Expert Bits

Most small businesses are working hard to increase awareness, marketing share and sales to survive in this economy. One major factor that can significantly influence the success of a small business is its marketing.

Small business marketing as an industry is full of many options, but for a small business that is budget-conscious, internet marketing may be the right way to go. Now, small business owners don’t need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on advertisements and television commercials when they can engage online with consumers at a fraction of the cost.

If you’re looking at internet marketing for your small business, here are a few tips to get you on the right track and make your marketing successful.

1. Develop a marketing strategy – Before you start engaging in any of the hot internet marketing tactics you’ve heard about, start by creating a marketing strategy. Understand your goals and objectives, how you want to be perceived online and what resources you have for your marketing efforts. Knowing this will help you input marketing tactics that will feed into your overall strategy.

2. One tactic is never enough – Just so you know, you wont be able to optimize your website once and have the traffic, customers and money pouring in. Your need to commit to always updating your internet marketing tactics, and always engage in multiple tactics to continue the success.

3. Have a rockin’ website – Think of your small business website as your store’s front door. You want it to look nice and inviting so customers want to keep coming back. Design it in a friendly manner, and create content around your business and your product offerings to educate and help your site visitors. Optimize it so it can be found in the search engines, and make sure your visitors can find what they are looking for once they get to your site. This is where people will come to find the most information about your business, so it has to be great.

4. Have a local angle - Even if everyone in the world can use your product or service, try focusing on a local angle online as well. Utilize some local directories and online Yellow Pages to list your business. Sponsor a local newsletter or online publication to increase awareness of your local brand. Target some geo-specific keyword phrases for your optimization. These will draw the attention and sales of those people in your neighborhood that want to purchase from local providers.

5. Monitor and measure with analytics – If you aren’t monitoring your website traffic, how will you know what’s doing well and what’s not? Make sure you are tracking analytics on your website, and monitoring them regularly so you can make changes to your marketing tactics as needed to bring in more traffic.

Stay tuned for 5 additional small business internet marketing tips.