Small businesses are having a tough time understanding the value of an online presence.

As a business owner you have to buck up and enter the 21st century.

1. Get a professional web design
2. Make the site content friendly via a blog or content management system.
3. Get the site professionally SEO’d
4. Add content consistently-even if you have to hire professionals to do it.

Without an online presence no small business can survive past its first year.

Whereas in the past you could have a website designed and forget about it, today SEM is more sophisticated. The web site has to be more proactive and interactive. It’s a store front. Like any window dressing you have to change it with the seasons, the sales, the holidays and then some. The more attractive you make it, the more interested the visitors will be and the more likely they are to buy. Leave it static for months and watch the visitors drop, traffic disappear and your business go down the drain.

Make sure your web site design is professionally designed, attractive and easily updated.

Content is King.

Make no mistake, content is king. You may have an attractive design, a highly ranking website and still fail to get customers. The reason is simple. Unless your content is attractive to both the search engines and the customers your website is doomed for failure-as is your business. Write content that is sales oriented, keyword optimized and yet, highly unique. You should be offering information that is different. Yada-yada-yada. I know you have read this before. But the message is so important you have to read it again. Content is king!

Small, local businesses can easily beat their competitors by understanding the value of SEM.

At the moment local businesses are slowly emerging into the online visceral vision. They are beginning to understand that they need a website. However, they are latecomers and have not yet realized that having a website is the first step- not the only step. Some are opting for search engine optimization. However, very few are going to stick with it to take the final step to SEM. So if you get a website designed, opt for SEO and then ask for SEM you will be a step ahead of the competition.

SEO-SEM and a content based website for small business growth

Every SEO has a different story, different style and different approach to search engines. I believe in content. I believe that a small/local business can take their industry by storm, online, if they create a website that is professional, SEO friendly-then optimized for their industry keywords and finally marketed.

The more the content on the website-the more the market share for the business owner.

Isn’t that what every SEO does market the site? No. Link building is no longer enough. Today to be successful, small business owners need a content friendly site that has content added to it on a continuous basis. This content should be informative and persuasive allowing customers to take the next logical step, becoming your consumers.
Small businesses are having a tough time understanding the value of an online presence.

Consider this: As a small business you do not want to part with a recurring monthly charge for Search Engine Marketing [SEM] because it does not make sense. A couple of decades ago you would have called a TV ad ‘insensible’ when a newspaper ad could do so much more.

Reality Check, fast forward. It is the 21st century, TV ads today, are the newspaper ads of yesteryears.

Tags: Small Business Marketing
Posted in Web Marketing for Small Businesses |