Marketing your business online is a necessary evil of business if you run a home-based business or small business. It doesn’t matter if you are struggling to make a name for a small business or run a global conglomerate, your consumer base needs to know you care about their needs and where to find your product. This is why it’s very important to use an effective agency like citypeakmarketing.com who won’t overcharge for services.
Understanding Marketing Your Business Online
You need to know who your consumer base is and where they live, whether that represents a 10-block radius from your home-based business or a region of the country. Also, while advertising may be a necessary expense, you don’t have to spend a lot if you have a small business. You do have to think strategically about how you advertise, to how to reach your intended consumer base. And to help your intended consumer base find you online. Even if they aren’t looking for you.
How? Through the internet. By some estimates, two billion to three billion people log onto Facebook every month. So, imagine how many people use the internet and other social media websites each day. Every day, there are limitless opportunities you can take advantage of to advertise yourself and establish your brand, online. The most efficient way that you can do this is through the practice of search engine optimization, also known as SEO.
What Is SEO?
It is easier to talk about best search engine operation practices by first discussing the nearly obsolete advertising practices of the 20th century for clarifying contrast. Before of the advent of the digital age, how did businesses reach out and advertise to their intended consumers’ bases? First, they had to identify who their consumers were, know where they lived, and advertise to them via TV, radio, newspapers, the phonebook, billboards, and posters. In the pre-digital age, the only ways one learned about a business was by turning on a TV, reading a newspaper, or word of mouth.
How do you learn about a business today? You type what you are looking for into a search engine and then you search listed website rankings based on the phrasing of your search inputs. Business websites links, maps, and reviews may even appear related to your input phrasing. Well, if you didn’t know before, you have probably participated in search engine optimization as a consumer more times than you realize. This is the 21st-century version of the TV commercial but on a local, global, and internet interfaceable level.
Search engine optimization is the process of directing traffic to your website through the use of strategically worded keywords embedded on your website. If you sell breakfast muffins and coffee from a food truck locally, and people type in, “breakfast,” “muffins,” or, “food truck,” in a search engine, your website appears. If you use frequently used keywords related to your business, as well as embed such keywords throughout your website, then your business can be ranked higher than other websites and appear ahead of others in search results. That means online users will see your business website before others.
Not As Complicated As It Sounds
You may to enlist the aid of a computer and computer program literate friend or pay someone to maintain your website, which would be a nominal cost. SEO is the process of manipulating search results to bring up your business higher in search ranking whenever someone uses your keywords. The basic cost to start a home-based business is at least $10,000 by some conservative low-end estimates. Every little bit that you can do to get ahead helps.
You need to know your consumer, what keywords they use, strategically develop keywords related to your website, embed these keywords throughout your website, and continually monitor how much traffic visits your website based on your keywords. It’s a continual process of research and maintenance. There are also many online sources that can help you in this process.
Don’t Give Up
There is a famous business quote that says that if you try to cheap out on advertising to save money, its comparable to destroying a watch to save time. Over 20% of businesses fail within the first year of operations. One main reason for failure is not understanding a consumer base, how to engage them, intuit their consuming needs based on data, and then advertise accordingly. You don’t need a lot of money to advertise in the digital age. Yet, you must think smartly and strategically about it. Like with SEO optimization.
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Allen Francis was an academic advisor, librarian, and college adjunct for many years with no money, no financial literacy, and no responsibility when he had money. To him, the phrase “personal finance,” contains the power that anyone has to grow their own wealth. Allen is an advocate of best personal financial practices including focusing on your needs instead of your wants, asking for help when you need it, saving and investing in your own small business.
