Marketing your small business on the Internet does not need to be expensive, nor does it need to be complicated. However, there is still a lot of confusion (and the associated mis-information) about how to market a bricks and mortar business on the net. Most small businesses continue to ignore the Internet as a promotional medium thinking that it does not apply to them. They continue to do this at their own peril.

Opportunities to market your small business are many and varied, just like in the real world.

As a small business owner you just need to choose from the variety of Internet marketing options available to you, and then consistently apply these systems and strategies to get measurable results. In fact, small business Internet marketing can be a very cost-effective way of promoting your bricks and mortar business locally and/ or to the world.

So, these Internet marketing strategies are? How are they applied?

There are numerous approaches, and this is where most people get confused. In essence there are THREE main approaches to small business Internet marketing, being…

1. PPC search marketing (Pay per click marketing, and its different versions), and… 2. Hyperlink marketing (commercial links used within content on a specific topic), and… 3. Natural search marketing (all involving original content).

So, with these different approaches, what are the pros and cons?

1. PAY PER CLICK SEARCH MARKETING:

Paid search marketing works a little like the marketing you (as a bricks and mortar business owner) already know. It’s paid advertising. You pay for placement of your ad, and it’s placed before potential prospects who then find your PPC advertisement while searching the Internet for solutions to a problem. Who sees your PPC advertisement is determined by the keywords and keyphrases YOU chose for your individual PPC campaigns, and the effectiveness of your PPC ad.

The PROS: You get your ad before prospects quickly.

The CONS: A) Hire a specialist or do it yourself. If you DIY you can lose a lot of money, fast! B) Skilled specialists are expensive. C) You continually pay to play with this model. D) High demand keyterms are very costly (thus eliminating most small businesses).

2. HYPERLINK within CONTEXT LINK MARKETING:

This model utilizes other people’s existing web content (for your advertising benefit). The text links are placed within their keyword focused web pages. So, let’s say you’re selling financial services. Your keyword-related hyperlinks are run within the content about (guess what) financial services. People click on that hyperlink and end up at your offering about financial services.

The PROS: This is a better approach for small businesses marketing on the Internet, because these embedded hyperlinks are not perceived by the reader as an advertisement. This reduces the visitors resistance to clicking through on these in context hyperlinks (ads) as the links are viewed by the reader as links to more information.

The CONS: A) You have little to no control over what web sites your links are placed on, which means that links can be placed within content that doesn’t quite fit sometimes. B) Best results are achieved by driving prospects to especially designed landing pages. Skill is required to set up these sales funnel paths. C) The demand for good, profitable commercial keyterms always exceeds supply, thus pushing up the price for the good terms.

3. NATURAL SEARCH - SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING:

Think about this. How do YOU use the web? I’ll guarantee you that if you’re looking for a solution to a problem that you do what millions of other people do everyday. You go to your favorite search engine (usually Google) and type in your problem (a.k.a. keyphrase). Then, your search engine presents you will likely answers. When a small business interfaces with the fundamental reality of the way people use the Internet THEY win.

Note: It’s important to understand that search marketing is different from SEO. SEO is a term used to describe the optimization of a web site and its pages for the search engines to be able to spider pages correctly.

The PROS: With natural search marketing, if your business is the creator of the keyword-focused content, you have a distinct marketing advantage on the web. Long term, these advantages will far out weight both the PPC and In-context marketing strategies, because you are building a web business or traffic portal which belongs to you. Your results with natural search marketing are in direct relationship to your own efforts. And, here’s an interesting twist, small businesses wanting to primarily market themselves locally or regionally have a distinct advantage using this natural search marketing methodology.

The CONS: A) Content is King on the Internet, The continual adding of content to your natural search system is of paramount importance to its success. However, this content creation can be very easily outsourced. B) This is a slower approach than the PPC and In-context marketing systems. However, the (long term) ROI from natural search marketing for small business far exceeds the hit and miss results of using the other two approaches (and their ongoing costs).

So, in summary… Small Business Internet marketing no longer needs to be the mysterious world it once appeared to be for small businesses. However, there is still a great divide between those small businesses that employ smart marketing strategies as the foundation of their online marketing systems, and those that don’t.