Seven Effective Ways to Promote Your Business Online
Do these tasks each week and your small business will get new website traffic and customers.
I know that many marketing and small business blogs these days have filler content that reiterates the obvious or advertises not-so-subtly. But I’m about to give you seven steps to get new customers for your business that not only have a high likelihood of success, but are relatively low cost. This is advice that clients pay us thousands of dollars for, and it’s yours for free.
1) Get a Twitter Account
In the most recent Website Magazine’s “Year in Review”, the editors passionately speak of ways that search engines are changing – towards real-time search. What does that mean for your small business? For one, people are increasingly starting to search for news, reviews and recommendations on websites like Twitter and Digg. You can sign up for Twitter in 2 minutes and as I’ve said in previous posts, the rules for Twitter success are to follow others and comment on their tweets before expecting others to follow you. It’s a long term investment, so get started while the year is still fresh.
2) Get Google Local
Yes, it’s true that advertising on Google can be very, very expensive. Some clicks (like “mesothelioma”) cost over $100 – per click! Yet if you’re a small business, Google has a recent innovation that will not only include you in Google Maps, but in local search results. If you’re in retail or have a physical business presence, signing up for a Google local account is a must. Use a Gmail account to sign up or it will become cumbersome later.
3) Get a Google Sites Page
Google’s answer to Craigslist (or GoDaddy’s “Website Tonight”) these do-it-yourself web pages never quite took off, but creating a Google site for your business only takes about 30 minutes to an hour, and placing a link within this Google Sites page to your own website will help increase your organic search engine optimization. More importantly, if Google decides later to start including their Sites pages in local results – you’re already ahead of the game. Include keywords in the link to your website!
4) Get a Digg Account
CNN.com no longer holds the top spot as the online media juggernaut. Sites like Digg have generated tremendous amounts of loyal followers who look to Digg for news and information. That means that company announcements and interesting product news (or just your thoughts and reportings of industry events) can be seen by a whole new generation of readers that don’t necessarily go to their online newspaper to get current events. If you sell to a high-tech crowd or a tween to twenty-something audience, you can’t afford to ignore sending steady streams of news through Digg. Caveat – Digg works by letting their members vote articles up or down. Don’t vote for your article more than once, or have your fellow office workers vote for your articles as Digg is wise to these tactics and will penalize and not elevate your article.
5) Get an Account at PRWeb
PRWeb allows small business owners to publish and disseminate press releases about your company’s product offerings to traditional newswires. If you can’t afford to hire a PR firm (and what small business owner can these days?), PRWeb is a good option. Tip – be sure to pay a little extra for each press release and insert links with keywords describing your product/service within the press release. These not only make your press release a better user experience for your readers, but they also build valuable links that can help elevate your organic search engine rankings. Also, adding a picture with the “ALT tag” stuffed with keywords will help as well.
6) See Your Website on CrazyEgg
Analytics can be daunting for many small business owners. After all, who has time to sift through tons of data and mine it for relevant suggestions about what to do with your website? The creative folks at CrazyEgg must have pondered the same exact issue as they have created a way to easily visualize complex website analytics data in visually fun and easy to understand ways. Check out the best analytics for small business owners ever created (to date).
7) Get a Toll Free Number
My last suggestion is a bit self-serving but one I see a lot of small business owners, especially first-time small business owners, ignore. Getting a toll free number is not only a must to get more customers to call your business, but it also has a branding impact on your company’s name. Remember,
Number 2 and 3 are they not one and the same? To add a business to Google map to appear in the local listings, is that not done by creating a business listing?
I agree with Marc– but he mispelled the company name– “Clicktale” is awesome. It lets you watch movies of your visitors– you can actually see the cursor as they mouse around your site. It makes a great companion/complement to a tool like Google Analytics.
This is probably best suited to a mid-sized business with a marketing or web agency though– or someone who has a lot of time on their hands to sift through a massive amount of data.
Ring Central is not as self-serving as most companies and they really care about promoting your business through various venues, as the above article demonstrates. Although I knew about Twitter (Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo) for business social networking and Google Local Business (which is a great feature), I didn’t know about the other resources featured. However, as long as I have a business, I will use Ring Central for my telecommunication needs.
Another good resource is http://www.TradePublications.com which offer free email/print magazines for just about every industry there is. They also offer quite a few white papers on the latest industry trends.
Thanks for all these tips. The way you have presented this information is simple and easy to follow. The tip about the local google listing is very good. We will continue to focus on this.