Many years ago I launched my first serious small business, BetterEdit.com. For the first few years it was a tough hard slog to get new clients. My marketing was okay, but it was very labor intensive since it focused on placing posters at university campuses to promote the editing service. If I didn’t put up posters then I didn’t attract new clients.
During 2004 and 2005 I spent a lot of time researching about Internet marketing. I realized the potential for the web to deliver new clients to my business but I hadn’t optimized my website. As a result if someone searched for my top keywords in Google my website would be listed on the second or third PAGE, and if you want people to come to your site as a result of a search you have to be on the first page, preferably in the first, second or third position overall.
Eventually I stumbled across a guy named Brad Fallon who had a course back then called “stomping the search engines“. I took the course, went back to my website and began implementing the techniques I had learnt, like adding a site map, optimizing my title tags and building links to my website.
The immediate impact was not significant, but eventually my site started to rise in the search engine rankings. Eventually I made it to page one on Google for nearly every keyword phrase I targeted.
Shortly after that something amazing started to happen. New customers were submitting jobs who had found my website via search engines. These customers cost me nothing to acquire AND they kept coming without me needing to do any extra work.
Today I have Google rankings of either number one, two or three for the phrases I target, which means if a person searches for something that my business offers, for example “thesis editing“, potential customers find my business as a top ranked result.
The end result has been a steady stream of clients over the past two years whether I put out posters or not. The business turns over over $100,000 a year now in revenue and most of that comes from clients acquired from search engines directly or via word of mouth from people who originally found the business via search and told friends.
In short, a well optimized website can do amazing things for your small business, and it’s worth spending the time on professional training to improve your Internet marketing.
