I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. Abraham Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being

SEO is Only One of the Many Tools Needed for Effective Market Penetration

[wp_social_sharing social_options=’facebook,twitter,linkedin’ twitter_username=’realtimewebmrkg’ facebook_text=’Share on Facebook’ twitter_text=’Share on Twitter’ linkedin_text=’Share on Linkedin’ ” icon_order=’f,t,l’ show_icons=’0′ before_button_text=” text_position=” social_image=”]As small business owners we have all received that call from an SEO company promising to improve our position on Google’s search results. While there are many legitimate ways to improve one’s position using proper SEO techniques, and there are many companies out there that do a great job with this, SEO is not always the reason our website is performing sluggishly on search engine results pages (SERP) … nor is our position on search engine results pages the only aspect of website performance that we should be focusing on.

You MUST know your market and your customer in order to get the messaging and platform right

We all know that it is critical that customers can find us on the web when they search for our products or services. However, there is more than one way to accomplish this task (hint: it’s not always SEO). The method that you should choose for your own business will depend on the market you are after and where those customers are most often “plugged-in” to the web. For example, do your customers hang out on Facebook or do they just ignore it? Are they on the move all the time and would respond best to short SMS campaigns right to their phones (special offers, coupons, etc). Are they driven by discounts or specials or do they like having their ego catered to (luxury, platinum or exclusive offers, etc.). Do they like to watch video? Are they influenced more by humor, practical solutions, emotion or logic? It is REALLY important to know your market and who your core customers are before you begin ANY campaign or even begin to build your website.

Always keep the big picture in mind

Even when you finally do get traffic to your website or grab the attention of potential customers on the web, it is important that you are able to hold their attention and get them to act. This is where a Unique Selling Propositions (USPs), Call-to-Actions, and effective User Experience Design (UX Design) come into play. For example, when visitors are not interacting with your website (filling out forms, calling us, watching our videos, purchasing products, etc) it is often a design and/or content issues that are at the heart of the problem.

Don’t try and do it all on your own

As small business owners we are often forced to wear too many hats. While this may work when it comes to running the day-to-day business, it does not always bode well for our Internet Marketing efforts. I can completely understand, as a small business owner myself, that the cost of marketing our small businesses on the web can seem scary. However, there are some things we should just not attempt to do on our own. For example, I hire a CPA to do my taxes because the tax code is very complex and multi-faceted. In the end, I save time (and time is money) and have the peace of mind that I won’t get a nasty letter from the IRS. In the same way, an investment into a Internet Marketing specialist is a great way to insure you are doing all you can to reach the untold numbers of potential clients on the web.