Small Business Internet Marketing Online - Standard Marketing for a Digital Age

Small Business Internet Marketing Online - Standard Marketing for a Digital Age

If you want to expand your small business, Internet marketing online offers a lot of exposure for your business. Not realizing the power of word of mouth and the many ways that a local business can be promoted online, they often use it in the same context that they would use a listing in a phone book. Although someone might find the business, there are many diverse ways to interact with customers and grow your customer base.

Much like standard advertising for your small business, Internet marketing online is simply a digital version of print advertising. Instead of ads in newspapers, magazines and fliers, your advertisements are in digital format that also allow customer interaction. Very powerful information can be gathered from customer feedback on blogs, social sites and forums. When it comes to marketing your small business, Internet marketing online is easy and relatively inexpensive. Most services are free to sign up for and offer a simple interface to get you started.

One of the most important things to keep in mind is that you have to make whatever web presence you choose easy for your customers to find. You want your website, twitter account, or Facebook page to be one of the first things that shows up when people search for a particular product that you offer. As an example, if your business is to provide chimney sweeping services, if someone does a search for chimney sweeps in your area, you want your business to be the first one to show up in the search engine result pages. There are several ways to accomplish this. An easy way to start would be to use Google's keyword research tool to determine just what terminology people would use to find a chimney sweep. These terms that searchers use are referred to as keywords and are the cornerstone to advertising online.

Once you have determined what people are searching for related to your business. You can then set up a website, Facebook page or other social network site built around these terms. This makes sense to Google and it is more likely that your page will show up when someone is looking for services or products that you offer. Although similar to an ad in a newspaper, digital forms of advertising can be changed on the fly to accommodate promotions or sales. This provides a unique opportunity to keep up with customer demand and feedback.

Social network sites are a great way to get the word out about your local business and in a lot of cases these sites are free to use. Sites such as Squidoo, Hub Pages and Weebly all offer a free website service with a very easy to use interface that does not require any web programming or special knowledge. By putting your digital "fliers" out on the Internet, you're casting a wider net to a broader audience. Some consumers shop strictly online and, even though they're local to your small business, Internet marketing online lets them know you even exist.

With the convenience of being able to search online, fewer people are using traditional phonebooks. When promoting your small business, Internet marketing online should include a listing in Google Places. Google Places is a free to use service that acts as an online phonebook that can be found easily by searching for a product or service in the searcher's area. Having a listing in this free to use directory pays large dividends with people being able to locate you quickly when they need your services.

When promoting a small business, Internet marketing online is the next logical step in expanding your business. Inexpensive to get started, once your business grows you can expand your small business online presence to include mailing lists or online store. With this growth potential, small businesses need to step into the digital age.

Mark Matthews is a consultant for a successful small business internet marketing online company and has expert knowledge of selling online marketing. Download the free "Profiting from Local Online Marketing" report at http://www.localmarketingsource.com

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