The advantage of inbound marketing strategies for small businesses
Inbound marketing is a business strategy that attracts customers through the tactic of creating valuable content and experiences tailored to your target audience online. While traditional strategies such as email marketing, radio advertising, and print interrupt your audience with content they don’t want, inbound marketing forms a connection for the information they are searching for and the solutions that you offer. So what are the advantages of inbound marketing strategies for small businesses?
Simply put, inbound marketing delivers solutions to your target audience and provides them with an opportunity to interact with your business. The key to a successful inbound marketing strategy though is to view your content as a way to help, support, and empower your customers, which in turn ultimately grows your business as well.
So here are 5 inbound marketing strategies for small businesses that you should be exploring.
5 inbound marketing strategies for small businesses
1. Search Engine Optimization
SEO (search engine optimization) is the process of optimizing your website’s content and structure for search in order t receive organic placements on the search engine results pages or SERPS. By optimizing your website for search, your content will appear to more people searching for keywords related to your business. SEO should be a critical component to your inbound marketing strategy because if you cannot be found online, then you are not going to get business from online. In fact in a recent study published by smartinsights below is the percentage breakdown for website traffic per positioning on Google.
| Rank | Percentage of Clicks |
| 1 | 34% |
| 2 | 15% |
| 3 | 9% |
| 4 | 6% |
| 5 | 4% |
| 6 | 3% |
| 7 | 3% |
| 8 | 3% |
| 9 | 2% |
When starting your SEO campaign start with the basics. Identify and utilize the most important keywords for your business. Ensure that these keywords have a high enough search volume, and that the user intent attracts and retains the most relevant audience.
2. PPC or Google Adwords
Yes, we know pay per click (PPC) is technically a paid form of website traffic, but it still is a form of inbound marketing. That is because your paid search ads will only appear when a user is actively searching for something. For this reason alone it is important to remember that pay per click is one of the strongest components to an inbound marketing strategy for small businesses.
The advantage of a PPC campaign is its ability to put you at the top of search result pages. This is where people are more likely to see your ads, so make sure to choose specific keywords that attract qualified visitors to your website.
When running a PPC campaign you are also in control of the budget so you can start or pause your ads when you choose. This helps to easily measure ROI, control marketing expenses, and drive qualified leads to your business.
3. Content Marketing
Now that you are driving business to your website through SEO or PPC, it is time to greet them with content. Focus on creating fresh and useful content for your website visitors, otherwise, there is no chance of keeping them on the website and converting website traffic into leads.
Any easy goal for creating content is to make sure that your content helps your audience answer a question or solve a problem they have. Creat content that educates, inspires and keeps your audience engaged. So how do you get started with content marketing?
- Create a blog: A quality blog is one of the most efficient ways to market your business. By starting and maintaining a blog you will attract new visitors to your website, gain returning ones, and convert website traffic into qualified leads.
- Create an ebook: The advantage of an ebook is that it helps you nurture leads with long-form content. In exchange for someone downloading your ebook make sure to get the person’s name and email address so that you can add them to your marketing strategy.
- Create a content calendar: Want to stay on top of your inbound marketing strategy? Create a content calendar so that you remember to publish fresh content on a regular basis.
4. Social Media
Once you have created content for your website it is time to start pushing it out via your social media platforms. With social media you can attract new and retain existing readers by sharing and promoting your content on social media.
Social media plays an important role in inbound marketing because it is a great way to bring visitors to your website if you do not already have great rankings. So whether it is via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram makes sure that you are spreading your content out across these channels. Why? Because your audience is most likely on a majority of these channels already.
Spend some time determining which platforms make the most sense for your business, and develop a social media calendar that will help you publish content on a regular basis.
5. Create Landing Pages
Landing pages are where website visitors convert into leads. Whether it is for a product page or a service, create landing pages that have strong call to actions and convert traffic into visitors. When designing landing pages for your business try to focus on the following elements:
- Relevancy: You need to make sure that your landing pages are relevant to the call-to-action. Whatever your focus keyword is, make sure to design your page around that entire keyword.
- Focus: Create a clear goal for your landing page. What should the end result be? Make sure that your Call-to-Action (CTA) is big, prevalent, and above the fold.
- Design: When designing a landing page try to use videos, images, testimonials, and other forms of trust signals that can help improve the conversion rates of your landing pages.
About MarketKeep
MarketKeep is a digital marketing agency for small businesses and start-ups based in Towson, Md. Our goal is to help small business owners plan, place, and optimize their digital marketing strategies. MarketKeep is proud to offer our clients the following services:
Website Design – As a website design company we build websites that represent you and your brand and instantly builds a connection with your customers online. To learn more about our website design capabilities please contact our website designers.
SEO Company – As a Maryland SEO Company, we partner with small businesses to help grow their organic presence online through on-page, off-page, and reputation management techniques. To learn more about our SEO services for small businesses please contact our SEO team.
Pay Per Click Experts – As your SEM Agency MarketKeep will plan, place, and optimize your SEM campaigns so that you are maximizing your SEM campaign. To learn more about our SEM Services please contact our SEM team.
Social Media Management – Tired of running your social media accounts on a daily basis? Not sure what to post? As your Social Media Marketing Assistants MarketKeep will plan, place, and optimize your social media strategies. To connect contact our Social Media Management Team today.
Local SEO – So many of us rely on our phones to find businesses and products that are close by. Don’t miss out on an opportunity to connect with customers in your backyard. As a Local SEO agency MarketKeep helps to position your business online to acquire Local SEO searches. Learn more by contacting our Local SEO Agency Team.