Widen Your Ambitions as a Small Business with Powerful Article Marketing

I was reading over at About.com http://sbinfocanada.about.com/cs/startup/a/10startingtips.htm an article by Susan Ward on tips for starting a small business.  Of course, starting your own business is the American dream.  It’s a way to optimize time in your professional and personal life.  It also provides some measure of job stability.  When you own your own small business, you’re not expendable.  You’re not going to be fired or laid off because of downsizing.  If you want to make more money in a recession, you go out and you make money by coming up with markets and new projects. 

Some of the memorable points she brought out in starting a new business from scratch were:

* Do what you love
* Get clients or customers before you launch
* Write a business plan
* Research your market
* Be a professional from the get go

For me, I empathize with a lot of the smaller business owners out there who are approaching their market for the first time.  I know what it’s like to be in that position of total responsibility.  The business lives or dies with you, and all you ever will accomplish lies upon your shoulders.  It’s a challenge, it’s scary sometimes, but in the end, it’s a total thrill!

One of the most interesting points about starting a small business is that when you are starting out it really doesn’t matter what type of business you are running.  When you are ambitious and motivated to succeed, it doesn’t matter if you’re a car dealership, an insurance company, a therapist, a dentist or even a dry cleaner.

You already know the market and so you already know that the people need your business.  So it doesn’t matter how low on the ground you start.  You’re not thinking in the back of your mind that you’re just running a two-bit dry cleaning company and you’re just going to get by on chump change.  No, you’re thinking you’re going to succeed.  You’re going to expand.  You’re going to take this simple idea for a business and bring it to new heights.  In your mind as a business owner, there is no difference between your marketing enthusiasm and that of a large corporation.  Not if you are passionate about your field.

This is why I think that article marketing and small business work so well together.  You are a business that wants no limitations and wants the opportunity to expand at your own pace.  Article marketing can do just that for you.  Article marketing is everything that you want it to be.  It’s scalable, it’s adaptable to the fast-changing market.  It’s like having your own virtual marketing campaign at your disposal, but for less than you would pay a publicist or a marketing consultant.

Just think about some of the advantages of this avenue of advertising.

* You can advertise locally or nationally
* You can increase your web presence
* You can brand your company
* You can bolster website rankings and get tons of traffic
* You can become involved in social media marketing
* Most importantly, you can get targeted traffic to your site which more easily converts to paying customers

Another benefit to consider is that of establishing credentials in the field of your choice.  You can present yourself as an expert when distributing these SEO articles and get maximum coverage, since all of the articles that come up in a search will prominently feature your name and company.  This means that anytime your company or name is Googled, the Internet user will be directed to a long list of articles you wrote.  Furthermore, you also have the opportunity to associate your name and company with a popular keyword phrase.  This will help to establish your authority as a professional.

When you invest in article marketing, and by invest I mean work with an SEO company for a long-term relationship, then you have regular access to an earth-wide “targeted” group of customers to reach.  These are not just passersby attracted by flashing lights.  These are actual customers looking to buy a product or service that you are selling and they are being delivered straight to your doorstep—your doorstep of course being your website.

It certainly sounds like an opportunity that’s hard to pass up.  So when a high ranking fellow like Matt McGee over at Small Business SEM http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/making-the-case-for-seo-to-small-businesses/508/ admits that small business owners are usually reluctant to sign with SEO services, it makes you wonder.  Why don’t some of these business owners see what we see?  Matt explained it well when he said that the ones who turn us down really don’t understand the potential of Search Engine Optimization and article marketing.  Furthermore, they don’t quite “get” what they will receive in return for writing a check.

That’s the challenge of any B2B proposition—convincing the small business that they need your product, when they’re trying to do the same thing to their customers!  The answer I believe lies in educating the customer, in this case, the small business owner.  Instead of providing abstract concepts show him or her examples and scenarios that show the benefits of this technology.

Anyone can say to Mr. Pride down at the old mom and pop shop (just an example) that, “Hey, SEO is the way of the future.  You could bring in tons of traffic and sell more product by selling online.”  Unless he sees and comprehends those results though, he’s just not going to “get it.”  You’re basically talking a foreign language! 

This is why it’s important for the article marketer and SEO specialist to educate the small business owner on how precisely all this targeted traffic is going to help his business.  It’s the job of the professional to explain that targeted web traffic means his company will be seen by people using Google, Yahoo and MSN.  These articles will not only run nationally (which might not even be his market) but also locally, down to the city of the small business’ choice.

Show him the keywords that his business could use to reach new customers.  Analyze his competition and explain how the other companies are already getting into online sales.  Use facts, don’t hype it up or make assumptions.  Most of all, try and emphasize that article marketing is basically referral advertising x 50.  Small business owners like referrals; it’s safe to say that 50% or more of their business is built on referrals.  Explain the concept of social media, online “branding” as well as building credentials, and explain how all of this will translate into more referrals for his business. 

Online traffic doesn’t matter and that term might not mean anything to a small business owner.  Referrals on the other hand matter.  Article marketing really brings referral advertising to a whole new level.  Last but not least, the SEO company should use its own testimonials and references so that the small business owner can see how it has helped others make money. 

There’s plenty to be excited about in SEO and article marketing.  These are technologies that not only find small businesses new customers, and not only find them targeted traffic based on keyword usage, but also help to improve a website’s overall ranking.  This is what the name of the game is in Internet advertising.  Just consider some studies released by Laura A. Granka, Thorsten Joachims and Geri Gay of Cornell University in their report Eye-Tracking Analysis of User Behavior in WWW Search http://www.cs.cornell.edu/People/tj/publications/granka_etal_04a.pdf

The study clearly showed that the “mean time” users spent analyzing the top two ranked sites were almost equal.  The #1 ranked site was the most clicked link.  Furthermore, after the second link the “fixation time” dropped significantly.  There was also another substantial “dip” around results #6 and #7.  These trends indicated that once the user has started scrolling, rank becomes less of an influence for attention.

This should serve as definite proof to small businesses that article marketing and SEO investment is a worthwhile investment.  Reaching the top #10 search results for a popular keyword could bring your business new life and the chance for major expansion!