Small Business Online Marketing Options
Are you a small business owner and looking to find ways of getting your SMB ahead in the world of digital marketing?
You could pay money on advertising and use Google Ads, PPC, a featured listing on Yelp or other local directories. Each click might cost you $2-$10 each depending on your competitors in the area. You may get a few more leads this way but they end up being costly and you still have to sell them on being your customer. The only way to do this effectively is to do the math on what a new client is worth to you, how many clicks does it take to get a new customer, what is good ad copy and calls to action etc. Also with this type of marketing, the leads stop coming in as soon as you stop paying. Like a faucet being turned off!
Since PPC might not be a good idea after all that might get you thinking about website search engine optimization or SEO. That is touted as getting your website higher in Google organically when people are searching for the services that you offer here in Naperville. Yes, the Google ads are still above you but at least you don’t have to pay money every time someone clicks on your website.
After doing some Google searches yourself for phrases like best SEO company or just SEO in general and clicking on the ads and you find out there are a few reputable SEO firms in the area but they have SEO packages that might range from $700-$2000 per month and have a contract that lasts 6 months or more. They promise good SEO results though and their company is respected in the Naperville community. They say SEO takes time (and it does) Hmm..
What do you do? Do you have $5000 to $12000 in your budget to spend on SEO with no guarantee it will bring in the number of new customers it would take to support this marketing channel? How long do you have to wait before you start seeing results? Sometimes it is a leap of faith.
Don’t you wish there was another option?
SEO was in its infancy when I started and now it is 15 years later, I owned my own digital marketing agency for 10 of them and worked for a few other SEO firms during that time. I have worn many hats, from CEO to SEO strategist or SEO analyst etc. so I know the business model, and search engine optimization, I even have 7 Google certificates.
I have presented many seminars about SEO here in Naperville, the inbound marketing classes were popular and many of the rooms were filled to capacity. But I found upon further research that hardly anyone actually did anything that I mentioned in the classes. Not even the items that would have taken 5 minutes and make the biggest impact like adding a keyword to your home page title tag. I certainly enjoy speaking about SEO but I wish my students would have done a better job of following the action plans I had outlined.
I saw all the challenges above (and the successes) and connected the dots in a way that I think would work out great for small business owners and myself.
Bruce Jones SEO Consultant offers personalized SEO strategies depending on your business. In the end, you get a search engine optimized website, measurement tools are put in place together and reports you can trust.
