3C Digital

Digital Marketing for Small Business

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Why your small business needs a website and social media channel

Why your small business needs a website and social media channel

  1. You own one but not the other
  2. Your social media could get shut down
  3. You need a base and an ad agency
  4. You need an avenue for digital marketing
  5. They do different things

Website or social media? Why can’t small businesses just have one or the other? Why do you need both? It’s too much work! We hear you. We get these questions a lot so take comfort in the knowledge that you are not alone. In this post, we will answer the age-old question of why you should have a website and (at least one) social media platform.

You own one but not the other

You can’t just rely on having a social media channel, like let’s say, Facebook or Instagram. You don’t own Facebook. If Mark Z decides one day you’re doing something dodgy (even if you’re not) and takes your page down, you have very little power over it. On the other hand, you have full control over your website — that is if you’re doing it right (but that’s another blog post). You do whatever design you want and put any content you want, too, without fear of Facebook admin pinging you about it.

You need a base and an ad agency

Your website will house as much information about your products/services as possible. When potential customers need to know more about your small business, they can go to your site to read up on you. But your social media platform is your daily connection to the world. It’s where you tell them about the latest updates to your small business as well as interact with customers. It is also one great avenue for digital marketing. You can advertise your small business on Facebook with a link to your URL so potential customers can find you.

They do different things

If you want to be more effective online, you need to be smart with how you use your online tools. Your website is your home. It’s where you display the things that you offer, the information about you, the story behind your small business and more. It’s where you host the landing pages for your ads. Your social media platform, on the other hand, is more dynamic. It’s where you hang out to be with your peeps (aka your customers). It’s where you run your digital marketing ads and target the audience you want to reach. When done well, these two things blend together to help you grow your small business.

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Get your small business on Google

How to get your small business on Google

  1. Add your URL to Google
  2. Set up Google My Business
  3. Verify your small business on Google
  4. Set up Google Search Console

If you’re a small business, being found on Google is like winning the lotto multiple times. We’re not sure how exactly those mythical Google Crawlers can reach every nook and cranny of ALL the websites on the World Wide Web. There are algorithms and formulas and bots and more formulas involved. And to keep on top of it is a full-time job itself!

But there are simple ways that your small business can do right now to make sure that your website is found by potential customers. Here are three things you can start doing today to get your small business on Google.

Add your URL

Sound super basic, right? But super easy to overlook. Google adds new sites to their index, and updates existing ones, every time we crawl the web. One caveat though, Google doesn’t add all submitted URLs to their index, and they can’t make predictions or guarantees about when or if submitted URLs will appear in their index. Their words, not ours!

But we still highly recommend that you submit yours ASAP especially if you have a new URL. You can do it here now.

Google My Business

Take advantage of Google’s free business listing. Submit your site to Google My Business and start building visibility in Google Maps and Google Search in your local community. The process of being verified is a bit old world, Google will send you an actual postcard with your verification code on it. It normally takes about six days to get the postcard. How quaint!

Set up Google Search Console

This one is a bit of a doozy! Here’s a screengrab we’ve prepared earlier:

A bit full-on right? But trust us, you need to do it so Google can properly crawl and index your site. Here’s a tutorial, it’s almost five minutes or so but worth your while. We promise!

 

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Top 10 free plugins for WordPress

Top 10 free plugins for WordPress

  1. Akismet anti spam
  2. Bulletproof security
  3. Contact Form 7
  4. Favicon
  5. Google Analytics
  6. Pixabay Images
  7. Pixelyoursite
  8. WordPress editorial calendar
  9. WP Smush
  10. Yoast SEO

First of all, what are plugins exactly? A WordPress plugin is a software you add to the back end of your WordPress site that provides a certain function. The plugin’s function can vary depending on what you need. It can be for putting a gallery of pics on your site, or protecting it from hackers. It can even be used to compress photos you use so your site works faster.

In all the years we’ve used WordPress, we’ve come across different plugins. We figured out which free ones would be useful for a site. Here is our list of free wordpress plugins you need.

Akismet anti spam

This plugin is popular for millions of users. It protects your blog from spam, basically. It protects your site 24/7 so you can rest easy.

Bulletproof security

This one is for security protection, for things like malware, login security, database backup, anti-spam and more. It is effective, realiable and easy to use.

Contact form 7

The plugin can manage several contact forms for your Contact page. It is easy to customise and looks good too. It supports CAPTCHA and Akismet spam filtering.

Favicon

A favicon is that little image you see at the beginning of your page’s URL. This one generates the icons for desktop browsers, iPhone/iPad, Android devices and more.

Google analytics

This is a good way to add Google analytics tracking code to your website without changing any of the files. You can log in with Google from your WordPress dashboard and choose the site you want to link. Take your time checking out all the features.

Pixabay Images

If you use stockphotos, then this plugin is useful for you. It lets you insert a stockphoto from Pixabay anywhere on your blog. The images are safe to use and paying attribution is not required.

Pixelyoursite

This plugin is good if you have a Facebook page too. If you’re doing Facebook ads (and you should) this plugin helps you insert Facebook pixel code on every page of your site with just one click.

WordPress editorial calendar

This is how you manage your blog posts without having to be on your site all the time. Schedule your blog posts and check out your schedule through the calendar. It provides an overview of your scheduled posts.

WP Smush

The smush plugin will compress all your photos so that your site comes up faster. Make it a habit to upload smaller files. But if there are photos over 2MB the plugin will smush it for you.

Yoast SEO

You want this plugin. This is a favourite tool for SEO management and it is easy to use. If you get a headache talking about SEO then just use this one plugin for it.

Need help with your site and plugins? Contact 3CD for a free consult!

small business digital marketing

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How to speed up your small-business website

Are you a small business owner with a website? One thing you need to think of that’s crucial to your business is your website’s speed, especially with people’s short attention span. If your customers have to wait for ages before anything loads, they will leave. We are over at Inside Small Business to show you ways to speed up your small-business website.

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Case study: Support Suite

We’re proud to showcase one of our clients today. We met Nicole Jackson, the woman behind Support Suite, counselling and coaching for people with disability, during one of our one-hour free consultations at the Canterbury-Bankstown Business Advisory Services (CBBAS). In this post, we will show you how we helped her set up her small business presence online.

Client goal

Our client has just started her small business and needed a good foundation set up online. After our two-hour immersion session with her, we were able to figure out:

  • the purpose of her small business
  • the reason behind setting it up
  • the services she wanted to offer
  • the specific keywords relating to her business
  • what her unique proposition was
  • where she wants to take her small business
  • what social media channels she will need
  • and more.

What she needed

Nicole wanted to set up a SEO-friendly website with a contemporary look and a strong CTA. She also wanted a Facebook channel to support it. After our initial meeting, we figured that she will be able to realistically handle only one social media channel. We picked Facebook as the best option for her needs.

The services we provided for her included:

  • Website set up and design
  • Copywriting (including blog posts)
  • SEO
  • Direct marketing
  • Social media strategy (Facebook)
  • Professional photo shoot
  • One-hour workshop on social media use

End result

After setting up the website with SSL and SEO, we created the copy for her website and blog posts with Nicole’s guidance. We worked with Nicole to ensure that the copy on her website is in line with her vision and consistent with her tone and the language of her industry.

We also integrated the Wecounsel platform on her website to use for setting up appointments, sending payments and various other features. As Support Suite caters for people with disability, we added a voice plugin that will allow visitors to listen to the website instead of read.

The photos from the photo shoot were used on the website as well as her Facebook page and marketing materials. We also helped with her social media strategy and marketing materials design using free tools online.

Need help with setting up your online presence? Contact us for your FREE 30-minute strategy call!