Marketing success tips for small businesses
Who are your top competitors online? If you have a plumbing site, and you want to rank above the other plumbers in the area, it helps to have some insight into their website marketing strategy.
You can Google your competitors and take a close look at what they’re doing, but an easier, more effective method is pull this information in via Market Samurai.
Did you know that broken links on your website can hamper your search engine optimization efforts? When Google spiders your site, the last thing you want is for that spider to end up on a ‘page not found.’
Broken links can pop up anywhere. Maybe you’ve shared a photo from Flickr on your post, then the photographer removed the picture. Maybe you’ve copied and pasted a link wrong … adding a second http://. And quite possibly you’ve received comments from sites that no longer exist.
Dare I say it? Link building CAN be fun! We’ve been approaching it from the angle of spending at least 30 minutes several times a week on this activity because of its importance. But it doesn’t have to be a chore.
My husband, Gerald, has built an impressive number of links to his Web site through forum posting. But for him it hasn’t been about building links at all. That’s just a happy byproduct. Gerald is the author of today’s post:
I spend several hours a week actively engaged on several of the scale modeling community’s forums. As an avid scale modeler, I enjoy the time interacting with others who enjoy and share my interest in this hobby. It has also been a lucrative tool to market my products directly to the consumers who use them.
My approach attracting new customers from this venue is very subtle. It has to be, as there are rules (terms and conditions of membership) I must obey. I approach this as scale modeler and member of the community first. Then as a representative of my business and its products second.
Without a doubt, Google is synonymous with search. If you want to find anything online, you Google it, right? Yes, they’re the biggest game in town, but they’re not the only one.
Microsoft’s Bing, which has branded itself as a “decision engine” has been nipping at Google’s heels for quite some time now. When you bring a PC home from the store, Internet Explorer is the default browser and Bing is the default search engine. If your market is less than tech-savvy, this is especially relevant. They’ll stay put, and use what’s already installed and accessible.
If you rely on foot traffic for business, don’t overlook the importance of being found in local listings web-enabled phones, as well as through local search via the conventional office computer. Local search is one area where Bing excels.
With 250 million+ active users, it’s safe to say that at least a portion of your customer base is on Facebook. It’s no longer the domain of college students, but the online hangout for moms, dads, grandparents, and more importantly – people of all ages and interests from your locale. Real people and organizations are on Facebook – that’s their USP and that’s why YOU need to be found there. Being on Facebook shows that you’re real – and makes great strategic sense at the same time.
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