5 tools every small business owner needs
The classic line “if you build it, they will come” from the fantasy-drama Field of Dreams doesn’t work in the digital space. Unlike the film in which the protagonist builds a popular baseball diamond in the middle of nowhere, building a great site is only one part of the battle. The other is getting it seen. For webmasters, community managers and digital marketers, this means identifying the most effective platforms and resources for your brand given your time, budgetary and manpower constraints. Only then can you expect your site to survive the competition. New figures indicate there are now more than 250 million~registered domains.
#1 Google Adwords
It takes time and considerable energy to rank on the first page of Google. Even then you’ll only show for certain terms. Google Adwords can springboard you to the front page and get you noticed on pages relevant to your site, but at a price. While Google Adwords shouldn’t be used as a replacement for tactics that boost organic searches, it can be useful and profitable adjunct. Its recent launch of Adwords Enhanced Campaigns facilitates such things as~bid management for different devices and product listing ads. There is also a nifty ad extensions feature that can, for example, show your phone number during the physical shop opening hours, and an online shop link when you’re closed.
#2 Social media strategy
With Google+, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and Tumblr and other social platforms all vying for attention, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by choice. Creating a robust social media strategy is therefore essential to identifying what you hope to achieve, the right channels for your demographic and the right type of content. A strategy also helps to ensure everyone involved in the social media process takes the same approach. While regular monitoring is essential to identify what works and what doesn’t, don’t expect instant results.~ Posts don’t write or upload themselves either, so make sure your social media publishing strategy is achievable. Check out internet news blog Mashable for the latest strategy advice.
#3 Blog promoting
With content writing probably finding its way into your social media strategy, it’s important to maximise the impact of each post. While duplicating your content can hurt your search engine rankings, you could consider submitting the content as a guest blog or as a video or reworking it for syndication on relevant platform. New research shows that in Q4 2012, total video views among US internet users climbed 23% year over year.
#4 SEO
There has been much talk following the Penguin 2.0 update about how this impacts on SEO. Historically, tactics such as aggressive link building played a pivotal role in optimising search engines. Today these have been assigned to the annals of history, with sites that reflect greater authenticity having a better chance of ranking well. Such practices involve keeping your content fresh and relevant and making the site user-friendly by optimising such things as page speed performance, uptime and reducing upload sizes. To find out more about best practice, check out Google’s Web Performance Best Practices and Webmaster Guidelines. Make sure you’re registered for Google Webmaster Tools too for the tools and diagnostics for a healthy, Google-friendly site.
#5 E-campaigns
Email marketing can be~the most powerful and cost-effective way to talk directly to your target group. After all, how many ways are there to have a one-to-one with a customer, or to send a mailer at the fraction of the cost of a postage stamp? While there are many email marketing solutions, one of the best known is Mailchimp. This is largely because of its simple, attractive templates and ease-of-use. As you should only send emails out to those who signed-up to receive them, start building your list from day one. One of the easiest ways to do this is to have a simple email sign-up form on your website with an incentive. This might be a newsletter or freebies relevant to their needs.