Where does a new or established bricks and mortar business start online?

So, part of my morning routine is to get along the beach to Ed’s coffee van and get my shot of caffeine, whereby I have a little chat with my eclectic mix of coffee buddies.

Today, we were talking about people and their small businesses and how diverse they are and how a lot of them struggle to get new business, especially the new businesses or one man bands.

Lots of opinions were thrown around as we debated the merits and pitfalls of the various means of gaining visibility or getting new work.

The one thing we did agree on was that it’s a little messy and a potential mine field for the uninformed, especially for those with limited tech or marketing awareness.

I th0ught it might be of use to run through the options available for people looking to get themselves online and use the internet as a tool to market their businesses, and gain new customers, from the platforms available.

If we think of a new business or service, they fall into two main camps.

Product or service based, or a mix of both.

I quite like this wikipedia definition of product

In marketing, a product is an object, or system, or service made available for consumer use as of the consumer demand; it is anything that can be offered to a market to satisfy the desire or need of a customer. 

Wikipedia

Translating either of the above to digital is not always easy, but there are some fantastic tools for doing so out there.

Small Business SEO Options

You can either do it yourself ( and spend hours learning what does and what doesn’t work) or you can pay someone, and focus upon what you’re good at.

Where do you start?

The best way to outline this kind of thing is to perhaps think of it as a list, a set of to do’s and cross them off as you go.

Let’s assume, that you’ve thought through what you do. You know what products (or services) you’re going to provide, you’ve worked out your costs and know what you need to charge.

You’ve set up your office, you have your phone, your stationary and you’re ready to sell!

You know that people can potentially find you online as you’ve found and bought products and services in the same way, but until now; you haven’t really given the mechancics of it all much thought.

Get your business online

You need a platform to display your products and services, and these come in all manner of flavours. You can have one or all, it really depends on your budget, expertise, time.

Fundamental for me, is the set up of a website.

Set Up A Website

A website is a perfect vehicle for getting started. You get to fully control the message and can list and showcase everything you do and include it on your stationary and branding.

A well designed website will deliver new business and help give you credibility and presence online.

You’ll need to have a domain name, eg yourbrand.tld and you’ll need to write content, obtain images, have brand, design a logo perhaps, and build a website to house it all.

The Domain Name – Pick a domain name that is reflective of your business in some way. WaterWorks.Biz might be a great domain name for a plumber perhaps.

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You can either employ an expert, or you can build it yourself on WordPress, Squarespace, GoDaddy, Google or Wix or one of the many other different platforms that enable you to do so.

If you’re a total tech and design noob, then you’re best served paying an expert to do the work for you.

If you’re tech savvy or like a challenge and enjoy IT, then you can do it yourself too but expect limited results in terms of organic search traffic, especially if your product or service is in a competitive space.

Pros: You’re in Control. Permanance. Host Videos, Sell products and Services, Builds Trust. Easy To Add new Content, Grow traffic organically, a place to point ads to

Cons: Start up Costs. Yearly Fees. Need to Market and Promote. Needs Technological Expertise to fully utilise

In addition to the above, this short list below, reflects a few examples representing common use cases in 2022, that can be used to supplement your efforts and grow your business.

Directory Listing

You can pay for a listing in a web directory in a category that’s relevant, and include a phone number and an email address, listing your core services to people who use the platform to find services.

You can often link back to your website to give people more context and information.

Pros: Access to an instant audience interested in your goods and services

Cons: Yearly Fees. Limited Options

A Facebook (Meta) page

A Facebook page is an option that enables you to showcase services and information pieces that you can easily share as new posts and content.

It has an advertising platform that enables you to promote your posts as your budget allows, to your network or geographic locality.

Pros: Access to a large platform and audience, free set up, lots of useful tools, a dedicated web presence

Cons: Need to advertise to be effective. Dealing with negative comments, and timewasters, not your platform, can lose your presence over night

A YouTube Channel

You can set up a youTube page and talk to your prospects, demonstrating your expertise in a rich visual way.

You can talk about offers, innovations, events or whatever else it is that will help promote you to, and grow your audience.

Pros: Access to a large platform and audience, free to set up, lots of useful tools, a dedicated web presence, host videos

Cons: Takes time to build an audience, not your platform, can lose your presence over night

An Instagram Page

Similar to a Facebook page you can talk to your prospects, show funky images, new products etc.

You can use popular hashtags that are relevant to your business and over time, grow your audience of people interrsted in you, or what it is you do,

Pros: Access to a large popular platform and audience, free set up, lots of useful tools, a dedicated web presence, create snappy videos and images, use hashtags to grow audience

Cons: Takes time to build an audience, not your platform, can lose your presence over night, hard to measure and control who’s seeing your posts and make sales


A Twitter Account

People use Twitter to talk about issues that are important to them.

Growing a following on Twitter is a useful means of interacting with a relevant audience, growing awareness of your brand and sharing pieces of content from your website.

Pros: Access to a large platform and audience, free set up, share content, build a network, interact with like minded folk

Cons: Takes time to build an audience, not your platform, can lose your presence over night

A TikTok Account

People use Tiktok to show funny videos, to inform and educate and amuse their followers.

The audience is typically young, so lots of potential to engage with a growing audience.

Pros: Access to a large platform and audience, free set up, share content

Cons: Takes time to build an audience, not your platform, can lose your presence over night, takes advertising to be effective fast

People use Google Ads to reach audiences important to them for keywords related to their business.

Pros: Access to a large platform and audience for specific phrases, free set up, promote specific content and products, set audience reach and geographies, monitor impact and effectiveness of spend

Cons: Numerous technological hurdles that impact cost, quality scores, ad relevance, negative matching, general expense, conversion rates critical to success

Google My Business and Local SEO

If you’re in the business of wanting free organic traffic from Google and Google Maps then a Google My Business listing is critical, especially for local seo.

Pros: Access to a large platform and audience for specific phrases, free set up, promote specific content and products, set audience reach and geographies, reach local people, get reviews, appear on Google maps

Cons: negative reviews, needs fine tuning

There are of course many other places where you can promote your business online, and I’ve touched upon just a small handful of some of the larger places and options, using what works in a connected strategic way is key gaining traffic and getting those all important bums on seats.

Places like Bing, Reddit, Quora, Telegram, WhatsApp, Messenger, International niche search engines and an array of larger specialist fora and facebook groups and pages that have the potential to help grow awareness around your goods and services.

If you’d like help with any of the above then we can help. Be it the registration of a domain name, the set up of a website, or the means to promote it all.

Fill in the form below, and someone will get back to you.

Rob is an SEO Consultant based in Kent, England; read testimonials from people who’ve worked with him.