Move from a “our website” mentality to “our web assets”

Gone are the days that a simple website will put you on the cutting edge of web marketing. You need to be where your customers are and they could be anywhere out there in cyber-space.

Take advantage of the many free tools available. As a small business owner, you should be on LinkedIn you should have a blog to showcase your expertise, and you should have a Facebook page because your customers spend time there! If you have the resources, set up a YouTube channel – if you have a technical product, what better way to get your message across.

Sound overwhelming? Let’s break it down into three steps to make it work:

  1. Set up
  2. Integrate
  3. Get found

Set up

To keep costs down, you can some of this yourself, but it will take some time – try one social platform an evening to get the job done. If you are short on time, engage your web designer or social media company.

Here’s a basic list of web assets for a small business to start with:

  • A website – stand alone, professional website
  • A blog – this should be part of your website
  • Facebook – if you don’t have a Facebook business page, why not? With 11 million Aussies on there, you really do risk falling behind if you don’t have one.
  • Twitter – sign up now, pretty up your page and then link your Facebook posts through as a minimum and you won’t ever need to touch it again (unless you want to ramp it up a little).
  • LinkedIn – this site is imperative if your business targets other businesses or is one with a high level of expertise or specialisation.
  • YouTube – this one is a little bit harder to create the content so you are forgiven for not jumping straight into YouTube.

The point is, just get in there and do it. You can set up all these things for free in the time it takes you to watch a couple of sitcoms in the evening, or you can get help from your web design provider.

Integrate

Most social platforms can be interlinked nowadays with simple apps or tools. Post to your blog and watch it miraculously appear in LinkedIn, on Facebook and Twitter. This means that even if you don’t tweet regularly, you can build a Twitter following. It means that your LinkedIn page looks fresh even if you have had the same “job” for the last 5 years. You’ll be surprised how you will start to acquire followers, leads and fans for no extra effort.

Get found

OK, so by now you are in all the right places, but so are many of your competitors. How do you get noticed? This is the hardest part of your web strategy, but once you nail this one, your linked web assets become a lead-generating-tour-de-force. Certainly on Facebook, Facebook ads will help you get “likers”. Search engines, particularly Google spring to mind and there is no doubt that successful SEO and Google Adwords will help you get found, but don’t rule out the old world marketing methods too. Even the old school radio and TV ads can get traffic to your website and make it a household name of the web world. Like any marketing feasibility, work back from your end goal (i.e., sales volume or leads needed), estimate how much each type of media will cost per lead to identify the best solution for your small business.

To discuss your web assets or to find out how they can work more effectively for you, contact Blue Platypus for a free consultation.