Can a small business, or even a SOHO business really market online?
Online Marketing for small business can feel overwhelming. There are social media posts, blog posts, Googles multiple animal changes. For a small business owner this can seem overwhelming. Just trying to figure out a POS system can make you crazy.
The good news is that things are looking up. WordPress has become the defacto standard for small business websites. There are website building tools like Astra that can accelerate the website building process. Faster building means lower costs and less time managing the site.
Our parent company builds all of it’s client websites on WordPress with Astra. They also include the Yoast SEO packages as part of the deal. My boss says that way even if the client wants to do some of their own posting, they have tools to help guide the customer so they don’t post bad content.
A couple of years ago, making sure your site was mobile friendly was critical to showing up on the big three search engines. Last year it was security. You needed to secure your website even if you didn’t take credit cards online.
The big secret for 2019 is the same secret that has been there all along. Content. Quality content is king. This is where tools like the Yoast plugin can help. Your content needs to be search engine friendly and the plugin helps with that.
The next part isn’t so easy. Content quality is gauged by “stickiness” With video analytics, we know how many people only read the text below, how many started to watch the video and how many stopped watching and when. The more that watch the whole video the higher the stickiness score. When someone clicks out in a few seconds or less, that is a bounce.
The big three search engines see bounces as content the person didn’t want. If I run an ad for “personal injury attorney” and it lands on a page for home solar, most people will bounce out. While that is an extreme example, I hope you get the idea.
If you are using one of those “free” websites and it is making you crazy, switching to WordPress is a must. The Astra plugin makes importing your website to WordPress much easier. Yes there will be some tweaking, and it won’t look exactly the same, but it will be better. Better for you and better for your customer.
The key to success in online marketing for a small business is very easy, and yet so many get it wrong. The first thing to know is your customer. Not everyone is your customer. Second, what problem do you solve for them? Third, what makes your solution to their problem a bargain even if you charge $500 a hour? Finally you need to know where they are.
When you get those four things right, the rest all just fits into place.
Once you have a customer you also should realize they are the most important customer you have. Cellular companies and Cable companies have this backwards. They give the best deals to the other guys clients. This just creates churn.
Don’t worry there are online marketing automation tools to help you keep your customers and maximize profits while giving your existing customers the better deal. Make loyalty pay you and your customers.
Four elements to getting a customer, and one to keep them. Is that really so hard?
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