Last Updated on July 29, 2023
There are so many things you can do – and for free – to improve your online marketing. From your website to your social media, from email marketing to SEO. Here are some tips. I’ve updated this, so there are now more than 23!
How Can I Use My Website to Improve My Business?
What Are the Most Important Things I Need for My Website?
How Much Should I Spend on My Online Marketing?
What Free Tools are Available for Me to Use?
How Long Will These Improvements Take?
How Can I Use My Website to Improve My Business?
Websites are amazing! Easy to update, and available even when your business is closed or you’re on vacation. Websites are a business’s best friend.
There are several ways you can use your website to improve your business:
- Use your website to showcase your products or services: Your website should provide detailed information about your products or services, including descriptions, images, and pricing. This will help potential customers understand what you have to offer and make it easier for them to make a purchase.
- Use your website to generate leads: You can use your website to capture leads by including forms or calls to action on your Landing Pages that encourage visitors to sign up for your email list or request more information. This will allow you to follow up with potential customers and nurture them into paying customers.
- Use your website to build trust: Your website is a great place to establish your brand and build trust with your customers. You can do this by including customer reviews, testimonials, and case studies on your website. Take advantage of Google Reviews and Amazon Reviews too.
- Use your website to improve your search engine ranking: By optimizing your website for search engines, you can improve your ranking and make it easier for people to find you when they search. If people can’t find you, they can’t buy from you!
- Use your website to improve customer service: Your website can be a valuable resource for your customers, providing them with the information they need to make informed decisions and resolve any issues they may have. You can also use your website to connect with your customers through live chat or a customer service form.
By following these strategies, you can easily use your website to improve your business and drive more sales.
What Are the Most Important Things I Need for My Website?
There are several important elements that every website should have. I’ve written about this topic before, and Bridget Willard and I have made videos to help you too. In a nutshell:
- Your website needs a clear and concise message. Your website should clearly communicate what your business does and what you have to offer. This will help visitors understand what you do and why they should choose your business.
- Your website should have a visually appealing design. A visually appealing website can help engage visitors and make it more likely that they will stay and explore your website. User Experience is so important that it’s at the heart of Google’s Web Vitals.
- Your website should be accessible. Your website should be easy to navigate, with a clear hierarchy and clear, descriptive links. This will make it easier for visitors to find what they are looking for and explore your website.
- If people are to use your website it needs quality content. Your website should have high-quality, relevant content that is informative and engaging. This will help visitors understand your business and what you have to offer, and it will also help improve your search engine ranking.
- Don’t forget your contact information! It’s important to include your contact information, such as your phone number and email address, on your website. This will make it easy for visitors to get in touch with you if they have questions or want to learn more. This is especially important for local businesses. Include your actual opening times, and the address of your business. Include helpful information about parking, access to public transport, and if you are wheelchair accessible. If people can’t get to your business or don’t know your opening hours, they can’t shop there.
By including these elements on your website, you can create a professional and effective online presence for your business.
How Much Should I Spend on My Online Marketing?
The amount you should spend on online marketing will depend on various factors, such as the size of your business, your marketing goals, and your budget. A good rule of thumb is to spend 5% of your sales on marketing. In the next section, I will show you some of the many free ways you can market your business online!
How much time you spend on your marketing is another matter, but you should be doing some marketing every day. It could be writing a blog post, sharing on social media, answering emails, or even updating your website.
Here are a few things to consider when determining your marketing budget:
Determine Your Goals
Before you start spending money on online marketing, it’s important to determine what you hope to achieve. Do you want to drive more traffic to your website, generate leads, or increase sales? Having clear goals will help you determine how much you should allocate to different marketing channels.
Consider Your Resources
Think about how much time and money you have available to invest in online marketing. This will help you determine what marketing activities you can realistically pursue and how much you should allocate to each.
Research Your Options
There are many different online marketing channels and tactics you can use, and they vary in terms of cost and effectiveness. Research the options available and consider factors such as the potential return on investment (ROI) and how well the tactics align with your goals.
Be sure to understand what service providers and agencies are telling you too. When in doubt, ask for a second opinion. Don’t pay money for a service that you don’t understand, and get everything in writing before you pay.
Overall, it’s important to find a balance between investing enough in marketing to achieve your goals and not overspending on marketing efforts that may not provide a good ROI. Start with a smaller budget and scale up as you learn what works best for your business.
What Free Tools are Available for Me to Use?
How about Starting with Social Media?
You probably already use social media, and maybe only for personal use. Using social media for your business is an important way to help your business get found AND connect with your audience.
Social media platforms are free, but that doesn’t mean your content needs to be of poor quality. A good rule of thumb is to offer people something for free that they would be willing to pay for. That’s Content Marketing, and that will keep them returning!
Here is a Hot Social Media Management tip from Semrush:
https://www.semrush.com/blog/social-media-management/
Free social media content calendar thanks to Semrush
Don’t Forget the 3 C’s of Social Media: Create. Curate. Contribute.
Creating content means producing original content such as texts, images, videos or podcasts. This can be anything from writing a tweet to creating a YouTube video. Original content helps poeple connect with you, and it’s fun to create.
Curating content means selecting and sharing content produced by others on social media platforms, but that is interest to your audience. That makes you a destination! Curated content can be sharing or retweeting a post, recommending a product or service, or creating a playlist of music or videos. Keep the conversation around you by including content of interest to your audience that supports your own.
Social media is a relationship, which brings us to the third C: Contributing on social media. This mean actively participating in conversations and exchanging with others. This can involve commenting on posts, joining groups or communities, participating in discussions or polls, or sharing feedback and opinions. Ask questions. Say thank you. Connect people with each other! The the center of your social media universe, but don’t forget who helped get you there.
Other Free Tools to Help Your Online Marketing
In addition to social media, there are many other free tools available that can help you improve and optimize your website. Some popular options include:
Google Analytics: This tool allows you to track and analyze website traffic, including the number of visitors, their location, and how they found your website. The downside to this tool is that you must declare the cookies in your data protection policy, and people may decline.
Google Search Console: This tool is very important if you want to optimise your site for search engines. It’s free and doesn’t need to be declared in your data protection policy. allows you to monitor your website’s performance in Google search results, including any issues that may be affecting your ranking. Bing Webmaster Tool is the same, but for the Bing search engine. Connect this as well!
Yoast SEO: This is my favourite WordPress plugin. It helps you optimize your website for search engines by analyzing your content and providing suggestions for improvement. The plugin automatically installs a robots.txt, htaccess file (for redirects), and the sitemap.xml you will need to connect with Google and Bing.
Canva: Canva allows you to create professional-looking graphics and images for your website, and mostly free! I use it almost every day. If you already have images but need to edit them, then try the free Photoshop-like tool, Photopea.com.
Mailchimp: You can use Mailchimp for free and send up to 2000 emails daily. They offer templates, newsletters, images, double opt-in functions, and email campaign analytics. Free.
Hootsuite: This social media management tool allows you to schedule and publishes posts to multiple social media platforms from one dashboard. It’s the standard tool for social media management. You can also use Buffer.com to monitor and manage your social media posting.
These are just a few examples of the many free tools available. It’s always a good idea to do your own research and find the tools that work best for your specific needs and goals. I wrote a post with other free promotional tools you can read below.
Bonus: 8 Ways to Promote Your Small Business Online for Free
Forget paid ads. Forget contacting an agency. Do you have a website? Do you have access to email and social media? Then you can promote your business, and yourself, for free. Read more right here!
How Long Will These Improvements Take?
It’s difficult to say exactly how long it will take to see improvements in your business as a result of your hard work. It will depend on various factors such as the size and complexity of your website, the resources you have available, and the specific goals you are trying to achieve.
However, every day you wait is a day further away from any improvement or success.
Here are a few general guidelines that can help you estimate the time it may take to see improvements:
Search Engine Optimization (SEO):
It can take three to six months to see the full benefits of SEO, as it takes time for search engines to crawl and index your website, and for your ranking to improve. However, you may see some improvement in your search engine ranking within a few weeks of implementing SEO strategies.
Here are Two Tips for Improving Your Website’s SEO:
Use Relevant and Targeted Keywords
Keywords are the words and phrases that people use when searching for information online. By including relevant keywords in your website’s content and meta tags, you can help search engines understand what your website is about and improve your ranking for those keywords. It’s important to use targeted keywords that are relevant to your business and the products or services you offer.
Tip: Don’t expect any success ranking for “pilates”. Focus on “pilates training in (your area of the city)” or “online pilates training”. No one searches using single keywords, and there are hundreds of pilates studios out there..
Create High-Quality, Informative, Helpful Content
Search engines prioritize websites with high-quality, informative and helpful content, as this helps them understand the value and relevance of your website. Make sure to create content that is well-written, informative, and relevant to your target audience. This will help improve your search engine ranking and make it more likely that visitors will stay on your website and engage with your content.
In addition to these two tips, there are many other SEO tactics you can use to improve your website’s ranking, such as
- + optimizing your website’s title tags and meta descriptions
- + improving the user experience and loading time,
- + and building backlinks from other reputable websites.
It’s a good idea to research and implement a variety of SEO strategies to get the best results.
Generating Leads:
It may take some time to build up your email list or generate leads through your website. However, you can use various tactics, such as offering valuable content or running a promotion, to encourage visitors to sign up or request more information. This is where your Social Media account can come in very handy!
Improving Customer Service:
By providing clear and helpful information on your website, you can make it easier for customers to find the answers they need and resolve any issues they may have. This can improve customer satisfaction and loyalty, which can lead to long-term benefits for your business.
Maybe you don’t need a website. Maybe you only need a Facebook Page, a Google Business Profile, or a Bing Places profile. All are free, and each allow you to connect with customers and be found on search engines.
Overall, the time it takes to see improvements will depend on the specific strategies you are implementing and your goals. It’s important to be patient and consistent in your efforts, as it can take time to see results.
Read more about Google’s free tool that gives you not only an SEO boost but allows you to produce free content marketing and a free website.
Need Some Help, or Do You Have Questions? Please Drop Me a Line
With thanks for the marvellous image to https://unsplash.com/@marvelous