If you’re a new ecommerce website, startup or small business owner, you probably don’t have a massive marketing and advertising budget to get your brand in front of a big audience. But don’t worry, there are still some powerful online tricks you can use to promote your website or business.
In this post, I will let you in on my top online marketing strategies and tips that are effective in extending your reach and will help grow your customers, without costing an arm and a leg.
My top internet marketing strategies and tips:
1. Create a company blog
This is one of the best ways to market your business and, done right, can bring plenty of organic traffic to your website without needing to advertise. It’s called ‘inbound marketing’. Meaning the leads come to you because they are searching for information covered in your blogs.
You can either hire an expert to plan and write your content, or if you’re good at writing and can talk authoritatively and passionately about your business niche, you could do it yourself.
Use Google Keyword Planner to find keywords that relate to your product or service and use these keywords naturally in your blog title and posts.
EXPERT TIP: You need a powerful CTA to make the most of this organic traffic and get the customer to take the action you want them to.
2. Utilize email marketing
Once you get traffic to your site you can encourage users to sign up with their email in exchange for a newsletter, discount or a download of something free. For this you need an email sign up form or pop-up to be part of your website design.
Connecting with your email list is an extremely effective way of marketing your business and, in conjunction with a blog and social media, is in the top 3 online marketing tips I always recommend to my clients.
Create quality, engaging content in a nice template, think about a relevant call to action or offer, and you can’t really go wrong! Mailchimp’s free account service for up to 2000 subscribers will get you started.
EXPERT TIP: You can get a simple and attractive email template designed for next to nothing on Fiverr. The visual aspect of your online communication counts if you want to build trust!
3. Get on social media
This is an online marketing strategy that you just can’t ignore (it’s in my top 3 tips for a reason). Social media is THE best way to grow your brand’s reach exponentially and it’s all about the shares.
If you can create one post that promotes your website or business in some way, and just one user shares it, you will get your brand in front of potentially hundreds of people that may never have otherwise known your company existed. Now imagine if 100 people shared the same post?
That’s the power of social media and why it’s so important to distribute quality content like your blogs, newsworthy company info, offers and competitions via all the major social media platforms. Be creative with your content and your online presence could blow up!
EXPERT TIP: Don’t ignore Google Plus because the giant search engine (that is so key to small businesses and startups) looks favorably on websites that use their own social media platform.
4. Create local business listings
Listing your business on the three best local listing services will help to bring you up in search results and allow local customers to find you more easily.
Google My Business
Bing
Yahoo! Local
EXPERT TIP: If you are going for a local customer base, put as much information as possible on your listings, like opening and closing times, full contact info and any photos.
5. Connect with the press
Nowadays, distributing a press release is an internet marketing strategy because it’s all done digitally and you never know who on the internet might pick up a story to give your small business, startup or website valuable exposure. It’s not just the major news outlets anymore. There are millions of bloggers and online media sites that could potentially pick up your story.
EXPERT TIP: The website PR log is a free press release distribution service, so all you have to do is create something newsworthy (and on brand) and get it out there!
6. Understand SEO
The way search engines and internet users understand what your business or website is about (and decide if it’s useful to them), is by reading the words you use. Search engines analyze your site and decide if you would be a useful search result for the user. But they need help. This is why keywords are so important.
By learning about SEO you will be speaking the internet’s language. You’ll also be making sure you’re attracting targeted traffic and making the most of all the opportunities the internet has to offer your business. Get started with Google’s Keyword Planner.
EXPERT TIP: For an effective online marketing strategy, target relevant longtail keywords and phrases that are low competition. Use them in your blogs as well as your web copy.
So, now you understand how to promote your website, startup or small business online without a mega advertising budget, you can go forth and use the internet to your competitive advantage!
If you need some expert help with any of the above, let’s talk.