Riding the Wave!
We live in interesting times. If you are a small, local business then today, right now, the major players in online Search (read Google) are bending over backwards to help your business succeed. Google – and the others – wants to present your business to every person in your community who uses the internet (which is probably around 75% according to the Australian Government) and submits a search term where your business provides the solution. Never in the history of local business has local business had the amount of marketing horsepower that it does today, right now. For free!
But here’s the rub…
With all this innovation going on it is so damn confusing that a lot of small businesses have neither the time nor the energy to work out how to exploit this golden opportunity. Which is a shame.
Paralysis by Analysis
If you are like a lot of small business owners then you will be cautious about spending your hard earned money on something that you do not fully understand. I am not saying that you lack the intellect, just the time. Don’t let this need to understand paralyze you any further because the good news is that the Local Business wave is just forming and what’s more you don’t need to understand how waves form (or even why they form) just how to get on them and stay on.
Understand the Basics
There are two basic things you need to give Google and co;
- Unique content that accurately represents you and your business.
- A Community that endorses you and your business.
Let me quickly step through each one.
Unique Content
The words that you put on your web site communicate not only to your prospective clients but also the search engines. In the early days of the Internet people would create web sites for the ‘dumb’ search engines, ie give the search engines what they want (which may or may not relate to what your site was selling) and you will get top placement in the results page. Not any more. The major players have invested millions developing search algorithms that mimic human searchers. If you create a web site that is of little use to a human then the search engines will quickly form the same opinion.
When creating your content think about how people will be searching for what you have to offer. Unless you are a well known brand in your community then they probably won’t be using your business name to conduct their searches. This activity is known as identifying keywords, or keyterms, that people use to search the internet. Think about how you conduct searches for information or products outside of your industry. Try and put yourself in the shoes of your customers and write your content accordingly.
Community
The third ‘w’ in www stands for web. The Internet is, quite literally, a world wide web. Your site should connect with people in your community and your industry, both locally and globally. Connections like these, known as backlinks, are the glue that brings us all together. And the search engines love them! Beware though, for just like in the real world some connections are better than others! The search engines will not reward you for connecting to a ‘bad neighbourhood’.
Getting Started
If you are confused by the rush of innovation at the moment and you don’t know what to do then do this. Write about your business, what you have to offer, why you are different. Reach out to your community and form relationships by creating backlinks; build the glue in your local and global communities.
You should also consider reading my other articles; 5 things you can do to promote your web site and 50 ways to maximise your business web site. They are easy to do and won’t cost you a cent!
So stop worrying about how to get involved in mobile technology, the latest social networking site, getting your head around the (almost) daily product release by Google and all the other mind-boggling changes that are taking place and focus on the fundamentals of getting on the wave.
The other stuff comes next.
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