The First Steps
So you’re ready to start marketing your business online, and don’t want to put in a big investment from the start. Here are some bare-bones ways to get going. If hands-on isn’t your style, we’re here to help.
Google Local
If you have a brick and mortar company, the best thing you can do from the start is to create a Google Local entry. This will allow you to show up when people search for local businesses, even if you don’t have a website. Create a Google account (they’re free) and create a Google “Places for Business” listing. You can do both of those here:
They’ll need to verify your business address, so hold on to your account information and expect to receive a postcard in about a month with a pin number to activate your listings.
Social Media Accounts
Head to Facebook.com and create a new listing for your business. Keep it simple for now, there’s no need to go much beyond a basic description and your contact information. Later on you’ll want to post updates to the page, but for now it will serve as a placeholder when people search for your company.
Get a Domain Name and Website
This one is a little more tricky. If you’re just starting out you’ll need a domain name and somewhere to host it. A domain name is the .com/.net./.org that people type into their browser in order to get to your site. Your host is where your all the files are stored for your website. It’s possible to buy a domain name from one company and hosting from another, but for the sake of simplicity it’s easier to buy both from one so that you won’t have to deal with a lot of configuration issues.
I recommend Hostgator, who are reliable, secure, and a fraction of the cost of comparable services: Sigh Up For Hostgator
Set up and account there and buy a domain name as well as a ‘baby gator’ hosting package to get started. Don’t expect the easy or obvious domain names to be available, it can be tricky to find the right one.
Choose a CMS
Once your domain name goes live (it will take a day or two) you’ll have your login info for the CPanel from your host. From there, you’ll have the option to install different content management systems. My suggestion is WordPress. It’s a robust blogging platform that can handle a whole site, and has a great community behind it.
Go to your CPanel, head down to QuickInstall, and follow the wizard to install WordPress. What you’ll wind up with is a new username and password for your own website, and when you go to your domain you’ll see a mostly blank site with some sample posts in there. While you still have the CPanel open, you might as well set up an email address for your new domain that forwards to your usual address.
Log in to the new WordPress site administration area, delete the sample posts, and start thinking about what information customers will be looking for from your company.
Design the Site
The best place to start if you’re new is to use a simple template. Under the “Appearance” menu select “Themes”. You’ll be able to browse through a lot of free themes that change the look and feel of your site.
Once you find one that works for you, you can put together a draft of your site. Create “Pages” to be static parts of your site that rarely change, with information like your locations, services, etc. And create “Posts” as linear updates, with the most recent at the top. Use these for announcements.
Head to the general settings to set up your site name and headline. Now visit the site directly and see how it looks.
Google Analytics
Sign up at Google Analytics and put in your new domain name. Google will give you a piece of code to put on your site in order to track your visitors and where they come from. Don’t worry about copying that whole chunk of code to your site.
Instead, go back to your WordPress administration page and then the “Plugins” menu. Search for and install the Google Analytics plugin. Now activate it, go to the settings, and plug in the code number that Google gave you.
After this Google Analytics should acknowledge that the plugin is installed, and will start showing data on your visitors.
Keyword Selection
Keywords are words and phrases which you want your site to show up for when people search. For most small businesses, it’s a combination of the nearby cities and the services you offer. “los angeles plumber,” “santa monica HVAC,” etc. Make a note of a few of these to keep track of as your site grows.
If you need help, plug your keywords and site into Google’s Keyword Planner. It gives suggestions for keywords based on how many times they are searched each month. It’s not completely reliable, but it’s a place to start. Keyword Planner
Tweak The Site For SEO
Go back to the WordPress administration area, back to the plugins section, and install “Yoast SEO.” It’s not perfect or an all-encompassing solution, but it’s a decent start without having to dig into the code or a lot of minor settings.
Every time you write a post you’ll get a list of suggestions at the bottom, based on how well written your post is for ranking for your targeted keywords (assuming that’s your goal). It’s not a guarantee of anything, but it points you in the right direction.
While you’re at it go to the general settings and change the permalinks to /post-name/
Rank Tracking (optional)
If you want to keep track of your keyword ranks but don’t want to spend all day with a spreadsheet, you’ll want a good rank tracker. Having tried most of the major ones available, I strongly recommend SerpBook. They update the ranks several times per day for the big search engines and they’re generally very reliable.
