Four Affordable Ways to Boost Your Small Business’ Online Presence
Running a small business today means competing not only with other local businesses, but also with large retailers and e-commerce giants. The good news is that smart digital marketing can help level the playing field. With the right strategy, even small businesses can reach new customers while retaining the ones you already have. You don’t need a huge budget or a full blown marketing department to start making an impact. With a few focused efforts, you can build visibility, strengthen your brand, and attract more customers online.
Before we dive into four affordable ways you can boost your online presence. Let’s chat a bit about marketing strategy.
Build a Solid Foundation
If you’re going to put time and money into digital marketing, it’s important you have the foundational basics in place first. If you haven’t yet considered these questions, I would strongly encourage you to take time and really think through these four questions. These answers will help guide your future marketing decisions.
- What problem does your product or service solve?
In order to properly market your product or service, you need to know the pain points in your customers’ lives that your product or service is solving. Once you know that, it gives you the “why” people might buy from you. You can build stories and marketing campaigns around this idea. - Who is your target audience?
At the very least, this should be the demographics of your ideal customer. Their age, gender, location, income level, etc. But this can go as far as their job title, industry they work in and whether or not they own a pet. Get as specific as you want. The goal here is to build a realistic persona of your perfect customer. - Who are your closest competitors?
Knowing your competitors is important for two reasons. First, knowing what your competitors are good at (or bad at) helps you know how you can also be good (by copying them) or how to be better (by not doing what they do poorly). Studying their marketing efforts also gives you ideas on who you should be targeting, how to target them and where to do so. You can use this information to replicate what might be working for them, or you can find opportunities to fill gaps that your competitors are missing. - What sets your company apart from your competitors?
You know the problem your product or service solves. You know who your ideal customer is. You’ve seen where your competitors fall short. But why should someone buy from you and not them? Every company needs a value proposition, or a statement that defines how your company is different from others. Why is your product better than others? This value proposition will be the core of your marketing messaging.
Once you understand your businesses value proposition, target audience and closest competitors, you’re ready to improve your digital marketing with confidence. Here are four affordable ways small businesses can boost their digital marketing and online presence.
1. Claim and Optimize Your Business Profiles
When someone searches for a local business, Google and Bing often shows a map with nearby options. If your business operates in a specific geographical location, having a complete and well-optimized Business Profile on both Google and Bing will help your business get found during these local searches.
A strong business profile makes it easy for customers to find your business information (such as website and phone number), read reviews, and get directions. Your business profile might display to users even when your website doesn’t rank well, making it one of the most important things you should do.
How to do it:
- Claim your listing. Search for your business name on Google and Bing. If it shows up, then it already exists in their database, in which case you can claim and verify the business as the business owner. If it does not exist, you can add a new one to their business directory.
- Enter all your business details. Include as much info about your business as you can, including your business name, address, phone number, website, hours, and business categories. The more complete your profile is, the better.
- Add photos. Upload high-quality pictures of your location, your team, your products or anything else that you think customers may want to see. If your location is not easily visible from a main road, pictures of your store front are a good option. Profiles with photos get more engagement than those without.
- Collect and respond to reviews. You should have a process for collecting reviews or feedback from every customer, even if it’s as simple as asking them in-store. Read each review that comes in and respond to all reviews in a respectful way, even the negative ones. This shows professionalism and a dedication to your customers about improving where feedback is negative.
- Add and answer questions. If customers ask questions through your Business Profile, be sure to answer them promptly. You can even ask and answer your own questions as a way of building a mini FAQ on your business page.
Ensuring you have claimed and optimized your business profile is one of the simplest yet most effective steps a small business can take to improve local visibility on Google and Bing.
BONUS TIP
Bing and Google business profiles are not the only places your business is and should be listed. Apple Maps, Yelp and TripAdvisor are other business directories where you can have a business listing. Search for more industry specific directories as well, such as Angie’s List or Houzz if you’re in construction or remodeling. Professional associations and Chambers of Commerce usually have a business directory as well. Try to get your business listed in as many directories as possible.
2. Improve Your Website's SEO
Your company website should be the foundation of your online presence. It’s working for you 24/7, 365 days a year…if potential customers can find it. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of ensuring your website appears in search results when people are looking for businesses like yours online.
While other search engines such as YouTube and ChatGPT have become more popular in recent years, Google is still the king in terms of search volume. Optimizing your website content for AI search queries is a bit more technical and in-depth, but it’s important that your website has first implemented the SEO basics.
How to do it:
- Know your keywords. Research keywords and phrases your customers might use to find your business on a search engine. If you operate in a specific area, the towns you support are probably good keywords as well. Be sure you understand what people are actually searching for, not what you think they are searching for. Tools like Google’s Keyword Planner and Ubersuggest can help you find search keywords and trends. Browse reddit and other social sites to see how your customers talk about your service or industry.
- Optimize on-page content. Every web page needs to have (at minimum) a page title and a meta description. This meta data should include the keywords you researched. You also want to include these keywords in the heading and subheadings of your content as well as throughout your body copy. However, do not force keywords into your copy. Write your content for humans, not for search engines. Yoast SEO is a good WordPress plugin for managing your on-page SEO.
- Improve technical SEO. Google rewards fast-loading, user-friendly sites. There are a lot of technical things I could discuss here, but two easy, big-impact fixes are:
- Making sure your website is responsive and looks just as good on a mobile device as it does on a computer. Text needs to be readable, buttons need to be clickable and the design of the page should still look good.
- Making sure the images on your website are reduced in size and compressed. Large images are one of the biggest culprits to slow-loading pages. Don’t download a stock photo and immediately upload it to WordPress, it will be unnecessarily large. You can reduce the size and resolution of your images with an editing tool such as Adobe Photoshop or Photopea, or a WordPress plugin such as Imagify.
- Create valuable content. At the very core of all SEO is simply great content that your customers find valuable. Educational articles about your industry might be helpful. Tips, tricks and lists always perform well with consumers. FAQs and resource pages that answer customer questions provide value to your customer and give search engines juicy content to index.
Even small steps like updating your homepage title tag or adding ALT text to all your images can help improve your search engine visibility in the long run. Writing content and updating meta data doesn’t cost any money, only your time. If you devote a couple hours to this every week, the results will compound over time.
3. Build and Nurture an Email List
Social media is great for brand visibility, but email marketing gives you a direct line of communication to your audience—without relying on searches, social platforms and constantly changing trends. Utilizing an email list of past customers and potential prospects helps you to stay top of mind, nurture leads, and drive repeat business.
Email delivers one of the highest returns on investment (ROI) of any marketing channel. It’s personal, measurable and cost-effective, making it one of the best ways to quickly and easily scale up your digital marketing.
How to do it:
- Offer something valuable. People are usually willing to give you their contact information in exchange for something valuable. Give people a reason to join your list, such as a discount, free resources or exclusive perks for being on your email list.
- Stay consistent. Send regular emails with business updates, promotions, or simply helpful content. A bi-weekly or monthly sending schedule works well for many small businesses who have limited resources. You can schedule these emails weeks or months in advance through your email marketing platform, saving you time.
- Automate when possible. Automated emails and drip campaigns are working for you 24/7 after you invest the initial time to set them up. A welcome email should thank your contacts for joining your list and purchase follow ups can ask for positive reviews. These types of emails add the personal touch customers have come to expect without taking up more of your time.
The key with email marketing is to focus on building relationships, not selling. Customers are more willing to buy from brands they trust and have provided them value. Over time, your email list can become one of your most valuable marketing assets.
Starting up your email marketing can be overwhelming. You can begin by simply building a spreadsheet of contacts or customers and emailing them in bulk. Ask customers for their contact info when they’re in your store, or use shopping cart data to get their email addresses. This will work at a small scale.
As your list grows, you will need an email marketing platform to help manage it. There are free and paid versions of email marketing platforms. Finding the right one for your business and getting it set up can be a daunting task. If you ever need help or would like us to handle the set up for you, just let us know!
BONUS TIP
A loyalty or reward program is a great way to encourage repeat business without spending much money. A simple punch card is a great way to get customers to return to your business. An email list that receives a discount every month will work the same way and will incentivize customers to give you their email address. Your reward program doesn’t have to be complicated, it simply needs to be genuine and worth their time.
4. Leverage Social Media
Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok are a free way small businesses can reach new audiences and showcase their personality. A good social media strategy can take a lot of time and effort to sustain, but posting randomly without a strategy can lead to wasted time and minimal results. Small businesses need to find a medium between spending too much time and wasting it.
Even if you only post a few times a month, a consistent social presence can increase your brand awareness and get your business in front of those consumers who turn to social media as their initial search engine of choice.
How to do it:
- Choose the right platforms. You don’t need to be everywhere. Start with one, maybe two social platforms. Focus your efforts where your target audience spends the most time. For example, Instagram works well for visual businesses like restaurants or boutiques, while LinkedIn is ideal for B2B companies. Understanding your target audience and their demographics is key to knowing what social platforms they are most likely visiting.
- Post consistently. Develop a content calendar and stick to it. A simple spreadsheet with the content type and date to publish can help keep you organized. Consistency matters more than frequency, even if only a couple times a month. There are social media tools that can schedule posts for you, allowing you to create and schedule many posts at one time.
- Mix content types. Keep your content fresh. Posting only about your latest blog article is okay, but will become boring fast. Consider different content types such as behind-the-scenes videos or articles, customer success stories and positive reviews, tips & tricks on how to use your product, product demos, surveys and questions, free resources or short videos about your company and employees. Over time you’ll learn what your audience prefers and what type of content performs best.
- Engage, don’t just broadcast. Simply posting content is not enough. Social media is about engagement. Be sure you reply to comments, ask and answer questions, and interact with your followers to build a community around your brand. Don’t get discouraged by small numbers. A small amount of highly engaged or loyal customers can provide more word of mouth than a large amount of “zombies”.
The goal here is not just to grow your follower count but to create meaningful connections with your customers and prospects that will eventually lead to brand loyalty and new sales through word of mouth.
Bonus Non-Digital Strategy: Word of Mouth
While digital marketing should be your focus, many tried-and-true offline marketing methods still work as well, depending on your industry, location and customer demographic. Word of mouth works online as well, but I’m referring to actual word of mouth.
Word of mouth is one of the most powerful lead generation tools available. It may not happen often, but science shows that when someone we know makes a recommendation, we are more likely to consider that over someone else:
“According to a Nielsen report, 92% of people trust recommendations from friends and family over any other form of advertising. This trust stems from the belief that those closest to us have our best interests in mind and are more likely to provide reliable information.” Source: goboon.co
Check out your local Chamber of Commerce, tradeshows and conferences where you can either showcase your business or meet other professionals. Small business owners are usually open to helping each other out. Can’t find an event to attend? Then host your own! Hosting an event at your business, especially one that impacts the community, can not only shed positive light on your business, but bring in potential customers.
I know from experience that in-person networking can be exhausting. But building relationships and partnerships is always beneficial in the long run. During these events, don’t be a sales person, be yourself. Show genuine interest in other people and their businesses, while keeping an eye out for partnership opportunities and referrals.
Final Thoughts
Digital marketing doesn’t have to be overly complicated or expensive. Start small and focus on building positive relationships with your customers. From their first website visit through when they leave your store, you want the experience to be positive and rewarding.
Then, focus on the fundamentals — good SEO, simple email marketing, consistent social media, accurate business directories and networking. The key is consistency. When working on a tight budget, start with small, steady efforts that compound over time. Building a strong foundation is important.
And remember, you don’t need to implement everything at once. Pick one or two strategies that make the most sense for your business goals and your available resources (time, money, staff). As you see results, you can expand your digital marketing and refine your efforts on the strategies you see are working.
If you ever need assistance with your digital marketing or would like to go deeper into any of these strategies, please reach out and see if we can help. We’re open to any size job, even consulting. Our mission is to help your small business grow.