The start of a new year is always a good time to review what you’re doing and how you can grow your business in the coming year or continue to grow your business.
So, I thought it was an excellent time to run through ways we can help grow your business with digital marketing.
Growing your business with digital marketing
There’s so many facets to digital marketing. When you’re new to a small business, all the different areas can be overwhelming – especially trying to figure out where to spend your time and what will work for your business.
There’s no easy answer, unfortunately. And what works for one business won’t necessarily work for another.
But here’s a couple of things to consider:
- where does your target audience hang out
- consider the areas of digital marketing you enjoy. If you enjoy it, it’ll be much easier for you and won’t fill like an effort. Consider those areas to focus on until you can get to a stage of outsourcing.
Organic digital marketing
We can help you grow your online presence with organic digital marketing as a whole or break it down to the areas you want to focus on. By organic digital marketing, I mean:
- growing your website organically with search engine optimisation (SEO), not paid Google AdWords
- organic social media marketing and not paid Facebook ads and other social media ads
- Email marketing (EDMs)
- blog posts as a part of your content marketing strategy to help support and grow your organic rankings and climb those SERPs
A website to grow your small business and brand
When you have an online small business, your website is your shop front to your business 24/7, so it should play a crucial part in your digital marketing plan and strategy, in my opinion.
You want your website to show your customers/clients precisely what you do, and remember you. And ideally you need to do all this in 2-3 seconds as that’s about how long you’ll have before your website visitors will bounce back off your website again.
Then your website needs to convert your clients. This could be by:
- purchasing your products or courses
- signing up for your waitlist
- subscribing to your newsletter so they get the latest tips, news, and special offers or receive your free lead magnet, which then leads into your funnel
- pick up and phone you
- visiting you in-store or at your office
- consuming your free resources or blog posts
Whatever your primary call to action is. This is what you want your website visitors to do.
But remember, potential customers/clients will probably want to check you out first, depending on what you sell/do.
There’s also different buying journeys depending on where they are at:
- awareness
- consideration/researching
- ready to buy
- after-sales – remember it’s harder to get a client than retain a client, so remember to nurture them after the sale too
So, it’s essential to consider this, too, when you plan and design your website.
Are you ready for a website?
In my opinion, a website is a no-brainer to grow your online businesses, but if it’s too much to start with or you don’t have the budget or brain power, have you thought about starting with a Google My Business page?
Sometimes a slower approach works better for some small business owners.
I always say as long as you’re moving forward and have a plan. Then you’re on the right track.
A Google My Business Page is a good option if you only target local customers/clients too. And it’s always a good Google tool to use in conjunction with a website for your small business, so if you start now, then it’s only going to enhance your website when it’s time to launch one.
The time and effort you put into your Google My Business profile won’t go to waste.
How can I use Google My Business to grow my online business?
Set up your profile, and add your:
- images
- business hours
- services/products
- special offers
- updates that are relevant to your business
Many business owners don’t realise you can post to your Google My Business regularly, like on social media platforms. Still, you can, and I recommend ensuring you do this regularly. It can make a big difference.
You can niche in with the area you cover.
Get specific about the things you do.
List your bricks and mortar address if you have one, which is a big help for local search results and near-me searches.
And most importantly, when it comes to reviews/testimonials, Google My Business is where you want to direct your clients/customers first and foremost. The more organic traffic you have and the more reviews you have for potential clients/customers, the happier Google will be, and we want Google to be happy.
Search engine optimisation is vital for small businesses to grow
Don’t be like me when I launched my first ecom business nearly 20 years ago and thought I could launch a website and the website traffic and orders would flow in.
It definitely doesn’t work like that. And I had absolutely no idea what SEO was and how vital search engine optimisation would be to the success of my small business marketing.
If you already have a website but haven’t had a chance to implement an SEO Strategy, don’t panic. You can do SEO at any stage of your website’s journey, but the earlier you are proactive about your search engine optimisation and have a targeted plan and strategy, the quicker your results and the better the results.
By better, I mean you want to be ranking for the right keywords in your website’s journey. There’s no point when you’re just launching your first small business website to target a super competitive keyword, as you need time to build up your Google Authority and rankings to outrank your competitors.
There’s also no point in increasing your traffic if your website visitors aren’t going to find what they’re looking for when they get to your website. All that’s going to do is increase your bounce rate when you check out your Google Analytics stats.
Are you a small business in Tasmania?
Did you know there are small business grants available if you’re in Tasmania? From $750 to $1,500. This round closes on 30 May 2023, so check it out to see if you’re eligible.
Are you located in other parts of Australia?
Don’t despair. There’s a good chance there’s also grants for small businesses available in your area. The timing may differ a little, and what’s on offer may vary. But head on over and check it out at the Business website.
Want help growing your small business?
Check out our digital marketing blog, or book a discovery call to discuss how we can help you grow your business this year.
I’m here to help and see your business soar for years to come.
If you need to grow your online presence yourself at the moment, then check out my favourite digital marketing tools, which will help support your business.
