Life is full of paradoxes. In my world, the small business world, one of the most common paradoxes I see is that the best small businesses have the worst marketing. In my day-to-day life, I’m constantly a customer of small businesses that offer an amazing service or product but also have horrendously poor online marketing. You know the type. The owner still works in the business; they are world-class at what they do. They love what they do. These businesses solve problems for you the customer with a smile on their face. These all-star business owners make their customers’ lives better every day. They’re awesome.
But wow does their online marketing hurt my soul. Sometimes these best-in-town businesses, who offer a better service or product than everyone else in their area, can barely be found online. Their websites are horrible, they aren’t running Google Ads or Local Service Ads, they haven’t invested time in their Google My Business profile, and they don’t take advantage of the free PR they can get every day from social media.
They exist in a silo of success. They’re successful, and they get by on word of mouth, but they’re still in a silo. Although they offer the best service or product in town, most people haven’t heard of them. They make a living, and then some, but their inability to adapt and be world-class at online marketing holds them back and limits the amount of life-changing financial success they could be achieving.
How To Level Up Your Small Business
I strongly recommend getting a handle on online marketing if you’re a small business that does a great job offline but isn’t getting the job done online. The rewards of getting this right are more than worth it. The cost is not high. It’s just that it takes curiosity to want to know what’s available in the online marketing world, discipline to pursue those opportunities, and talent to make it happen.
And that talent can even be just one tech-savvy person in the office, or someone that you hire, to help you with your online marketing efforts. Talent can scale in the online marketing world; one person who knows what they’re doing is all it takes to turn a business that does great work and has okay financial results into a small business powerhouse that prints profits every month and finds itself with more and more new opportunities to pursue.
Where To Start
What’s the first step? Google your product or service. That would be my first step into the online marketing world. How would a customer search for your product or service in Google? How would someone new find you? If you’re a moving company in Dallas they would be a search like movers near me or moving companies in dallas. If you’re a realtor in Salt Lake City, that would be a search like realtors in salt lake city or luxury real estate agents. Search Google for how a customer would search for your product or service, and then carefully examine what you see.
Ask yourself the following types of questions: What are those listings at the top? What are those ads below that? How do I get my company to show up there? What are those map listings? Why is that company listing as the top organic listing? Why am I not showing up in these places? What do I need to do to show up there?
Asking these questions will lead to the answers. The answers, when it comes to Google search results, can be found in Google products: Google Ads, Local Service Ads, Google My Business, Google Search Console, and Google Analytics. Dive into these products, or hire someone to help you. Instantly you’ll be immersed in a new world, the online world.
The Very First Step
The first step to helping the world better discover your amazing small business is to master search. Search on Google is the primary way future customers can find out about your amazing small business. Twenty years ago search took the phone book and ate it, and nothing has come close to dethroning search yet. Search is where the action is. And Google is search. They own the majority of the market. If you master the five Google products I mentioned above, you’ll be well on your way to dominating search and harnessing the power of online marketing.
