With the advent of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter and the introduction of social media marketing had completely changed the face internet advertising for small business owners.  What started out as a fad in marketing is quickly becoming an integral part of any business be it a totally online business or a traditional local business.  Social media integration is now a common place for most successful businesses online and offline.  

Many local businesses still need to realize the fact that social sharing is not a fad, it is a way for people to broadcast their activities and thoughts online. If those people are sharing their experience about your product or service, you want to know what they are saying and address any issues they may have had.  

Integrating social media with your internet advertising is a fast way to build your business brand and create loyal customers who will recommend your services. You eliminate the need for pushy or hypy sales tactics and concentrate on developing relationship between your small business brand and customer. Creating a trust and word of mouth using your potential and existing clients based on the information you share.  By providing this helpful and related content or information, you generate even more equity in your clients.

That is why it is important to have social media integration with all of your content or information on your small business website.  When someone finds your content, reads it and finds it interesting they want to share it with their social networks and friends.  Even if they are not the once who will buy your product hire your services someone they shared your content with could if they are looking for that service.  If the content on your business blog is good people will start sharing it creating targeted viral marketing for your small business.  All because you have social media integration on your small business blog.

Why?

Because the people who read your content already have an interest in your service or product, making them highly likely to become your customers. If your services are as good as your content then you can create a successful business faster.  That is why you need to have social media integration with your content. 

With the benefits of integrating social media into your internet marketing efforts can be huge for a small business that is just starting out in the sea of competition.  Its easy and low cost marketing.  With the technological advances like the iPhone, BlackBerry, iPads where your potential customers have access to any information they want in the palm of their hand it will become necessary for any business if they want to stay in business in the coming decades.

Click here for more informational content and for help in your internet advertising for your small businesses

Small Business Marketing Plan – Choosing The Right Domain Name.mp4 (3118 KB)

One of the fundimental steps for any small business marketing strategy and getting found on search engines like Google is choosing the right domain name.  Many business owners wind up choosing the wrong domain names for their business websites which often results in a failed or a very expensive marketing campaign with little to no results.  Spending a lot of effort and money and never quite reaching the first page of Google.

In this blog post you will learn:

• What is a domain name
• What is the difference between a good domain name and a bad domain name
• What you should avoid, that most business owners do wrong, when choosing a domain name and how to avoid it.
• The importance of having a keyword rich domain name as part of your small business marketing strategy.

What is a domain name?

A domain name is the part after the http://www.  and it ends in the .com  .net  .ca (.ca is for Canada) or other extentions.

An example of famous domain names are Google.com, Twitter.com, Facebook.com YouTube.com.

A good domain name is SEO friendly (keyword rich).  A Keyword rich domain name is key to any successful business marketing strategy online because it is the foundational step in ranking highly and getting found by your customers.

What you should avoid (i.e. bad domain names):

• Choosing a "cool' domain name for your business
• Using your company name, unless your business name is keyword rich.  

Lets use the example my company as an example. My company name is Fast Track Marketing Success however my domain name is SmallBusinessAdvertising.ca for my new business website, because of the number of searches for this keyword.  This one step allowed me to rank on the first page of Google for the "small business advertising" keyword in a matter of few weeks with a few posts for a brand new website.

At the time of this video I have less links then some of the more high authoroty wites however I have a 100% keyword density domane name which boosted me to show up higher on the first page of Google search results than websites like entrepreneur.com and about.com with a lot less content.

When choosing your domain name try to get an "exact match" domain name for best results eg. DogTraning.com

If you cannot get an "exact match" then your next option is to go for a "phrase match" eg.MyDogTraining.com or DogTrainingBlog.com

Idealy you want either an exact match or a phrase match domain name, but if you are unable to get those you may consider a "broad match" domain name. For example TrainingYourDog.com, the keyword "dog training" becomes "training your dog"

Having your keywords in your domain name will help you in your marketing efforts for your small online or local business. This is the first step foundational in search engine optimization.

Unless you have an extremly high marketing budget you should stick to these boring but SEO friendly and keyword rich domain names. Do not be tempted by cleaver or cool domain names.  They are not worth the hassle and the only person who will see it and knows it exists is you.

Just by following the simple tips will allow you to rank faster in search engines like google, save you a lot of effort, time and money when you are trying to achieve high search engine rankings for your local business or online business.

You can find the best domain name from doing your market research. If you have not yet done any market and keyword research check out my video tutorial for "Doing Your Market Research".

For small business marketing  and SEO help click here Search Engine Optimization For Your Small Business

Remember rank,share, comment and ask questions on this post.

Branding is very important for achieving success in any small business and marketing strategy.  However to my horror when I asked on my social media sites the question "What is your brand? most business owners answeres were either their company's products or service.  I want you to understand that a brand is NOT a company name, logo, product line or the service your company provides.  If you want to have a successful business and a strong internet marketing strategy your local business should not become known just for the services or products you sell.

When it comes to any small business niche, be it a dentist, real estate agent, insurance broker,  the truth is you have a lot of competition, if all you do is you promote your services or products.  The only way for you to see some leads and customers is to have an unlimited marketing budget to out market your business competition.

From my experience most small and local business owner do not.  That is why personal branding is so important especially if you want to survive in business using  online marketing for your business.

What is a brand?

Simply put, a brand its you and what your business values are.  It is the core benefits that you offer to your customers and clients.  Be it people looking for your services or your current customers.  However just offering a "great" service or product is not enough to building a personal brand.

Here are some Personal Branding Tips:

1. Find out what your target market is struggling with, the solution to this are the "core benefits" for your small business market

2. Start looking for the solution, researching and learning, so that you gain knowledge and can start creating quality blog posts, articles and videos that you can share with your market. Become the "Go-To" Person in you local niche market.

3. Become active on social media or networking with local meet up groups, listen to what people are saying so that you can identify their needs and provide them with more solutions, this will start positioning you as a leader and growing your small business brand.  This does't mean pitching then your services or products, but offering valuable information how their issues can be solved.

4. Grow your credibility by offering even more valuable information or training when they opt-in to your mailing list or become your business leads.  

5. Be sure to communicate with your customer list, make it easy for people to connect with you if they have a question. Make note of any special dates that your current customers may be having.  For example take note of birthdays or anniversaries. Make them feel like you care about them not just getting their money. 

6. Always concentrate of offering great value for free, like information or personal discounts, and blow them away with anything that they pay for.

These are just some tips to growing your small business brand and creating a strong internet marketing campaign. These are probably the most important.  The main thing you should take away from this article is that if you just concentrate on providing value and much needed information with time you will position yourself as a leader in the your business niche.

People will start to connect with you, know, like and trust you.  Eventually, with a little hard work and time on your part, you will start to see the customers and referrals roll in .  Remember building a small business brand takes time and effort. You might hit a few snags along the way.  But if you honest to your business brand you will find that you can persevere and achieve growing success in your business for years to come.

The secret to growing a brand is to identify the problems and finding the solution.  Most customers firs search for information on search engines like Google to find a solution to their nice problem.  That is why if you want to create a solid local or small business that stays in business for years you need to start marketing locally on the intent and build a strong business brand.  Contact me, Justyna Lam to learn how I can help you create and grow your Small Business Brand.

Comments are appreciated

samll business marketing google analytics.mp4 (3343 KB)