Start Marketing Your Business Online: 5 Things You Can Do in 30 Days

Blogging, social media, SEO, online advertising — digital marketing comes with a long to-do list — which is the last thing a busy business owner needs. You’re already responsible for product development, customer service, management, and accounting, but you also have to promote your company and your product.

Instead of trying to plan and execute the perfect digital marketing strategy, start with a few high-yield, low-labor online marketing tactics. Even with your packed schedule, you can squeeze in these five tasks within the next 30 days.

1. Update Your Business Listings

Listing your business in many places with a correctly spelled business name, along with an accurate address and phone number, makes it easy for customers to find you. Another nice benefit of improving your business listings: It’s good for local SEO.

1. Create a consistent name, address, and phone number (NAP) format for your company. If you use a CMS, copy and paste it into a widget so it populates every page. Make sure it also appears on your “Contact Me” page.
2. Check your existing social profiles. Add your NAP to business social media profiles, and include a link to your website.
3. Add your name to relevant directories. Submit your updated NAP to professional organization member directories, local small business listings sites, and other high-quality sites that will refer customers to your business.
4. List your business information with search engines. Submit your listing to Google My Business, Bing Places, and Yahoo Local. Be sure to follow up on any verification requests.

2. Optimize Your Business Web Pages and Social Profiles

Incorporating specific keywords into your business Web pages and improving how your site looks in search can improve your search rankings and send additional traffic your way. It’s also a great first step toward developing a solid SEO strategy.

1. Research some keywords related to your business. Visit your Google Webmaster Tools page, choose your website, and find Search Analytics under search traffic. Look at queries people used to find your site, which will give you some initial keyword ideas. Plug your ideas into Ubersuggest or Wordstream’s free keyword tool to generate a list of keyword ideas. Also, research your competitors’ sites to see which keywords they rely on to attract search traffic. Once you have some keyword ideas, incorporate them into your Web pages and social media profiles without overstuffing your text with keywords.
2. Create better title tags and meta descriptions. If you use WordPress, add the SEO by Yoast plugin, and fill in title tags and meta descriptions for each page. Incorporate your keywords, and make them compelling so people won’t be able to resist clicking. Website content writing at a very high level may require the services of a professional copywriter.

3. Write One Blog Post Per Week

Weekly blogging serves up fresh content for search engines every week and consistent content to share on social networks. Seeing what you know written down and shared also accomplishes other important goals, such as increasing your confidence, fine-tuning your marketing message, and creating new opportunities to communicate with customers.

4. Develop a Social Media Routine

Social media can become an inescapable time vortex if you’re not careful, but you can’t avoid it either. Try these tips to manage business social media in fewer than 20 minutes per day:

1. Check the day’s activities. Respond to notifications, mentions, requests for connections, customer service queries, and other immediate issues.
2. Browse your feeds. Scroll through your feeds and hashtags relevant to you to catch the latest news.
3. Post something. Share a link, make a comment, or offer a promotion related to your company. If you use a tool like HootSuite or Buffer, you can create multiple posts and schedule them ahead of time.
4. See which posts and shares performed best for you, and learn more about your followers. Repeat your successes, and keep experimenting as you learn more about your audience.

5. Spend $1 per Day on Facebook Ads

Facebook has outstanding demographic targeting tools to put your business in front of prospective customers. Spend $30 this month experimenting with Facebook ads. Next month, keep experimenting before moving onto Twitter promoted tweets or Google AdWords.

The key to getting started with online marketing is simple: just get started. You’ll be surprised by how much you’ll accomplish when you take the 30-day challenge.