There are 1001 ways to market your small business, some more effective than others and some more expensive than others. Finding what works best for your business and measuring its effectiveness can be difficult. As lord Leverhulme put it “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, and the problem is I do not know which half”. Stuart H. Britt is quoted as saying “For a business not to advertise is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you are doing but no one else does”.
As a small business owner you undoubtedly realize the importance of marketing and can readily identify with both of the above quotes. We have all likely “winked in the dark” more times than we would want to publicly admit to and if lord Leverhulme was alive today he would be able to identify where his advertising spend was being wasted and eliminate it thanks to the internet.
Accountable And Trackable
Internet marketing is accountable and trackable, web analytics and testing keywords and landing pages via Pay Per Click advertising make it easy to track how your advertising and marketing efforts are performing. By tweaking and testing PPC ads you can quickly find out which version work best. PPC ads can also be targeted to only show to a local audience which can be a great source of information and intelligence that can greatly improve the success of any Small Business SEO campaign.
This approach has some valuable benefits for small business owners. First it allows you to test your keywords thoroughly and discover which keywords attract the most clicks. Those keywords that do the business and attract clicks can be made to work even better by creating specific highly targeted landing pages that precisely match the needs and expectations of the visitor. Keywords that don’t attract clicks can be discarded.
Getting The Conversion
Getting someone to click on your ad is only part of the success equation, you also want clicks to convert into sales. In today’s “tell me what’s in it for me and tell me quick or I’m gone” world, landing pages need to be highly focused and straight to the point. Test each of your landing pages thoroughly using multivariate or A/B testing scenarios until you achieve the best ratio and dump those pages that don’t or poorly convert.
How This Process Benefits Small Business SEO
Many small businesses have limited funds to throw at online marketing and SEO. It is essential that the keywords you target attract the right kind of traffic, and the landing pages you build around those keywords effectively convert that traffic into customers. Although the process discussed here might add some upfront expense to cover the Pay Per Click testing you will quickly find out what works and what doesn’t and will help you achieve your online goals quicker by helping your target customers to achieve theirs.
How This Process Benefits Offline Marketing
By gaining an understanding what works online, you gain an understanding of what works now, the current trends in your industry and the immediate needs and wants of your customers. Those are the exact same trends, needs and wants that drive sales via traditional marketing channels. The intelligence and almost instant feedback available through monitoring, tracking, analyzing and honing your marketing message online provides everything you need to produce effective offline print, radio and TV ads.