Small Business – Marketing Benchmarks for social media and websites

Marketing benchmarks for small businesses are hard to find. Benchmarks for marketing, in this instance, is to compare what you are doing with others to find out what is considered ‘best practice’. So firstly consider where you are planing to spend your time, energy and money in marketing your business. Are you going to use Social Media and your website to bring in new customers in 2012? Then find out what others are doing in order to asses your strategy. Be mindful though, following others may not be the best thing for your business.

 

The following infographic looks at what other small businesses are doing in regards to marketing, social media and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on the net. See if what other businesses are doing aligns with your plans. Do you think that they are on the right track, do you need to adjust your strategy? These marketing benchmarks are easily to understand and follow due to the graphical format.

 

Small Business and Marketing - Infographic

While blindly following the pack is not a suggested strategy, knowing what they are up to can give you tips of how to effectively use for marketing dollar. I hope these marketing benchmarks have provoked you into at least thinking about what your next step is.

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SEO for your Small Business Website – 3 key free ideas

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your small business website cannot be ignored. It’s crucial to use SEO to get your website showing up in relevant searches for your business. In a recent post I reported on a Googleseo for your business website Places listing. This listing is important for your business when potential customers are looking for a business or service based by location. When a searcher is looking for a product or service and location is not entered in the search criteria, how does your website stack up? Using a SEO company to help you can be costly and finding expert SEO providers is not easy. Here, in this extract of an article written by Aaron Sperling, are some ideas for DIY SEO for your small business website.

I can recommend three relatively straightforward steps that will likely increase your website’s search engine rankings, and thus make it easier for people to find your business.

Identify your keywords. Start by building a list of the keywords that you think potential customers will use in searches to find your business. Once you have your list, use [Read more…]