New Year’s Resolutions for Small Businesses in 2017

If you want to conquer the world of online marketing in 2017, here are a few New Year’s resolutions for you…

Get a website

Creating a website is one of the best and often cheapest ways to establish your business. By investing in a website, you will enjoy the benefits of:

  • A 24/7 presence – having a website means that your customers can learn about your business even when your shop or office is closed and at a time/place that is convenient for them.
  • More enquiries – if your website makes it easy for people to get in touch, (for example using email links or by filling in a contact form), it’s possible that you’ll receive more enquiries, as this means they won’t have to wait for your physical premises to open so that they can call.
  • A wider reach – in 2016, around 40% of the World’s population had access to the internet. That figure is only going to rise as technology continues to advance. By having a website, your potential to reach wider circles of people increases immensely. Just imagine having access to nearly half the people in the World!
  • Better credibility – these days, not having a website looks just as dubious as not having a physical address or telephone number. A well-designed, professional looking website can help to position your business as credible and established.

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Get social

Whether you believe it or not, social media can have a big impact on your business, and not just from an end-user point of view.

While having regularly updated social channels can look good and help to increase engagement, Google is the one you really want to impress. The search giant now watches everything you do online, so if you can show it that you’re active in all aspects of online marketing, you can earn some serious brownie points.

Write a blog

What better time to start a blog than at the beginning of a new year? While there is some debate as to whether blogging is still relevant in today’s social media dominated environment, it’s clear that there are significant advantages when it comes to SEO.

Most CMS’ will now enable you to set up a blog as part of your main website (as opposed to a WordPress blog which is completely standalone). This is great because the more posts you publish, the bigger and more up to date your website becomes – which Google loves. While committing to writing a blog can feel quite daunting, each post only needs to be about 400-500 words long.

Invest in email marketing

Thousands of businesses all across the globe use email marketing to communicate with new and existing customers. Whether you plan to set up a fully-fledged, integrated campaign, or just want to send a simple newsletter to your existing customers each month, here are some of the benefits you can expect:

  • Low cost
  • Easy to create – online tools such as MailChimp have made email marketing easier than ever and even offer pre-set templates and campaigns for you to use
  • Easy to share – to social channels such as Twitter and Facebook
  • Measurable – most tools will enable you to see number of opens and click throughs, so that you can analyse whether what you are sending out is effective

For more information, why not contact a digital-marketing agency such as MA Design, Web Designers in Cheltenham, who will be able to offer advice and answer any questions you may have.