About Search Marketing for Small Businesses
What is Inbound Marketing?
Inbound marketing is a general description of any instance where you are marketing to people already looking for the service or product you are offering. For inbound marketing, the focus is put on what it takes to be found by the people already looking, to convince those prospects to buy from you rather than a competitor, and whatever it takes to get them to take action now rather than later.
What is Search Marketing?
Search marketing, sometimes referred to as inbound marketing, is the process of making sure your business shows up on the internet to the people who are actively looking for what you have or do. It always has a much higher conversion rate than traditional outbound marketing programs. However, it is usually only effective for products and services that are actively searched for.
What is Outbound Marketing?
Historically, that is to say before the internet age, most forms of marketing were disruptive, typically described as “outbound marketing”. The term “disruptive” used in this sense means, interrupting what people are doing to see your ad. This describes most forms of traditional advertising, regardless of the medium.
Billboards are one of many examples of “outbound” marketing. Advertisers hope to interrupt the driver’s train of thought by injecting their message.
When an ad appears on TV, most people that watch it are typically not actively looking for the product or service being promoted at the time.
This is true for magazines, newspapers, sports promotions, telemarketing, billboards, and direct mail.
Everything Changed with the Browser-Based Search Engine
Internet-based search engines are by definition a technology that completely changed marketing. This is because they gave people the first really effective global method of finding what they want when they want it. For the first time, people could search for what they wanted and find it in seconds.
The term “google” it has become a noun for effective search
Prior to that, the nearest equivalent tool for finding things would be very large books called phone directories and yellow pages style publications. These now redundant publications are to search engines what shouting is to telephones.
Search engines have become so effective at enabling people to find just about anything easily and quickly, that the term “google” has become a noun for effective search. To ‘google it’ is to search by the most effective method possible.
Search Marketing a form of Inbound Marketing
Search Marketing – Be found by People Actively Looking for You
If your service is designed to help people to train their dogs to use a laptop, you must design content that will rank for people specifically searching using key phrases like, “how to train my dog to use a laptop”.
Search marketing, therefore, focuses on the process of creating and aligning content that matches what people are specifically looking for.
If you offer dog training in Irvine California then you need to create content that is specifically designed to show up when people are looking for dog training in Irvine.
The Key-phrase was Born
If you show upfront and center right at the time people are looking for your service, you will win big.
In the old Outbound Marketing paradigm, the ad was the primary mechanism for getting in front of clients that might or might not want your service or products.
In the new Inbound Search Marketing paradigm, the goal is to simply show up when people are looking for what you do.
To a degree, this puts the user, the customer, in control.
Hence rather than designing an ad, the small company looking to grow their business must create content that shows up!
Is it Enough to Simply Show-up?
Well, it’s a good start! If you have a great service it won’t do you much good if people don’t see it.
Assuming you are not the only game in town, the challenge is to show up ahead of your competitors. If you are not the only business offering the product or service in question, it is, therefore, necessary to provide more compelling, more relevant, more engaging content than your competitors.
Assuming you are not the only game in town, your challenge is to show up ahead of your competitors.
As the best most relevant content generally wins, search marketing can be both very competitive and nuanced. It is often nuanced because there is no specific formula for creating, defining, or measuring what is actually the best and most relevant content. The best and most relevant content is whatever Google’s algorithm thinks it is. Search Engine Optimization a core component of search marketing, is at its heart, the process of creating or processing content in a way so that Google’s algorithm will most likely rate as the best.
Small Local Businesses Have an Advantage over Bigger National Companies
This advantage is due to the fact that the local competition is usually much less competitive than in national markets. It is only necessary to be visible in the specific area appropriate to your business.
Search Marketing is The Most Highly Converting Form of Marketing
This is simply because the most highly converting form of marketing is one that puts you in front of the people that are actively looking for what you do. Search marketing does just that. Ignore this form of marketing at your peril. If you are not visible to most of the people looking for what you have, the largest part of your market is lost to you.
People Must Already be Looking for What You Provide for Search Marketing to Work
People Must Already be Looking for What You Provide
Search marketing is not ideal for companies that have something that people are not specifically looking for.
New products that people do not know exist are typically poor candidates for search marketing. If no one is actually looking for what you do, then there is nowhere to actually show up. In those instances, a more traditional disruptive advertising model is usually more appropriate.
For example, the new gadget that does something not actually done before rarely benefits from search marketing. Search marketing is not ideal for creating new markets.
The first question we, therefore, ask potential new search marketing clients is, “what do people type into a search engine when they are looking for what you do?” Hence the search key-phrase is king in search marketing.
If after doing extensive research, no key phrase can be identified, then search marketing is probably not the best form of marketing for that product.
Search Marketing Equals Showing-up – Being Found when Looked For
Search Marketing – Making sure you are highly visible to the very people who are actively looking for what you have or do.
Search marketing, therefore, is the process of making sure you are highly visible to the very people who are actively looking for what you have or do.
The Truth About and the Evolution of Search Marketing
Search marketing methods have matured from sneaky little tricks
Actual methods for showing up in search engines have changed drastically over the last few years and months. Search marketing methods have matured from sneaky little tricks to the necessity of providing great subject-specific content on a regular basis that attracts and engages people.
Thus presenting your business as an expert or a thought leader in your market.
Key phrases have evolved from short “dog training” style key phrases to natural language search styles such as “local dog training service in southern Miami”.
The prevailing best practice is to create very subject-specific, yet comprehensive, content and let the key phrases take care of themselves. This sounds okay in principle, however, if you do not use the language of the searcher, you are unlikely to show up in the searches the searcher types.
To complicate everything there are many other subtly related factors that influence whether your business will show up.
Some examples of these include:
- Page load speed
- Site and page engagement
- Click-through rates
- Smart use of HTML schemas
- Social signals
- Image optimization
- Inter-page linking
- Local listings
- Citations and reviews
To name just a few of the more important ranking factors.
Search engines will compete to present the best content to searchers. What constitutes the best content, however, is an ever-moving target.
The process of identifying the best content is being constantly refined by the search engines. In general though, the best content is the content that the search engines think is the best. The search engines employ ever more sophisticated methods of detecting what they think is the best.
When the search engines discover businesses that use sneaky tricks to cause their content to show up, that business will typically disappear from the most visible search results.
Sneaky Tricks Usually Fall into Two Broad Categories
Search Marketing Sneaky Tricks Usually Fall into Two Broad Categories
The two main categories of sneaky tricks are artificial links and keyword manipulation or stuffing. Artificial links are mostly automated ways of getting large numbers of references that link to your website and are placed on other websites and related web properties.
Keyword manipulation is the process of artificially loading key phrases into web properties to trick the search engines into ranking a website, or page, higher. This is done on the assumption that the search engines will think if the phrase is mentioned more times than on a competitive site, then it must be more relevant.
These tricks used to be extremely effective in ranking websites at the top of the search results. Nowadays, however, they are largely ineffective and often cause a significant penalty in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
Need to be found by Your Ideal Clients?
Tim Barrie – Holistic Web Presence all about Search Marketing
Increase the visibility of your small local business safely and effectively. Make sure that your services show up.
Call Holistic Web Presence +1 (801) 349 8226 or complete a contact request form.
The first thing we will do is assess your business and your market to ascertain the viability of search marketing to get you more customers.
