I'm looking for ideas on how to market a service oriented company online - a small business. Hopefully someone can give me some creative inspiration. I've started to hit the general marketing tasks, but I'm getting a little frustrated. I'm not sure how specific I can be about the company, but let's just say they are into metal fabrication. Can I post the site URL? Things already setup/done: Small 10+ Page Web Site - Basic On-Page SEO Done (H1,Keywods,etc.) Internal Page Linking - Good Navigation and Link Structure Google Webmaster Tools - Sitemaps Submitted Google Analytics Tracking Setup Google Adwords - Local State Ads (Switching to US) Submit/Sitemaps to the Major Search Engines (Google,MSN,Yahoo) Submit to DMOZ Looking at Ads with Industrial Directory Services ($$$$) Thanks for any pointers/ideas. Jeff
Your site is service orientated so you should be looking for people that need your service by using social networks like Twitter, Facebook. Have you also tried uploading videos on youtube about your service that have a funny twist to them?
Believe it or not, I've had good results with article marketing for promoting local service oriented businesses. The key is to be just a little creative. Determine what topics and questions/information your target market might be researching online. Then, to filter down to the local market start or end your article with an anecdote where you can mention the geographic region you're targeting as well as the actual business you're promoting. The anecdote also allows you to link to the specific business in your resource box in a geo-targeted manner without seeming forced. For example, if you wrote an article about sewer cleaning services that included an anecdote about some crazy experience the workers of "Fred's Sewer Cleaners from Divestown" once had, then your resource link that says "and visit Fred's Sewer Cleaners from Divestown for more crazy tales of dirty jobs"... Then that can also be linked to a "hopefully"-viral online marketing campaign where the workers of Fred's Sewer Cleaners keeps a blog on their site of the dirtiest jobs they do, which can be intentionally funny and entertaining (i.e. "this one time, in the sewer line, we found a giant BLANK...." type posts). Hey, if anybody reading this runs a sewer cleaning service and runs with the idea I'll expect compensations Anyway, the bottom line is a little creative article marketing can be very good for business when promoting a local or offline service oriented company.
I have found that if you do a little leg work it will pay off. SkullKing is very accurate that you need to go out and find potential clients, talk to them, work with them, be friendly. Taking your example of metal fabrication, this seems more like an offline company than an online service company because it is probably rare that you would ship such items? With that being the case, teh same concept applies. Do you know of anyone who needs work done? Look around town and see who does, offer them your services. Do so in a manner that wouldn't be offensive and maybe even network with other metal fabricators. Instead of tearing other peoples businesses down, you can gain business by being friendly and showing that your not trying to take business from them.