Tips for Developing an Online Marketing Strategy-Small Business Website
One of the most important elements for an effective online marketing strategy is an optimized website. It needs to be structured correctly so that the search engines and humans can easily find it. Make sure your website navigation makes sense where people can easily find what they’re looking for on your site.
Create compelling content that attracts and pleases your visitors. Keyword research on the types of content your target market is looking for and then creating and uploading good content to your site that satisfies their search is a must!
Many small business owners have no idea what types of content to create for their website. The results of keyword research can often be used as content ideas. For example, my client does orthopedic massage which is actually the technical term for “massage for injuries”. When we finally drilled down to this keyword search result, we ended up with content ideas such as “massage for neck pain”, “back pain relief” and “carpal tunnel massage”. My client saw how easy it was for her to create content that would answer all these keyword searches and position her service as a solution to their problem.
Once your website is ready, then you need to promote using the various social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and social bookmarking sites like digg and del.ici.ous.com. Post good content to your fan page regularly so that people will be engaged with your shop’s events and offerings. Adding Twitter to the mix is a good idea and make sure you’re following people who are part of your industry.
You should also have some mechanism to gather names for a list building campaign. You can do this at your store by offering your customers freebies or discounts if they sign up. Also, offer those freebies or discounts to your online customers as well to get their names and email addresses.
Email marketing is an important part of your online promotion strategy. You should establish a regular schedule( monthly is a good start) where you send out useful and valuable content in the form of a newsletter to your list as well as incentives to get them to come back to your site. You don’t have to make this a long newsletter. Simply tell them what’s new and provide a link back to your site to read more about it.
Did you notice that, other than creating a website, all these strategies are free? You don’t need to spend money on banners or other online advertising to have an effective online strategy. You will want to invest money in a paid advertising campaign eventually but establish all these other elements first.
For more info contact Wood & Associates MarCom Corey Wood m.b info@woodmarcom.com Calgary, Alberta