What digital marketing tools do small and midsize businesses (SMBs) need to be successful? Aaron Goodin addresses this topic in a recent iMedia article. Goodin asserts that digital marketing can be economical and help improve your ROI when done properly.
Goodin's offers the following digital marketing tips for small business owners.
First, he emphasizes the importance of creating an engaging, up-to-date website. Your website should occupy the central focus of your digital marketing efforts. Optimizing your website for public use is critical—this is where your customers will be coming and returning for information, so make sure that you're presenting relevant information, and that your site is easily navigable. In addition, Goodin suggests WoodPress as a good content management system (CMS). "The online, open source website creation tool is one of the most powerful content management system (CMS) available today," he writes.
Google Analytics is the next step your business can take toward optimizing your website. A free tool, Google Analytics helps businesses measure the success rate for their inbound marketing efforts, including:
- Website traffic
- Where users are coming from, and where users are going
- Why and how users are visiting your website
- Insight into visitors' traffic patterns
- Fuller picture of your audience and their needs
With Google Analytics, your business can gain a better sense of your customers, in turn allowing you to improve their experience interacting with your business and visiting your website.
In addition to optimizing your website and using Google Analytics, improving local SEO is another way SMBs can strengthen their marketing. "Ensuring that your business listing is complete and accurate plays a large role in determining whether customers can move forward with contacting you," Goodin explains. Businesses can optimize their local SEO by taking a few steps, which include:
- Setting up your NAP, an acronym for your name, address, and phone number (with area code), which should be listed as crawlable HTML text on your site. The footer or header of your site is the most common location for the NAP.
- Creating Location Pages, which is especially important if you have multiple locations. This information allows customers to more easily find and contact you.
- Launching a Google+ Local Page, making one for each of your locations. As we've discussed in a past post, Google+ is particularly helpful for attracting local customers (many of Google's 540 active monthly users are local). Your Google+ Local Page should include your business' location and hours along with contact information. Google can help you attract more local customers, as well as improve your search engine optimizing (SEO) and brand awareness. You can visit Google's website to get the process started.
- Getting Google Reviews from customers who were particularly enthusiastic about their experience with your business.
If you are interested in learning more about internet marketing for small businesses, contact KeyMedia Solutions. We are experts in local business internet marketing and targeted internet marketing. We'll work with you to implement the solutions that meet your goals.