A decade ago, the internet wasn't considered an important part of a small
business marketing strategy. Today, it's paramount. That doesn't mean that your
small business marketing strategy has to include a lavish 25-page website with
sounds, flash movies, and thousand-dollar graphics. It doesn't mean that you
have to spend $5.77 per click to advertise under the keywords "small business
marketing" on Google. It does mean that you need to understand, at the very
least, what the internet can do for your small business marketing.
To gain that understanding, you'll need to learn about the four most fundamental
pillars of internet small business marketing: 1) websites; 2) search engine
optimization; 3) pay-per-click advertising; and 4) affiliate marketing.
Websites
Websites are the foundation of the Internet. So the logical first step in
developing your internet small business marketing strategy is to set up a
website. Unless you're incredibly tech savvy or have a large budget to spend on
your internet small business marketing, you'd be better off starting simple.
To begin, think about what small business marketing goals you want to accomplish
with your website:
?Do you want to tell potential customers about your products or services?
?Do you want customers to be able to buy directly from your site?
?Do you want to offer visitors valuable information?
?Do you plan to use your website to reach outside of your current network or
primarily to communicate with the contacts you already have?
No matter what small business marketing goals you want to accomplish with your
site, at the very least you'll have to register your domain name (your website
"address") and sign up with a web hosting service.
Search engine optimization
The cheapest way to optimize your small business marketing website strategy is
through search engine optimization (SEO). To understand SEO, first think about
how visitors will find your site. There are three principle ways:
1. They'll know your web address already (perhaps they got it off your business
card or other small business marketing materials) and they'll simply type it in
on the address line
2. They'll find your website through a link they found somewhere on the Internet
3. They'll search in one of the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN) for a
keyword or key phrase that relates to your business.
In internet small business marketing, the trick lies in getting your website to
rank on the first (or even second, or third) page of results that come up when a
visitor runs a keyword search. Search engine optimization is the art of doing
just that. The most powerful way to improve your search page rankings (and,
thereby, your small business marketing results) is to have relevant keywords
embedded throughout your site's content.
Pay-per-click advertising
Strategically placing relevant keywords in your site content and having other
pages link to yours are called "organic" ways to improve your search engine
ranking. Another way to maximize the effectiveness of your internet small
business marketing strategy is to pay for advertising on the search engines.
The principle behind pay-per-click advertising programs (like Google's AdWords)
is that you pay to have your website address and a brief ad displayed with the
organic results of web visitors' searches. For example, for $5.77 per click you
can have your website address and ad appear on the first, second or third pages
on Google when users type in the key phrase "small business marketing." As with
all advertising, the most popular keywords are more expensive than the less
popular ones.
Affiliate marketing
Where pay-per-click advertising is a non-organic way to get your website listed
on search pages, affiliate marketing is a non-organic way to get other sites to
link to yours. The principle behind this small business marketing tool is that
you advertise your site on other websites and each time someone clicks through
to your site from that other site, you pay your "affiliate" site a fee.
Affiliate marketing works both ways, too: you can allow related businesses to
advertise on your site and earn a commission when viewers click through.
Whatever method you choose for your online small business marketing strategy,
it's becoming increasingly important that you have an online presence. Those
businesses that don't may well get left in the dust.
