines is the first major task, followed by a successful branding/PR campaign. Internet marketing is a direct response medium. Branding is important, but improving your site popularity and getting more visitors to your landing pages is much more crucial in the beginning.

For a small business owner to achieve her highest and best return on investment, it is crucial to first formulate a strategy before starting an internet marketing campaign.

Only after a well thought out strategy and budget are in place should you then move forward with your SEO and SEM marketing plan. Never has it been more important to “measure twice, cut once”.

“Internet Marketing Is Your Future. If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.” –General Eric Shineski, former Chief of Staff, US Army

5 Steps to Online Marketing Success:

1. Know your Audience. This is the most important task since your entire internet marketing campaign is directed towards your niche audience. If you fail to know your audience you will target the wrong people and subsequently lose business. Keeping your ear to the ground and doing a little research will help you find the right strategy and make good decisions from the outset.

2. Set a Goal. Unless you have a well-defined goal, you won’t have any direction. As Tony Robbins writes, “it is no use climbing to the top of the ladder only to find out your ladder is leaning against the wrong house.”

Once you have your goals clear and know your desired outcome you can choose the optimal amount of resources and channel your efforts in the right direction. The budget for small business marketing can be estimated once the goal is set.

Goal Setting Questions to Answer before you begin:

1. How many visitors do I need to get to my site to reach my financial goals? How many am I getting now? * What is a good “Click Through Rate” for my industry? * Are my website pages, products and services properly optimized on my site before I begin an off site campaign? * What should I consider a successful return on investment? * What percentage of my online marketing plan will be “organic,” or natural and what percentage will be paid search (i.e. Google AdWords PPC)? This is an extremely important question to consider as it will determine the specific internet marketing initiatives you will take. See number 3.

2. Select the right SEO techniques. There are several SEO techniques that will prove helpful for your internet marketing efforts. A mix of various techniques is necessary to have a balanced SEO campaign. Basic SEO will include a balanced combination of Niche Directory Submissions, Social Media Marketing, On Page optimization through effective Meta title and description tags, great SEO content, a working internal link structure and a site map to name just a few.

Other important techniques include link building campaigns and excellent Press Release and article marketing strategies.

3. Very important, don’t forget to monitor your competition! Google your keyword search terms and see who ranks highest for your competition. Then, review their sites in detail to see what you can learn.  What are they doing that you are not?  How is their site different from yours? What keywords do you notice are being used the most?

Figure out what’s working for them and where can you make changes to your strategy to achieve similar results. Hint: Use Alexa and other traffic/competitive measurement tools to check up on your competition.

4. Measure the Results. Without measuring the results and properly analyzing how your website is performing you won’t know if your marketing efforts are bringing positive results.

However, keep in mind it can sometimes take 3 to 6 months to get tangible results from an organic online advertising and marketing campaign. Measuring the results periodically will help you identify if anything is wrong in your strategy or if you need to intensify your campaign.

Keep what works, change what doesn’t. Simple

5. Make proper adjustments. After measuring your results to determine what’s working and what’s not you will need to make adjustments. Again, internet marketing is a direct response medium and A/B testing is crucial for success.

Make changes to improve your results. This will be an ongoing process, not a one time deal. Google, Yahoo and even the smaller search engines continually change their search algorithms. So, what worked one month may not work as well the next month. Simple testing and making minor adjustments when needed will keep you ahead of the curve.

Now, more than ever you need to have an effective Internet Marketing campaign in place. Traditional advertising continues to lose market share while online marketing continues to grow at a staggering pace.

21st Century Marketing: The Rules Have Changed. Selling to people who actually want to hear from you is more effective than interrupting strangers who don’t.”

-Seth Godin, International NY Times bestselling author of more than a dozen marketing books.  

If you’re not making excellent use of your online opportunities, I can assure you that your competition is or soon will be. Stay on top of your game by following the ideas outlined in this article lead your company to new heights this year.

Pay Per Click Marketing Can Be Very Profitable If Done Correctly

Pay per click marketing is a great, effective online advertising strategy. Over the last couple of years, it has grown into quite the internet phenomenon, as many web based businesses are taking advantage of all the success it can bring. Since the main advertising goal that internet entrepreneurs strive for is to bring in targeted visitors and potential buyers to their website, they know that PPC marketing is one of the best ways to do just that.

So what is pay per click marketing? It’s a marketing technique that involves advertisers placing bids on clicks to their websites. Since it can take a long time for a web page or a blog to get picked up by Google results, many webmasters are going ahead and paying for their websites to be seen on the very first page of results!

While PPC marketing is a shortcut, it can be costly, especially if a novice webmaster goes into creating a campaign blindly. There are many factors that go into making a PPC campaign worthwhile: the advertisement itself, the keywords, placement, the conversion rates, etc. Obviously, inexperienced webmasters need to study and do research before signing up with Google AdWords. By doing research first, they can save a lot of money in the long run.

While Google AdWords will allow users to set a limit on how much they’re willing to spend everyday, they still need to make sure that they get the best results possible out of what their budget allows for. Some popular keywords can cost $5 per bid! That means that, for every visitor that searches for a particular keyword and clicks on a PPC sponsor ad to visit a website, then that webmaster is going to have to pay $5!

Now, if the visitors are targeted, and the webmaster makes a lot of sales through PPC marketing, then that $5 might just be worth it. If the site owner sells one $100 product to one out of every five visitors, then he or she will still be profiting $75 for every five visitors from pay per click marketing.

However, not everyone is that lucky, and those who aren’t need to opt for less popular and less costly keywords. The competitiveness of the niche is also a factor that needs to be taken into consideration. Some items, such as weight loss products, travel, financial services, etc. are highly competitive, and smaller businesses have no choice but to target a smaller audience with their PPC marketing budget.

In the end, though, they can still become successful, just as long as they have a good plan. They may even be able to narrow down their keywords to a smaller, but more specific target demographic. While they may not end up with as many visitors as they’d like, the visitors they do receive will be more likely to purchase than a larger, broader demographic. And if those who do purchase really like the product, then they will be more than likely to share the website with friends, helping make the business more popular over time!