Whether you’re selling handmade bits and bobs or offering top-notch services in your area of expertise, it won’t take you long to realise that so much of running a small business is about marketing. Fret not, biz buddy, for we have some easy tips that will help you take your amateur marketing attempts from “meh” to amazing.

IT’S ALL IN THE SEO What the heck is SEO and how do you make search engine optimisation happen? In simple terms, SEO is all about helping search engines (like Google) find your webpage to offer it to internet users. Don’t be fooled, good SEO isn’t just important for writing rad blog posts – mastering the skill of stringing the right words and content together can also be applied across the rest of your biz, from newsletters to social media captions. The way to up your SEO game is to create a tone of voice for your brand that both speaks to who you are and what you’re selling, while hitting all the keywords your audience is looking for in clear and concise phrasing.

IMPROVING YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA SEO Social media is a great place to experiment with the personality of your brand, whether it be through creating short clips for TikTok or posting about your products on Instagram. Crafting an ace social media profile is all about being genuine to your business, whether that be your kooky wares or straight-talking services. Audiences crave authentic connection and this is the space to do it. As for the SEO part, search engines and social media platforms reward you for the more content you supply them. This means that you should be punching a few keywords into your captions, filling out your meta descriptions with elevator-pitch-type phrases to grab attention, as well as post relatively regularly. All of this helps search engines – thus, customers – catch you in an ocean full of fish. It’s a good idea to have a CTA (call to action, like “buy this” or “visit our store”) in your posts, too – you’ll want to strike a healthy balance of quality content that both sells your personality and sells your products.

IMPROVING YOUR NEWSLETTER SEO Social media isn’t the only bull at the marketing rodeo you’ll need to take a ride on. Newsletters are a nifty tool for reaching your customer base directly – especially in an over-crowded market. Marketing emails aren’t just a way to sell something to your audience, either – your biz’s newsletter is also a means of fostering community. Another place to flaunt your brand’s personality, newsletters are at their best when they’re short and sharp but full of fun. Avoid thousand-word essays or irrelevant anecdotes – sorry to break it to you, but no one is reading that. Instead, make the copy (any written text used in marketing) short and clear, and add hyperlinks to direct your reader to your site or social media. For bonus points, make your EDM (electronic direct mail, aka newsletter) look pretty – on desktop and mobile!

IMPROVING YOUR WEBSITE SEO Let’s touch back on our good ol’ friend, the keyword. Keywords are your secret weapon when it comes to nailing SEO on your website (or anywhere else, for that matter). Think of keywords as what someone might type into their search engine – if they’re looking for locally-made ceramics, it might simply be “ceramics Melbourne” or it could be something like “who handmakes ceramics in Melbourne”. SEO is all about thinking of your biz from the consumer end – what are they looking for? And how do you supply the easiest answer? Basically, think up all the questions your customer might be asking and then be the one to answer them. This means keeping things clear and accessible on your website, both for your human audience and the robot search engines. Fill metadata (descriptive information about digital assets) with the most important details of your biz, use skim-friendly subheadings on pages, add images with alt text and readable file names, and customise your URL slugs to reflect what it is they’re linking to. Keywords are vital in all of these steps! Expert tip: search engines loooove ranking webpages higher if they have proven their authority by being linked on external sites – otherwise known as a backlink. Reach out to reputable blogs or publications that align with your brand to see if there’s any potential for a collaboration!

Don’t be overwhelmed by all the jargon – at the end of the day, SEO marketing is all about positioning your brand to make it attractive for your customer to click on. The best things you can do for your biz in the digital marketing realm is keep it authentic to you and what you’re selling, as well as clear and concise. And remember to have a little fun with it, too!

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