Ever wonder how businesses appear on Google Maps and Google Search Results?

If you’ve ever wanted to find out exactly what you need to do to add your business to Google’s local search results and maps results, we’ll teach you what you need to do. There’s no magic, special accounts or privileges, or any cost to do so! It’s totally free and anyone can do it!

An important fact to mention is that the process of adding your business to Google also creates a Google+ (Google Plus) page for your business. Google now uses Google+ pages as the main focal point of Business pages on the Google network. Your Google+ page will in fact be your Google Local listing (Now just called your Google Maps listing), which also used to be called Google Places (Now part of the Google My Business dashboard).

In fact, Google is so interested in having you add your business listing to their directory that it has now launched and entire team devoted to this task. Google is calling this new initiative “Get your Business Online” (GYBO). The GYBO team is traveling across the US giving free sessions on how to put your business on the map. But you don’t need to attend the seminar to figure it out, we’ll spell it out step-by-step for you:

Step 1: Search for Your Business

If you are an email marketer or handle email campaigns on a regular basis then you’re sure to benefit from this post. We’ve picked the 10 most common blunders and mistakes done by email marketers.

These are small mistakes that can have a huge impact on your overall E-mail marketing strategy. After we list al of these terrible blunders we’ll tell you how you can fix them.

We have executed multiple e-mail marketing campaigns and figured out the best practices to ensure smooth and successful campaign results. So, if you are planning to send your next e-mail campaign, don’t miss the following points:

This post is the continuation of our previous post  “Online Marketing On A Tight Budget - How To Prioritize Your Marketing Efforts”. Please read the previous post first, so that this post will make more sense to you.

Our previous article summarized the Top 5 Internet marketing tools and services to consider when promoting your business online. Let’s recap what they are:

In order of importance, the top 5 online marketing tools we recommend are:

1. A Business Website: The home and basis of all your digital marketing efforts
2. Online Advertising: The tool to drive people to your website immediately
3. Social Media Presence: Helps you connect with your target audience instantly
4. E-mail Marketing: Lets you stay in touch with your existing leads and clients
5. Content Marketing, Blogs and SEO: Provides in-depth and valuable information to your end users, and proves to you audience by “showing” your company’s expertise and value proposition rather than just “telling them” what your company can do.

Small business and the Internet marketing world

At Bloominari, we mostly work with local small businesses which are either brand new to the Internet marketing world, or have used some digital marketing tools but don’t quite know exactly how to best use them to generate leads and grow their business.

Our marketing team is constantly talking to small business owners who are usually too busy managing their own company and don’t have the time, expert knowledge or know-how for how to market and promote their products and services in the most efficient way. That’s where our team of experts come into play and help our clients to focus on their business, while we focus on marketing it.

How to promote a business on the Internet with a limited budget

Let’s assume you have a new or existing company called “Baby Cubs” and you want to promote and market your business online. For illustration purposes, let’s assume you have a limited marketing budget of $5,000 USD to get started. How should you spend it?

First, let us recommend that you divide your marketing efforts into two stages.

• Stage 1: The Essentials - Build a very professional, and mobile-friendly business website, drive traffic to it and connect with your existing and potential customers on social media.
• Stage 2: Keeping Your Audience Engaged - Follow up with your customers through an e-mail newsletter: share your news, new products/services, and tips on how to help your clients. Then continue to bring value to them by sharing your expertise and valuable tips and tricks through a blog - which in turn will help increase your search engine rankings.

STAGE 1: The Essentials

Based on the example of the “Baby Cubs” company, we recommend that you invest your first $5000 dollars on Stage 1. Then, once your company starts (or continues) earning money you could move to Stage 2 and invest an additional $3,000-5000.

Step 1: Build a professional business Website

First thing we ask our client is “Do you have a company website?”, if the answer is yes, it’s a good sign they understand the value of having an online presence. If they don’t have one, we discuss the importance of having one built and they key elements it must have in order to be used as a powerful marketing tool for the rest of their digital marketing strategy. Learn more about the importance of the website on our first post.

Recommended allocation of your marketing budget to build your professional small business website:

• 25-40% of $5,000 ($1,250-$2,000)
• Price range for a 10 page website: $1,000 - $5,000

If your Baby Cubs company already had a website, then you could invest the website design budget on the rest of your marketing strategy.

Related post: Business website, mobile app or both? How to choose the right solution

Step 2: Drive traffic to your website

In the same way that physical store owners try to get people through their door to bring in sales, you also have to drive virtual web users (Internet traffic) to your website, which is your company’s digital headquarters online.

This week, we'd like to share with you an interesting new Infographic that gives us an insight to the most successful online marketing campaigns, how much revenue they generated, what made them successful, and much more.

Take a look at these great tips and statistics on the importance of not only doing online marketing but on focusing on inbound marketing techniques to allow users to find your company naturally online. 

5 Steps to get started:

Intro

It may be very obvious what I’m going to talk about during this post, but you’d be surprised how many people aren’t yet aware of the key digital tools their business needs in order to move towards the online world - and YES, there’s still companies out there that are working the “old school” way (without using email marketing, having a website, using social media, and using today’s abundance of technology) and have no digital strategy whatsoever. Thus, I’ll be talking about the true essential tools a business needs in order to join the digital world and catch up to the rest of the world’s businesses.

1. Website

Before social media was around, this was probably (and may still be) the most important digital tool for any business. A business website serves as a digital concierge that’s always there to help current and potential customers 24 hours a day to learn about your company.

A website allows your visitors to learn everything about your business at any moment they want and from the comfort of their home, office, the park or anywhere (using tablets and smartphones). Although many businesses today - small and large - do have a website, there are still thousands of them still without one. For those who still haven’t taken the step to build a website for your business, here are 5 reasons why you MUST get one immediately:

Reasons your business must have a website:

1. Everyone is looking for solutions to their problems online, is your solution there too?
2. The majority of people research the Internet before they make a purchase.
3. It’s an opportunity to start building a relationship and trust with your users.
4. People can learn about your company while your physical store or office is closed.
5. Your company can be perceived as greater, bigger or more professional (based on your web design, online content, portfolio, testimonials, and much more)

Still not convinced?
Then think about when was the last time you looked at the yellow pages to find a solution to your problem or a service provider?