Online promotion for small business essential facts

Nov 3rd, 2007

by Marsha Maung

The beauty of having a small business on the Internet is this….no one has to know that you’re a one man company. Nobody has to know that your small business is run in your bedroom and you’re running your business in your pajamas! Beautiful, isn’t it? And that’s how big names on the Internet do it….but how? This is the most asked question in the minds of small business owners….what is online promotion and what kind of small business online promotion should I get to get people to come to my website and buy my products or use my service?

Online promotion for small businesses, although uncomplicated and not very expensive these days, can be a confusing thing for a small business owner. As far as online promotion is concerned, small business owners are completely spoilt for choice! There are so many different types of online promotion programs all promising you that you will get such-and-such traffic by when-and-when guaranteed that a small business owner like you and me might find it a little intimidating. Furthermore, we don’t have all that money to splurge on the wrong online marketing program. So, we’re always asking ourselves….so, this one or that one….urgh!

Listen, you don’t have to go for everything that catches your eye, if you do, there’s only one guarantee…you’ll be sitting there, watching your budget explode into tiny little smitterins wondering what went wrong with your online marketing campaign. As far as you know, you’ve done everything that the online promotion company have asked you to do but the effect is negligible for you small business. You’re not getting the kind of traffic you want and most importantly, the sales figures for your small business is hardly impressive!

There are a couple of things you have to consider here before you sign up for an online marketing program for your small business. How much do you have? How much are you willing to spend to promote your online business? What kind of exposure are you trying to get. The first thing you have to do is to get someone to come in and access your web pages. If you can do this yourself, you’re on the right track….do it! Make sure your web pages are search engine friendly.

They’ve chanted this over and over again, year after year and I can’t help but agree with it every single time! Content is King. When the Internet began, the main purpose of the Internet was not for people to hold online seminars but it was more like…for people to find information online. So, the online marketing campaign for your small business should include an article marketing campaign whereby you have someone generate fresh new ideas for your small business website and update it regularly. This is an important part of online marketing. Thankfully, more and more people have come to realize the importance of creating quality content for their websites for the purposes of marketing their small business website online.

Another thing that I consider important in the realm of online marketing for small businesses is a mailing list. It’s pretty simple because you can sign up for programs like egroups (part of Yahoo now), Topica,  or even Google’s group tool, whereby people who find your web content interesting might want to subscribe to your newsletter. If you ask me which one is my favorite online marketing tool, I’d say Google Groups. As part of your small business online marketing campaign, implement one because it will help bring your visitors back time and time again whenever you inform them of a great promotion or new content available on your website.

As part of your online marketing campaign for your small business, you should consider creating a blog. Blog is big these days, you should know that, so, create one and watch how people keep coming back for more blog content from you. It just works. For this part of your small business online marketing campaign, try implementing content management systems like www.wordpress.com or www.joomla.com or www.mambo.com.

And before I stop yapping on about small business online marketing campaign, yes, you CAN and SHOULD try our the Google ADwords campaign but I suggest making it a short-term campaign because long term investment in Google ADwords might not be worth it and it can get expensive. The advertising campaign for your small business through ADwords should be used, primarily, to bring a big crowd of people into your website who might be interested in your products and services….but they might not stay. There are other small business online marketing tools for that one.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marsha Maung is a Malaysian-based freelance writer who has been in the search engine marketing business for more than 8 years. Today, she spends her time alternating between being a mother to her kids and mother to her clients' websites and blogs! Now, she is a popular SEO blog content writer and service provider. Visit her website http://www.marshamaung.com for more info and if you want dirty personal details, visit her blog at http://www.marshamaung.blogspot.com.