Marketing your small business online: How to increase traffic & visibility

Small business internet marketing isn’t as simple as it used to be. In the early stages of the internet, pay per click ads could be your entire online marketing strategy. But now learning how to market yourself in a way that brings traffic to your website is essential, and much more complicated in today’s world.

Nowadays there are a lot more options available to you– all of them easily doable. The best part? Most of them are free!

Marketing ideas

Search engine optimization, also known as SEO

Pay per click advertising

Blogs, articles & forums

Social network marketing

Online marketing fun

Photo by Gennaro Visciano

By investing a little bit of time and money into these marketing ideas for your small business, you can communicate with your customers and stand out from your competitors. Once you have your website set up with all of the information that your customers will be looking for, you can begin to direct traffic to your small business website.

Search engine optimization

The most important search engines to target for search engine optimization are Bing, Yahoo, and of course, Google. This is usually the first step small business owners take when it comes to bringing traffic to their business websites. You should make sure that consumers will find you when they search for key terms related to your business. When users make a search request, they receive a number of links relevant to their search terms. You want your website link to be as close to the first result as possible. There are many ways to improve your ranking, such as using META tags in your website coding.

Pay per click advertising

Purchasing pay per click ads is another way to create traffic for your small business website. You can usually pay a few cents for every time someone clicks your ad. Paid placement and inclusion are other paid marketing strategies that can help you rank higher in search engine link results or host sites.

Blogs, articles & forums

Writing blogs and articles on your website can be a great way to bring in more traffic to your website. By providing your customers with tips and news that is important to them, you are providing a very valuable service. Make sure your content is relevant and useful to your target audience and they’ll reward you with return visits.

One of the more recent, and most successful methods of small business marketing using the Internet is to utilize social networking. Facebook and LinkedIn, Twitter and MySpace are all great social media websites that will help you connect with your target audience. You will be able to ask questions and answer them, and take feedback and suggestions from your customers. You can also tell your customers , fans, and followers about any special promotions or events your business has so they can get a head start on your deals. Social networking also helps you create a bond of trust between your customers and your business.

Where to go from here?

First, make sure your website is built by a professional web designer. They can make sure your code is search engine friendly which gives you a better chance to rank higher on the search engines. Also if your current site doesn’t have a blog, it’s time to think about starting one. The same holds true for a Facebook page and Twitter account. Get active and get connected. The online future is now.

If you’re ready take the next step with your own website, please contact us or request a quote.

Do you use other methods to market your small business online? Let us know in the comment section below.

www.scriptsell.net www.freepiratemovie.com