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The internet is a platform that many small businesses are taking advantage of because it's an affordable medium and a platform that is fair game to all. If you are a small brand, then SEO provides a helping hand in opening affordable doors, which in turn, helps businesses find new customers and make more revenue. However, if your brand ranks on page one next to a nationwide recognised brand, does that necessarily mean they will choose you even if you are cheaper? It’s a wide question, due to people having very different surfing habits, but here are just a few things you can do to help your business thrive online.
Google Shopping Reviews
There are plenty of third party review sites on the internet with plenty of happy and unhappy customers leaving their views for all to read. Luckily for us, Google is very much on the ball, it takes into account reviews left on site and also reviews left on third party sites, such as Pricegrabber and Review Centre. It uses this data as a ranking factor for your products within Google Shopping – so if you are getting gleaming reviews this will definitely work in your ranking favour within the shopping listings. People will often be enticed to leave reviews on third party sites in follow up emails sent to customers seven days after they have purchased their product offering incentives, such as £10 off their next order if they leave a review. It’s a small price for your business to pay in helping the Google shopping rankings of your products improve. This has been tried and tested by our online friend and giant, Amazon.
Be a Socialite – Talk To People
Brands are using Facebook and Twitter as a platform to start speaking to their customers. If someone is consistently giving good advice, always showing an interest and have many customers positively raving about them, then this social proof is certainly enough to make people sit up and listen. Don’t forget though, that your posts should be fun, not too promotional and ask questions to get people engaging with your content. Remember, the more you interact with your customers on social media sites, the more exposure you will get in their newsfeeds. Virals never go amiss, there are some fantastic companies out there who have amazing ideas as to how to promote your brand with an irresistible branded video, photo or game which everyone will feel the need to forward on (we all remember Burger King’s Subservient Chicken....). Also, competitions always go down a storm to get your customers buzzing.
Sometimes big brands seem like daunting competitors, but if you are a genuinely good seller with good intentions and good quality content, you soon will be ingrained on the brain of your customers.
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