Small Business Online Marketing Concepts

Small Business Internet Lingo

Online Marketing has become a prominent part of the advertising industry these days.   This is obviously because people are spending a big part of their time on a daily basis on the Internet.   Since that’s where the people are, than obviously that’s where Small Businesses need to target their marketing resources and strategies.  The beauty of this new form of marketing is, they’re open online communities for you to do what you want and get your message across to the Social Media constituents.  No, there’s no textbook or quick guide book that will assist you in these programs.  You just have hundreds, if not thousands of Internet journalistic opinion on best practices, and more importantly statistical analytics to influence your decision making on these Social Media Platforms.

Once you learn to operate these platforms to deliver your Small Business message, don’t think you can put your feet up and ride the wave.  They are not like a bike.  You need to constantly continue to read, learn, and listen to other professionals in the Social Media Industry, Advertising Industry, and also business competitors of your business to make sure you are not falling behind.  These very dynamic platforms on the Internet do not seem to be slowing down their development and growth, and so your business needs to continue to learn, and adapt along with them.  Or else you’ll find yourself falling behind, and seeing your competitors stepping all over your virtual business turf.

I wanted to lay down a few keys items here on this blog for you and your business to get familiarize with before starting to get into Internet Marketing.  I’m not trying to say you will need to learn how to do all these things, but at the very least you’ll need to include them in your lexicon before opening your business Social Media platforms on the Internet.  You can very easily read and learn all about these items on the Internet – all it takes is a quick search and you’re well on your way.

Small Business Websites With HTML5
Every Small Business should have a Mobile Responsive website.  That is, a website coded in the language of HTML5 which adapts to any mobile screen size.  The benefit of this for a business is tremendous, versus the alternative with apps for mobile devices.  If it easy to update and manage one responsive website.  Mobile apps all have difference requirements because of the multitude of mobile devices and Operating Systems.  Learn about the developments and benefits of HTML5, and how it can be cost effective for you and your business.

Small Business SEO

Search Engine Optimization has become one of the most important elements in Online Marketing.  It is the way search engines, like google, yahoo, bing, etc., discover your website on the Internet.  With basic strategic practices, SEO lets the Internet know what your website is all about.  Once again, your message here is key.  Search Engines require basic data on your website to let them know how they can deliver your website to their users relevant to each search query.  You may have the most beautifully looking website in the world, but if your meta-data is not up to date, you’ll be left out of the next search engine query.

Small Business Pay Per Click Advertising

Pay Per Click is a common advertising model which payment is based on each click.  For example, you may purchase 1,000 clicks per month.  Your advertising would be displayed on the Internet, but you would only pay for the users or visitors that click on the advertisement.  Impressions are the number of times your advertisement if loaded on a web page.  These may sound great, but they produce very different results.  Pay Per Click guarantees you that a click was made to your website.

Small Business Online Marketing Visibility

November 19, 2014, Google released a infographic titled, “5 Factors Of Viewability”.  This research study put out on ThinkWithGoogle told us that 56.1% of all impressions of google advertisements are not even seen by humans.  That tells small business owners that you must be very careful with what you pay for on the Internet.  If you are paying for impressions and more than half of what you pay for is not even seen by humans, what are you paying for?

Read, learn, and read some more before you make any decision for your business on the Internet.   You can’t have too much information when it comes to the Internet and Online Marketing.  Just remember to make the best decision by meeting the needs of your business, which means, making the best decision to meet the needs of your customers.

Social Media Nation States On The Internet

Small Business Principles On Social Media

The small businesses in America have been transitioning into online marketing at a good pace in recent years.  It is expected for small businesses to have a Facebook page, Twitter Account, and even a Pinterest account.  But as these platforms develop competition for eyeballs, bigger businesses come in and dominate, pushing small business owners aside.  It is very difficult for small business owners to know the affect and results of their small campaigns, and how much effort or resources should be allocated to these marketing platform strategies.

Social Media has become a must have for all businesses, large or small.  But each platform needs to be treated as its own community of individuals.  I think a perfect analogy would be to compare these Social Media platforms to countries.  For example, you don’t go to France from the United States and expect the French people to speak English, and even if they do speak English, you don’t expect your lexicon of cultural language to be understood in France, do you?  Let alone, if you’re trying to conduct business in that foreign country. (more…)