What Internet Marketers Need To Know About Small Businesses

When it comes to internet marketing, you know how to work for a certain type of client. Let’s be honest, most internet marketing specialists work as freelancers, collaborating with clients via Skype, e-mail, or phone.

Small businesses are different, and have different needs. So before you attempt to offer internet marketing services to any small business client (because yes, they do still benefit from an online presence!) you should know a few things.

You should only work with small business owners who are located close to you.

There are a few reasons here, the first being that face-to-face interaction is going to be more comfortable for your client. More importantly, you should know the area that your client does business in because they are probably not catering to a global audience.

In fact, search engine optimization should be easier than ever!

When working with clients who only serve a specific geographic region, you have a major advantage. Search engines are very good about using local search filtering, which means potential customers will always see local results based on their search terms. Local search placement is nothing more than a few simple steps (for somebody who knows what they are doing).

However, other strategies might not be as effective.

Internet marketing usually focuses on competitive industries. With small businesses, most of the strategies used are useless simply because they aren’t necessary. Rather than worrying about Google Page Rank, you can focus on website analytics and brand reputation management.

The language is different, obviously.

Communicating with a small business owner is much different from communicating with a typical internet marketing client. In most cases, you need to seek these clients out and explain what you do—and why it matters.

It can also be a tough sell, but local small business owners are an almost untapped market that will greatly benefit from internet marketing. They just don’t know that until somebody like you helps them to understand what they are missing.