Tuesday, March 30, 2010

3 Top Online Marketing Techniques for Small Businesses

There are a number of ways you can market your small business online … but you need to focus on those that really get results.

Here’s 3 proven online marketing techniques that will definitely get you the kind of results you’re looking for.

1. Be sure you're not only in Google Maps but that you optimize it so your business has the best chance of being found when someone is searching for a business like yours.

Example: You search "Day spa Salt Lake City" and you're an owner of a day spa. You want to be right there on the map and on the listing of sites.

2. Write press releases with optimization for search engines in mind. You have news (new products, events, etc) but you can get more out of it. Specifically you can get more traffic, links, downloads, leads, etc.

Example: You own a company that creates an anti-slip coating for bathtubs. A new study comes out about people getting injured while on vacation. You cite the study and talk about how your coating prevents accidents and is great as a protective measure (literally!).

3. Blog. Don't just blog ….. but blog with plugins and headings that will bring traffic. There are great tools for small businesses. The biggest mistake I see with newbies is they're not linking (to related posts, pages of their site or other content outside of their blog) and the post titles are boring or too generic. Of course, this is bad advice if there isn't someone who will write regularly. If you'd rather not have the commitment, Twitter is a good option because you can still get content out but it's a lot easier to come up with a tweet compared to an entire blog post.

If you’d like to learn more about the details of how to make these 3 techniques work for you …. And many more … I recommend you connect with my friend Janet Theiler at OrangeSoda specializes in small business online marketing. They have trackable phone #s, Google Maps optimization, SEO and paid search solutions.

For some more information on PR marketing … I suggest checking out OnlinePRBook