My name is Hans Storrie, I’m an Internet marketing consultant for small business, and I’d like to share with you 6 excellent tips and reasons why, if you haven’t done so already, you should be taking full advantage of the available tools and professional help get your business seen by more potential customers, hence gaining more sales and most-importantly, increase your bottom line profits while slashing your current advertising costs.

1: If you’re business provides a ‘business-to-business’ or ‘business-to-consumer’ local service, you must have a well-optimized Google Places listing that shows up on the first page of Google for you main keyword phrase. Why? If you don’t, your competitors will and it will take you much longer to outrank them.

2: A top Google Places listing is enhanced by a business website. Businesses that do not have a website and are currently showing on the first page of Google, you’re lucky but be warned! It’s only a matter of time before your listing will drop away to allow a competitor’s fully-optimized listing to follow in your footsteps. With more business websites being built using WordPress, there’s no reason for any small business not to start building their own piece of online real-estate, especially when WordPress is FREE, easy to use, and very much Google-friendly!

3: One of the biggest reasons that so many small businesses fail to get the traffic and online exposure they deserve, is the fact that they’re targeting the wrong keyword phrases. Search Google for their Free Keyword Tool then enter the main keyword phrase you think potential customers are using to find your business. You’ll get some astonishing facts along with instant data that shows you the competitiveness of any keyword phrase, the amount of times that your keyword phrase is searched for in any given month, plus a whole host of other relevant data. If you’re just starting to build your online campaign, this is definitely the place to start!

4: Once you have a list of targeted keyword phrases, you can then start optimizing your web pages accordingly with the proper meta tags, title and description tags, navigation structure, inner-page linking, a solid on-going back-linking campaign sprinkled with a splash of social media interaction, and you have the perfect recipe to give your business the best chance of success over any competitor.

5: Your own business website may be pretty to you, with nice images and lots of stuff about YOU, YOU, YOU! But if your website hasn’t a clear PURPOSE with a clear ‘Call-to-Action’, your visitors will simply leave without ever buy anything from you!

If you want people to call you, TELL THEM! If you want people to give you their name and email address… ASK THEM! Offer them a friendly bribe like a free report, a weekly, bi-monthly or monthly newsletter, Free Tips, a Free chapter of your latest book, a discount voucher or coupon or whatever the case may be.

Doing so will put you in a better position to follow up with your visitors on a regular basis, start building trust, business relationships and eventually making much-needed sales. You didn’t marry your spouse on the first date did you? The same principles apply to your business!

6: Follow-up regularly with quality content. You’re subscribers can soon forget the reason they initially requested your freebie unless you maintain an ongoing relationship with them. Sometimes it can be difficult to write a newsletter, articles or good content on a regular basis, but this doesn’t mean you have to stop following up.

There are several things you can do to continue sending your list stuff they’ll appreciate, and one of them is breaking down your product or service into small benefit-ridden tips and loading them into an autoresponder, how?

Let’s say your business is an accountancy practice and the main purpose of your website is to attract new clients, do you think you could easily put together 26 quick tips about ‘accountancy for small businesses’? Of course you could. Sending 1 good tip to your subscribers every week means you’re providing valuable and appreciative content for 6 full months.

The best thing too, once it’s set up, your business could be attracting valuable new clients on a regular basis, without you lifting another finger or paying elsewhere for expensive leads.

A good autoresponder service will cost you around 13.00GBP per month, and well worth every penny of this small ‘lead-generation’ investment.

Why Internet Marketing for Small Business Can Provide Longevity to Your Online Efforts

Having your own Internet marketing consultant on board when taking your business online may very well cost you initial monthly fees for 3, 6, or 12 months, or depending on the competitiveness of your market, but the return on investment can be much greater and can save you many months, if not years of learning.