3 Tips to Start Marketing your Small Business Online

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As the new day begins and darkness fades, so are some of the stresses about marketing your small business online. This is the beginning of you walking out of the darkness into the light. Today I want to give you 3 tips to help you get started. These are going to be 3 things that you can do right now and that will help you get started TODAY.

Today is your new dawn.

Tip #1 You don’t have to do it ALL, but you should know enough to know it’s being done correctly.

As a small business owner you don’t have time to learn how to do all the Internet Marketing, stay up to date with it, and then turn around and implement it. That would take you over 30 hours a week (I know its my job, and it took me years to streamline it). If your spending that much time doing this WHO is running the company?

So don’t do it all, but learn enough to hold those doing it accountable. Do NOT be a sucker. I admit it the SEO industry is new ground and because of that, it has opened the door for many companies who are less than honest and less than ethical.

The next question in this is “HOW do I learn this?”. Well you have a few options.

1. Educate yourself. Over the next few months I will be posting Internet Marketing Basics for Business owners. READ THEM. I teach this stuff all the time. Take what I am giving away for free. (If your in Metro Atlanta, call me, take me to lunch, but be ready to learn)
2. Hire a consultant to help you evaluate what the “SEO” guys are doing. There are many consultants, that their only job is to tell you what you need to be doing, but do not do the actual work themselves. These are the ones you want to watch over the people you actually have doing the work, and will hold them accountable. Sometimes they will even teach you how do to it, if  you want to learn.  I spend time teaching clients simply because I hate it when they look like a deer caught in headlights.
3. Learn who the Guru’s are and join the newsletters. This will give you information overload so don’t sign up for to many. Jerry West’s SEORevolution is my favorite.

Tip #2 Do something in social media, but NOT ALL OF IT

OK. Here’s the big picture. SO MANY PEOPLE think they have to have a Blog, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and the list goes ON AND ON. Just pick 1 for now and be good at it. If you use Twitter, learn how to be social (this is why it is called SOCIAL MEDIA). Once you have a good following then look at adding something else.

Tip #3 Build the RIGHT Accounts

Ok so here is my short list of accounts you need to grab for your company name.

• Twitter
• Facebook (build a fan page)
• Youtube

For someone just getting going online these 3 will keep you busy.

As always if you have any questions please comment below, and make sure you tell us who you are and a link to your website. As long as the comment isn’t spam (a comment just for the link) I will post it.

Till Next time

Mike

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