The days of business cards and advertisements in the local newspaper are over.
Nowadays, the internet is the only place you should promote your small business.
And luckily for you, promoting your business online is often much more cost-effective than traditional marketing methods. Doing so also allows you to reach a wider audience much faster.
Here are four ways to promote your small business online.
Launch a Website
This is the most obvious point on our list, but it’s essential to implement if you want to grow your business.
A custom-designed website does not merely need to look good and provide your users with information on your products and services. It needs to be an extension of your business.
If you offer products, then you should list them on your website. Integrate an online shopping cart such as WooCommerce so that users can buy online.
And if you offer services, then you need to include your contact information. Make it as easy as possible for users to get in touch and enquire about what you do.
Social Media
Social media is one of the most important parts of digital marketing for small businesses.Click To TweetSo don’t overlook it!
Make sure that you’ve got accounts on all of the biggest networks. These include Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Post engaging, relevant content on a regular basis. Make sure you do your homework and see what your competitors are posting about. From observing them, you’ll be able to see what works and what doesn’t.
Social Media Examiner has put together a great guide to social media for small businesses.
It includes info on coordinating your channels, sharing relevant content, creating a daily posting plan, and boosting your results using social media advertising such as Facebook Ads.
Pay-Per-Click Advertising
Pay-per-click advertising, also known as PPC, might be one of the oldest forms of digital marketing, but it’s still incredibly effective.
Google AdWords is the world’s most popular pay-per-click option, while Media.net, Facebook, and Advertising.com are other contenders.
Unlike your website or social media, pay-per-click advertising gives you control of your marketing budget.
If you want to promote your new hat company, for example, you can appear at the top of all search results for “hats.”
Then you’ll pay Google every time somebody clicks through to your website. It’s a cost-effective way to bring traffic to your website, and it can be incredibly rewarding when done correctly.
What PPC doesn’t do, however, is guarantee sales or engagements. Sure, you can pay big advertising agencies to drive traffic to your website. But you need to have an attractive proposition for visitors, or they’ll leave as fast as they arrived.
Make sure you invest in attractive landing pages and sales funnel techniques to convert visitors into customers.
Content Marketing
“Content is king” is a phrase you’ve probably heard once or twice before—and that’s because it’s true.
The benefits of content marketing for small businesses are immense.
Not only can you create content that offers genuine value to your readers but you can also use your content to establish yourself as a go-to resource in your industry.
That way, you’ll drive repeat visitors to your website, which in turn could lead to repeat customers.
Content marketing can take many forms. One of the best ways to implement a content marketing strategy on your website is to launch a blog and post content on a regular basis.
Other options include guest blogging on authoritative websites and posting content on websites such as LinkedIn, Medium, and Inbound.org.
You should also keep your social media handles updated with original content, such as infographics, GIFs and videos.
SOURCE: Why small businesses should use content marketing by Muffin Marketing
Ready to Promote Your Small Business? Wrapping Up
While it might appear as though it is expensive to promote your small business online, you can actually do so for free if you follow the right tactics.
Don’t forget, though, that you will spend a lot of time writing blog posts, keeping your small media channels updated, and working on your website.
This is time that you could potentially put to better use in other parts of your business—especially if you’re slow to pick up the basics of digital marketing or don’t have the time to do so.
Be sure to weigh the pros and cons of outsourcing your small business marketing to an agency if you can afford to do so.
But also note that the skills you learn marketing your business will be able to carry you through and enable you to enjoy more success as time goes on. Good luck!
Hi Max great article thanks for the share. I’ve been a blogging advocate for years although it can be a lot of hard work. There’s also niche websites which I’ve had some successful with – building a site around keywords. Be interested to hears your perspective on this.
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The important thing to remember when using social media or PPC or even content marketing is to avoid being spammy or seem inauthentic so your marketing strategies are long term winners. This will be important for when you plan to sell your business one day and cash out!
A lot of these meld together after a while. The Content Marketing ties into a newsletter while your PPC ads can be motivated by the content you’re producing. Great tips, Max!
So true! They all work together and help each other out. You can’t do SEO without content marketing. Thanks for the comment.
I am a big fan of using a blog to engage with your customers. Doing so is a better fit for some businesses but for most businesses you can create a useful resource for your customers and a platform to attract new customers.
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Thanks for the comment, John. That’s right – the more useful resources you create, the more you’ll help your customers.
Your Article is impressive and very informative. I am now a regular visitor of your website for useful business tips.
Well, business highly requires promotional activities since the promotion of your business will bring massive audience towards your site. Promotional activities such as social sharing, content marketing, video sharing are highly beneficial to your site. If you want to grow your business, promote it as much as you can.
Max Greene, your post is really well informed. All the techniques you have mentioned are very very important for a small business. Whether it is content marketing, social media presence, Pay per click all the strategies are considerable.
Thank you sharing
Kudos to the nice article, really relevant in today’s digital era. Points well explained. One cannot escape from the concepts of digital marketing in promoting a small business.
Thanks.
hi,
i appreciate your thinking and information which is to making me informative , in this blog some information is realistic and so important ,
thanks for sharing this information ,
Regards,
Mansi Desai
Nice article. Promoting your business is not that one easy. For SEO, Blog writing, press release and social media marketing you have to be good enough. I appreciate all the points you have mentioned. Thanks for the great article.
Regards,
Joseph Symons
Nice article for new start up. All the things elaborated in the post are the basic elements of promoting a business. Hope this will be a guideline to all the new business owners. Keep Updating. Regards
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Yes, you are right. Promoting the new small business with paid services would become more expensive and at the initial stage, we must try free options. Thanks for the great post.
Regards,
Rose Carter
Hey Max,
Your post is amazing. As I am about to launch my business so I found your website very informative and helpful. Thanks for sharing and keep posting.
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I too definitely appreciate your straight forward advice Max!
And while I can certainly appreciate all five of your extremely practical
tips.
I think content marketing, is clearly one of the most versatile and
potentially rewarding marketing strategies, in the long run.
Primarily, because it helps inexpensively position you as, one of the primary
problem solvers, within your respective industry.
Thanks again for sharing five incredibly practical marketing tips.
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Great information, Thank you for this post….. It will help me a lot to promote my business.
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Hello Max Greene
I read your post about “How to Promote Your Small Business Online”.It’s really awesome.This post is very useful & helpful to new man who want to start a small online business.Your suggestion about promote your business from Launch a Website & Social Media is very good.
I really loved the content. This is really an interesting article for all of us. You’ve done a really high quality job.Thanks for your guidance. I’ll follow your tips.
With Best Regards,
David Wooks
Nice and helpful content thanks for sharing with us. I am wishing to visit your Website again and again any time in our daily life keep it up.
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Awesome Post!
As a small local business-owner you always need to keep learning new stuff like this.
It’s so important to use ALL of the social media opportunities, to get you in front of potential customers.
I had some great success in google SERPS by just using a whole lot of social medias and keep posting on them!
Thanks again!
In today’s times, it doesn’t matter if it’s a small business or a well established one all of them need promotion of their business to increase their consumer base. I read your article and you have put forward very valid points. It was fun reading it.
Thanks!
keep sharing such useful articles.
Thanks for the comment, Arjun. Glad you enjoyed reading!
Great article, throughout such a wonderful read to promote a small business all the info well explained. Have a good day..
regards
Abid Masih
Really great to hear your thoughts, Adid!
hi,
i have read this article and i appreciate all points which is have in this blog cause of every businessmen want to explore his business each and every points are very useful for us .this information is so useful for us .
thanks for sharing this information,
regards,
mansi desai
Let me know how you get on if you do explore any of these points, Mansi!