Advertising on Google(or even Bing) is a great way to reach customers at the exact moment they’re looking for a business like yours. Here’s a jump-start overview on exactly what paid search is.
Paid search (also known as search engine marketing) can be such a valuable addition to your small business marketing toolbox. It allows you to place an online ad for your business at the top of search engine results pages when a customer is looking for the product and service you offer. Learning the ins and outs of paid search can be overwhelming, though, which is why our digital team is creating a series on paid search marketing for small businesses.
For the first post, let’s just get started with a super basic overview of what paid search is and what it can do for you.
What Is Paid Search?
Paid search refers to the ads placed at the top of a search engine results page. Search engines including Google and Bing allow companies to bid for paid placement for certain search terms related to their business. For example, if you’re the owner of a barber shop, you can pay to have your ad shown when customers in your area type “barber shop” into the search bar of their smartphone or computer search engine.
What Are the Benefits of Paid Search?
Paid search can be a valuable form of advertising because it meets customers where they already are—online! Paid search responds, in real time, to a customer’s immediate needs: You can show them an ad for a barber at the exact moment they are looking for someone to cut their hair or trim their beard. Other types of advertising like hanging signs, or passing out flyers, a commercial on the radio, a newspaper advertisement – this is just putting information in front of people and hoping it will distract them away from their current task (watching TV or reading the newspaper).
Paid search is different because the ads are only shown when someone types in the relevant keywords, indicating an interest in your business’ product or services.
If you’re a small business owner, you should look into paid search as a way to reach new customers! It might be magic for your business. In our next blog about online advertising for small businesses, we will discuss what online ads look like, the different types, and the best ways to get started!
It is hard to define what an effective business leader is. What traits does an effective business leader possess? Are there certain things that effective business leaders do? Managers or founders of small businesses may look to a certain business leader as a sort of benchmark to follow, when really they should be focusing on developing their own leadership traits.
We have compiled a list of some of the best traits to develop to become an effective leader within your business.
Inspiration
Great leaders find the opportunity to teach and inspire their employees. Whether it be providing technical training for the marketing team, or holding a company lunch to inspire employees to strive for one future vision of the company, inspiring your team can have significant results.
In order to inspire, you need to come up with a vision that serves as the content of the inspiration. As soon as you have figured that out, share that vision with your employees to ensure they are headed on the right track.
Focus
To become an effective leader within your business, you must have focus. This means minimizing distractions and spending time on necessities. Leaders can’t get caught up in trivial things and devote time to tasks that are mundane.
Part of finding focus, is optimizing your day to rid yourself of redundancies. This can mean scheduling your day so you only allow a certain period of time per task. As some tasks may become further away from being finished, the longer you spend on them.
Integrity
Integrity goes a long way in business. If you carry yourself with integrity, there’s a good chance your employees will begin to carry the same trait. Not only will it serve you internally, but it will build trust externally. By conducting yourself with integrity and authenticity, you maximize your chances of creating meaningful partnerships that could potentially fuel the growth of your business.
Transparency
Tied into integrity, is transparency. How transparent you are with your employees directly correlates to how much you respect your employees. If there is a flaw within your business, it is better to be transparent about it and work to fix it, rather than kidding yourself about it and letting your team fail. Being transparent ensures everyone is on the same page, and has the same expectations about the business. There are no surprises.
Innovation
Fostering a place for innovation within your business, is one of several great ways to become an effective business leader. In a business with finite resources and infinite growth possibilities, as a leader you must think outside of the box to create growth. This could mean acquisition of a supplier rather than dealing with third-parties all of the time. Innovation doesn’t have to mean new technology or completely revamping your business model. It can simply be looking at a problem and coming up with an unconventional solution. Rather than using a third-party, maybe you need to employ someone full-time to work on search engine optimization.
Integrate these traits into your daily life and there’s a good chance you will inspire your workforce, grow your business and essentially become an effective business leader.
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It’s January. The busy holiday season is over but your costs are much the same and you have a business to grow. The good news is that you don’t have to dig deep into your pockets to give your business an uplift. Find out how with our five business-boosting tips:
Listen
It’s never been easier to gather, assess and act on customer feedback. TrustPilot, TripAdvisor and Google Reviews are some tools businesses use to aggregate customer opinions.
Without obsessing over star ratings, reviews can help you understand how your business is perceived. Making changes to your business based on customer recommendations can boost the likelihood of a customer recommending you to a friend, also known as your Net Promoter Score – and this can lead to a business uplift.
Set the benchmark
Tracking which efforts improve your business’ bottom line is important for growth. Set your business ‘Key Performance Indicators’ (known as KPIs) to track your progress. KPIs could include customer retention rates, average transaction value, or cost per customer acquisition. Monitor which tactics are most effective and ditch those that aren’t.
Ask yourself which channels or tactics are bringing in new customers, or increasing repeat visits. Is it your Google Adwords campaign or an employee that’s bringing customers through the door? Use these insights to prioritize tactics for business growth.
Get social
Effective use of social media is an easy and cost-efficient way to reach your target audience - and it’s free. There’s a reason why 94 per cent of small businesses use social media as a marketing tool.
If you aren’t already on social media, learn which platforms your customers are most likely to use; ask them in person, or research online (this article provides an overview of which audiences are most prevalent on each social channel).
Then set up your social channels and invite your customers to follow you (put up a sign in store, and/or add your social profile links to your email signature). Post content regularly, taking note of which content generates the greatest response from followers.
Investing just a few dollars a week to promote specific content through Facebook can significantly increase your brand’s visibility. Check out Hootsuite’s social media tips for small businesses for guidance on what’s right for you.
Streamline operations
Streamlining operations can lead to financial gains. How can you increase your output in a more efficient way?
Improving equipment can be a great means of enhancing efficiency. For example, a pizza oven that cooks a pizza in 60 seconds, instead of five minutes will increase your output. This will be hugely valuable during busy periods.
Explore our leasing options to get equipment that will maximize your output without breaking the bank.
Collaborate
Small businesses can partner with other small businesses (if they are geographically close or have a complimentary business offering), creating new and distinct ecosystems. Why not take advantage of that? Collaboration isn’t just for musicians!
Cross-pollinate your customer bases through word of mouth, or loyalty and referral schemes. For example, a manufacturing business with a large parking lot could partner with a local restaurant and lease parking spaces in the evenings for favorable rates to the restaurant’s customers.
Collaboration can build a local business community, and boost customers and sales for businesses involved tool (and it won’t cost you a cent).
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