Marketing On A Budget

How much money you should spend on marketing your business is a grey area with no specific answer. It’s important to not simply throw money at one solution or one aspect of marketing to help promote your business, you need to spend your valuable time on researching marketing before spending your valuable money on it.

There are four main areas to explore when starting to look at marketing, we’ll talk in detail about each of them.

Arguably the most important part of digital marketing, SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is essentially the way you find anything on the internet, whether it be a menu for a restaurant or flights to America, it will pick out the most visited sites and give you the ranked results.

So firstly, google your business. Can you be found easily in an internet search? If customers can’t find your business, then how will they know the great services you provide? Without the basics of SEO set up, you won’t appear in the search results.

It is important to know that not all results in a search engine will be the same, some will be paid and some organic. The paid results will usually have the word AD next to them and will be at the very top of the results and potentially down the side. Anything else is organic, meaning it has not been paid to be there and comes from high traffic on the site and a good use of SEO. It is your aim to get as high as you can on this list by linking up, sharing and using key words in your content.

This type of marketing links directly to SEO. To ensure there is plenty to do with SEO, there needs to be plenty of content to play with.

We would recommend blogging and updating the content of your website as much as you possibly can, and filling them with keywords that will boost your ranks in the search engine results. It is important to share this content on social media as much as you can without getting into spamming.

The quality of your content does not have to be perfect, but it is helpful if blogs and posts include any expertise to help it stand out in a crowd.

Although content marketing and the use of SEO is highly important, it is all important to engage with your clients whenever you can. Social media in marketing isn’t just about sharing posts on Facebook, it’s about involving yourself in the interests of your customers.

Think about your target audience and do some research into which social media site is best for them, and focus a larger portion of your social media time developing content for that.

If you are really struggling to start up your marketing and you are willing to pay so that you can use your time elsewhere then that is an option for you. It can be a good way of ensuring your business is at the top of the search engine results straight away.

It can be used for one time and then you can push the SEO, content and social media marketing after you see a presence to keep your business ranking high in the results.

Although paid advertising and marketing can be extremely helpful for those who don’t have a lot of time to spend on it themselves, it isn’t a necessity. It is perfectly easy to do your own marketing without having to spend a penny and be successful with it, it just takes time, effort and relevant research.