What is the most effective thing you have done to market your business on the web?
Share your creative ideas for marketing your business on the web. We are looking for specific stories and ideas that any business can use to market themselves online.
Good Answers (1)
Scott C
Web Business Strategist / Web Marketing Expert
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For my local-specific SMB clients: Set up Google Local Business Profile, Yahoo! Local Business profile, Superpages profile, and Busines.com profile, then ask happy customers to provide high rankings and reviews of their business (not compensated or paid for, but authentic reviews.)
For my national SMB clients: Optimizing paid search campaigns and landing pages and doing organic SEO on customer-centric search phrases.
For me (web business): Social media participation, blogging.
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More Answers (12)
Simon H
Visibility Extremist and Social Media Campaign Manager
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For my Dad's Uk steel business
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Marc-Alexandre V
► Producer at Artifex Animation Studios ► Designer ► MyLink500.com
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Have a Web site.
Seriously, you'd be surprised how many people just don't do this. Or, they have a Web site with just their logo and an email link, and they think it's enough. I've been doing a lot of Web research lately and I've seen more than my share.
Note that the opposite isn't much better. I've seen sites so dense with information that you couldn't find what you wanted.
I started with a SEO (search-engine optimized) platform (WordPress), and also worked hard to get links to my site on other sites, to improve search engine ranking. Some links can be self-created, like the ones I'm listing below! Being active on LinkedIn and Twitter is a great way to make links to your site (among other numerous benefits). I also created content on my website that I know potential clients will be looking for by adding resources such as an event calendar and a Biotech Marketing blog. Be sure to register with Google webmaster tools as well, and publish your sitemap to them. Press releases are another great trick for being seen better on the web, and a few of the distribution companies (e.g. MarketWire) are very SEO and social media savvy.
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I've posted ads on craigslist to market my business and to gain new clientele. (not to mention joining LinkedIn) :)
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The key to effectiveness is targeted traffic. If you deploy ads to random people it wont get nearly the result as your specific target market. So you want it targeted whether that means regional or specific demographic or industry sectors, but you want to be as specific as possible when marketing anything online, or else you are wasting your time and money.
Greg B
Media Architect, Systems Designer, Change Agent
Best Answers in: Direct Marketing (1), Internet Marketing (1)
I agree with starting a blog. Talk in the language of your customers (their need) not your company (your services). This way, people can find you.
I use Blogsite, which is rather expensive blogging platform that has EXCELLENT SEO results. Better than any Wordpress configuration, and I have built several of those, as well. I've got several clients that testify to the success of Blogsite, and some are small / early stage companies with very limited resources.
The goal is being in discussions with your customers, and being found when they are asking questions related to your business.
Andrei G
SEM Developer at MediaPro Interactiv
Best Answers in: Sales Techniques (1), Small Business (1)
I try to get targeted traffic. That's why i rely heavily on Search Engines, with both organic and paid traffic. I try to maximize the positions of my sites on the important Search Engines, i set up PPC campaigns and work a lot to optimize them in order to fit a tight budget.
And then i might even buy ads, posts or links on popular sites from the same niche, sites with lots of users that will enjoy the content or services i am providing.
And last but not least, i use the word of mouth. This seems to be working great for me, as people satisfied with my work always recommend me to their friends. But be careful though, there's a unwritten rule here: 1 satisfied client might bring back another one to you, but one unsatisfied client will surely drive away more than 1 potential customers :P
My company sells and markets a product, and simply put YouTube. But you have to look at the entire ecosystem that this could feed into. You create a video of your product, then you keyword tag it properly, and then you do search engine optimization to feed into your YouTube video and you make it "viral." I would also suggest creating a newsletter and signing up for a service to manage that newsletter so that you can track the statistics to understand efficacy of the campaigns.
Dave M
Talented entertainer,traffic builder.lead generator for your event,party or trade show. DaveMaskin@yahoo.com LION
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Linkedin has given me more clients than any other form of advertising I have ever done by exposing me to people who would otherwise never find me in a sea of webites.
Dave Maskin
http://www.WireNames.com
"a strand of wire is transformed into a work of art at your event."
davemaskin@yahoo.com
(201) 358-1296
(LION) - Invite me
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The web is the single most important change in how a company can market its products / services, failure to understand this will in long term that those of your competitors that do will succeed and you will fail, its that simple. Business's are increasingly finding that when they contact potential customers they are not as interested in being contacted - they want to buy when they are ready buy NOT when you the seller wants them to sell. To some extent that has always been the case but the ability easily to find what you want when you wanted was not available today it is - Google. Buyer can now search can specifically by needs ie geographically, delivery, price etc to find business who provide specifically want they want - niche marketing is the way forward.
Take a look at our business paper on the subject http://new-mindset.blogspot.com/2008_09_01_archive.html
Take a look at our business paper on the issue.
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I ranked my website number 1 in google organic search, get tons of clients every day, is by far the best thing I have ever done because I get so much business from the web I don't have to market anywhere else, because business keeps coming in. its so amazing.. this is why I designed a course in it.
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M. Joyce M
"Chief-of-Quite-A-Lot"
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Gee, if I told you my best secret I would have to charge you a fee.
