Online Marketing For Small Business Creates Great Customers!

OK, sure, if you’re big business like Wal Mart or Amazon the Internet is great. But, what do search engines have to do with online marketing for small business? In short, search engines are a tremendous opportunity to be found. How’s it working out for you in the Sunday newspaper classifieds? How many new customers found you in the yellow pages last month?

Online Marketing For Small Business Works Locally

Truth be told, right this minute, right here in the Twin Cities, eager buyers are searching for what you offer. Anticipate these eager buyers and you have the opportunity to stand up directly in front of each of them and tell them your great story. Once you identify the buyer personae of your greatest customers, what’s to stop you from stalking your perfect prospects? Isn’t creating great customers the best action you can take in growing your business? Is it possible to have too many great customers?

Search Engines Help Online Marketing For Small Business

Let’s look closely at typical search engine results to see what’s in it for you. For the sake of illustration, we’ll use Google. Sure, lately we’re seeing a lot of commercials about Bing, and certainly Facebook, too, has an impressive number of searches. Google recently reported four billion searches every day, one billion of which are seeking to buy locally. With two-thirds of all search engine searches, Google epitomizes the online search experience.

Depending on your specific search phrase, the Google search results page may contain three different types of results:

Paid Search And Online Marketing For Small Business

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising may appear above all other results and/or down the right side. First and foremost, know that these are paid advertisements. Every time somebody clicks on one of these ads, whoever placed the ad pays Google. From the time you sign up to the time you start seeing results can be as quick as a few hours. Paid advertising can quickly pull prospects, test landing pages and gauge the market.

Local Business Results And Online Marketing For Small Business

Have you noticed the maps? Unless you’re totally oblivious to the Internet and online search, these last two years of online marketing for small business are remarkable because of the local business results.

Google and the other search engines realize that there is an enormous demand for local and neighborhood search results. Why? Because eager buyers are shopping and ready to buy; but, they’re not prepared to put a new house in a shopping cart and purchase it from Amazon. For many items consumers still insist on buying from a person. They still put the relationship before the deal. And that is great news for local business.

Getting on the map is not a function of paid advertising. Nor is it simply a matter of having a great website. Local business results feature businesses that are remarkable in their community. First, they claimed their listing in the local directories, such as Google Places, Yahoo! Local, Yelp, etc. Second, these businesses made the effort to standardize their listings everywhere, including using the same local telephone number and spelling consistently. Third, customers find them remarkable enough to leave online reviews, endorsements and testimonials for local business. The search engines are gathering many public reviews into the local business results.

Organic Results And Online Marketing For Small Business

Last but not least are the well known organic results. They are called organic because they are the “natural” ordering of all web pages cataloged across the Internet. Although, different search engines rank and order web pages differently, the notions of credibility and trust and back link references from other websites are shared. Clearly, if your business is found on the first page of Google results, eager buyers searching for what you offer may click on your link. Also, the more eager buyers find your link the more likely your business is to sell. Although, many say organic results are “free,” do not forget that consumer searches vary and the search engines change their rules to appeal to searchers.

SEO And Online Marketing For Small Business

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of appealing to search engine algorithms in order to place high in their rankings. Effective online marketing for small business must consider SEO because each business must be found by buyers if they are to sell. Neither SEO nor marketing, however, is simply a matter of adding some ingredient to your website. If marketing is the relationship between a business and its marketplace, and every relationship begins with a single conversation, how many conversations with eager buyers do you want online?

Online Marketing For Small Business Creates Great Customers!

Is it possible to have too many great customers? Search engines are a tremendous opportunity to be found. Right this minute, right here in the Twin Cities, eager buyers are searching for what you offer. Is creating great customers your goal in online marketing for small business?

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Online Marketing For Small Business Answers: 612-235-6060