Martin Koss – Internet Marketing Strategy Coach

For about the 3rd time this week I found myself rushing through the ‘crash course’ of DIY Internet Marketing by phone to a small business owner. He knows his business better than anyone else and is, in my opinion, best suited to do his own marketing.

Maybe one day when he is too busy for all the Googling and Facebooking and Twittering he can hire an SEO dude, someone to distribute content on a wide scale and maybe a bloggist but – for now – the DIY route is the best way to get started without shelling out more cash than he is able to spend.

So this post is for all the small business folks out there who want a five minute ‘crash course’ on Internet Marketing. No jargon, nothing that’s really going to challenge the gray-matter, nothing too tasking at all really.

Ok, start the clock – the 5 minutes minutes starts… Now:

DIY Internet Marketing – A Crash Course

First thing I would do is define what you can do, who your market is and where they are. Are people searching on Google for what you can do? How many?

Are you limited geographically or not? If not then you should be able to attract business from all over the UK – perhaps even on a wider scale.

Use the 2 best tools for keyword research:

Google search (.com / .co.uk) and Google Keyword Tool.

The Google search results give you indicative numbers of websites that are indexed and ranked for the phrases relating to your website.

The keyword tool provides indicative numbers of searches, both locally and globally, that Google receives per month for the range of search phrases you are interested in.

Once you know the phrases people are actually searching for the next step is to create some informative content on your website – content that is search engine friendly – so that Google can index it, rank it and include it in search results for people searching for services you can provide.

Are there businesses you could provide your services to? Perhaps you could offer them a discount to recommend you to their customers or to incorporate your services into their own service range.

Make Your Website User Friendly

Ensure your website is designed with simplicity in mind. Keep the structure easy to follow, keep the content neat and tidy – a bit of white space is always nice to ensure the site is not cluttered and hard to read. A simple guideline to follow is: If the content on any page does not add value to your visitors – get rid of it.

If you have samples – images, videos, etc., you should embed these on your own website so that (a) you have more keyword rich content and (b) anyone landing on your website will get a clearer picture of what you do.

Now Get Social

Once you’ve done this – get yourself a business page on Facebook and embed your videos, photos and more info there too – you just never know where your customer may find you.

Invite selected friends and business associates to ‘like’ your business page to get the ball rolling. Maybe you could develop a few links with similar businesses and like minded people on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube etc.,

Make sure you link to your website from your Facebook profile and business page and, of course, link from your website to your Facebook page.

Interacting With Other People via Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc.,

Now that you’re started – it is time to start being consistent and active. Engage with people via blogs, Facebook walls, Twitter, YouTube and other social platforms to build some momentum (buzz) around you and your business.

Start writing your own blog. Find interesting content to create and write about that will be valuable to your existing customers, potential customers and potential partners. The more content you create, the more of an authority you become and the more people will find, read, revisit and recommend your content – leading to wider exposure and, potentially, more business.

Get Listed in Business Directories

There are many free directories where you can list your business website and it it worth doing so. The directories vary from one country to another. In the UK, for example, there is the FreeIndex, HotFrog, and many more. By listing in directories you will be indexed by Google fairly quickly – because Google will regularly re-index the directories and find (and follow) the link to your website.

Find a few directories that are specific to your type of business and list there too. Some may charge a small annual fee but many are not worth paying for. To see if they are worth paying for, do a search for your main business phrases and see if the directories appear in Google’s top-10.

This is Just The Start of Internet Marketing

This is not the be all and end all of Internet Marketing – it really is the ‘tip of the iceberg’.

Unfortunately, many small businesses don’t bother because it can seem like a daunting task but if you make a to-do list, make some notes about what your potential market would need to know about you and your business, describe what you do and the various things you could create content about, study the search trends and become active on the social channels – you can achieve your objectives.

The more you put in to Internet Marketing, the more you get out of it.

Nothing I’ve discussed here is very complicated at all. There is a lot more to Internet Marketing than the very brief outline here. For example, I could have mentioned getting your site listed in Google, Bing and Yahoo by subscribing to all the respective ‘webmaster tools’ and inserting the snippets of code they need to find at your domain. I could have started you off on usability and how to effectively use meta-tags and headings. Also, I could have mentioned the numerous places to set-up a free blog and the strengths / weaknesses of each… But that would be going a bit beyond the 5 minutes I said this DIY crash course would take to read…

Even then we would only be just getting started so I guess I better start writing ‘part 2′.

In the meantime…

Keep working at it – you can make your business work as long as you put in the time, the consistent effort and learn from others who have done great things online – there are many free and very interesting blogs you can subscribe to and some extremely useful books on the subjects of Internet Marketing.

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