There are many online marketing strategies that local small businesses can use today to get results. So what are they and how do you choose which one is the best for your business? Online marketing strategies for local businesses include; pay-per-click advertising, banner advertising, affiliate marketing, paid SEO services and organic marketing. As a small business owner, the answer for me is very simple. I want to implement a strategy that is easy to understand, easy to implement, inexpensive, doesn’t take a lot of time to manage and most importantly; gets results. The only online marketing strategy that meets all those requirements is one that uses organic techniques to get results. An organic marketing strategy is nothing more than a conscious effort to integrate traditional word-of-mouth referral networking techniques with the speed and efficiency of the Internet to attack new customers.
The Power of Word-of-Mouth Marketing
Since traditional word-of-mouth referral networking is still today the most powerful and cost effective form of advertising, it makes sense to use it online. The Internet makes communicating fast, easy and effective through many free services that enable small businesses to focus on improving local business online visibility through online word-of-mouth marketing. While the other strategies can work, they are often very expensive and will stop working the moment you stop paying for the services. Online word-of-mouth organic marketing won’t ever stop working. In fact the very nature of the Internet today ensures that online word-of-mouth networking will either work for you or against you regardless of whether or not you are consciously involved. To make it work for you, you need to ensure you have a strong Internet presence and consciously incorporate a online marketing plan to help you attract new customers.
Five Things You Need do to Ensure Online Marketing Success
With more and more people online conducting more than 3 billion searches every month for local products and services, so the objective of your marketing effort is to “get found” by those people specifically looking for your products and services online. To “get found” on organic search results pages you must improve your local business online visibility organically, in other words – get to the top of search engine search results pages naturally. To reach that objective, marketers must understand that there aren’t any real tricks or shortcuts. However, it has been proven that using existing online tools and exerting some degree of consistent effort over time will improve your local business online visibility and help potential new customers find you easily online.
Below is a list of the 5 things you need to do to get your business found easily online:
1. Create an online business directory listing.
3. Create small business website
4. Promote and invite people to write online business reviews
5. Participate in online business referral networking.
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