There are many ideas for small business growth scattered all over the internet. We can learn new things every day.
Sadly much of this is dated or just doesn’t work. We gain ideas from people we talk to and blogs and videos we watch. In recent months I’ve been keen to grow my business.
So this article today has been written as I review the previous year. I’ve picked 3 things I’ve learnt from 2019 that I want to share with you if you are an entrepreneur or a small business owner. Additionally I have included a couple of gifts for a limited number of my readers and regular subscribers.
Last year I tried Google adverts, Bing Adverts, Advertising on LinkedIn and Facebook and if I’m brutally honest nothing worked at all. For 20 years I had never needed to advertise, recommendations would flood in from happy referring customers and clients.
Should I advertise?
To start with, the thought of advertising my web design skills was always a crutch to fall on but I assumed it would never materialise. That was always the case until 2019. The year when Brexit seemed to stop new businesses growing and confidence was unsure at best.
So I decided to readdress my website, I rebuilt it from scratch. You know how they say a decorator never paints his house; well it’s true that a web designer rarely worries about his own site. But that was suddenly changing. Now was the time to think of new Ideas for small business growth. To act on what I was learning and put into action what I’ve been telling other business owners for years.
Ideas for small business growth: Lesson 1
This was actually the best thing I could have done. As I now feel totally on the ball and ahead of the game and most of it’s just taken 4 dedicated months of work, I’ve realised that you need to give value to the people that visit my web site. Give without expecting return is actually the correct point of view for a business on lime. With that approach I’m starting to reap the investment. So allow me to point out the first lesson…
Lesson 1 – You need a decent Google My Business Listing
The most important SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
Again and again I heard successful online business and blogs saying “Small businesses need video as well as fresh content” That didn’t sound like the SEO I knew 10 to 15 years ago. What about linking and link juice. What about keyword stuffing and link exchanges. Well I’m pleased to say that this awful SEO approach is losing traction and genuine business can actually get seen on Google.
Small businesses need video as well as fresh content
Zanet Design Ltd
I discovered this when I by chance spoke to an SEO guy I knew. He said; “Forget paying for SEO and all those old approaches of the past, it’s a mugs game; it’s all about Google My Business today and getting this correctly optimised for Google”. He was absolutely right.
See all my ideas for small business growth in my video below
Timestamps for the video
- 0:05 Overview of how Ideas for small business growth came from 2019
- 0:15 Also an offer for subscribers
- 1:00 How the video will help you
- 1:20 The reason my small business wasn’t growing
- 1:50 Fresh content was of growing importance not SEO
- 2:30 Important advice regarding SEO
- 3:00 Need to rethink Google and SEO
- 3:15 Lesson 1. Google My Business Optimisation, Registration & Listing
- 4:00 Access to My Google My Business Video Channel (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…)
- 4:30 My 2019 conclusions regarding lesson 1
- 5:00 Introduction to my next 2019 lesson
- 5:25 Noticeable growth of videos
- 6:30 Google and YouTube are biggest Search engines
- 7:00 Lesson 2. embrace making videos to help engage visitors
- 7:50 Why have a YouTube channel for your business
- 8:25 How to subscribe on YouTube
- 9:00 Video on embedding YouTube videos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3N10…)
- 9:30 Can you help me?
- 11:15 My Critique and Audit Channels (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…)
- 11:55 Small business audit revealed mobile and speed issues
- 12:40 Lesson 3. Check your web site speed and mobility
- 12:55 Special personal offer for small businesses
Can You Help: As with all my videos. I would like to help you.
So do make sure you let me know by commenting or emailing me, so I can add videos that answer your questions.
As a small business owner what do you need to know?
I registered and started working hard on my Google My Business listing and making sure it was correct. Before long I learned about NAP see google my business nap consistency and the importance of adding photos and posts. There was also the importance of the finer detail. In total I must have produced around 20 videos in 3 months on what I was learning. Each lesson, trick or tip I’ve recorded and added as free videos for you on YouTube. So if you haven’t fully optimised then you need to do this right now.
Google My Business is:
- Ideal for local enquiries ;
- It takes very little time to setup;
- Currently free to claim;
- Powerful tool for maps;
- Its SEO you can do;
- Totally pushed by Google and effects Search engine results;
Small business growth strategies : Lesson 2
For my second lesson from 2019, I gradually realised throughout the year that YouTube is very much Google controlled. It’s a well-known fact that Google bought out YouTube several years back, but I hadn’t realised how Google had changed. It has become a TV channel in its own rights to compete against Netflix and Amazon. YouTube was no longer about cat videos and gaming it was also for real business.
Google Loves YouTube, Because it is Youtube!
Zanet Design Ltd
If you can’t beat them, join them.
Google judges your ranking based on a numerous number of key metrics which include time on page and bounce rate. This means that if people are visiting, reading and staying, you will go up in the rankings. Video is by far the most engaging way to stay on a website. if the video has captured you, you could be there for 20 minutes. Now how many web pages would keep you reading and staying on the page for that length of time.
To help make my point, just look at these stats:
- GOOGLE stats every second, there are more than 50,000 searches made using Google
- Google is the biggest search engine on the planet
- YOUTUBE every day, more than 30 million people are using YouTube.
- YouTube is the second biggest search engine on the planet
Lesson 2 – You need to start thinking about adding video
Video is the biggest growing area for delivering content
Google is very shrewd as it knows that the more someone is engaged the more advertising they can sell. Advertising is the main way Google makes income, and as Google is a business is obvious where there real priorities lie. As often the losing character in a cartoon says “If you can’t beat them, join them.” Sometimes you just have to go the way Google chooses. Video and engagement online is there current chosen path.
My 1st video released on YouTube September 2019.
4 months on I now have a substantial following.
Small business growth ideas : Lesson 3
The third area came about from wanting to use my Web Design Skills and provide an Audit and Critique service. One of my Ideas for small business growth was to put to good use my 20 years’ experience on the web. With the World Wide Web only being 25 years old, I’m not exactly a novice in terms of experience.
It seems this approach is a logical way of helping others and at the same time if I add the video to my website and channel others can benefit. It’s a great way to learn watching an expert pull something apart. But I also believe praise is needed as many small business owners do really well online with incredibly limited budgets.
Lesson 3 – You need to speed up your site and make sure it looks great on a mobile
My Video audits have brought to my attention most websites need a lot of work
Therefore I am currently offering for a limited time a chance for you to have your website critiques by an expert for free. I will pull praise you and point out the best areas of your site and what you have done well. Yet constructively I will break apart your SEO strategies or your Google My Business listing. I will view your website as if I was a Google robot or a mobile device. Ultimately I will point out areas where you could improve and way you could speed up the website. It’s a true audit and if you take it on board your site can only improve.
Conclusion
So that’s what I’ve learnt in the later months of 2019. Since putting my own advice into action my website traffic has shot up quite dramatically. So days have had disappointments as most of these actions and lessons require effort and patience with very little immediate return. But stick-ability and a determination is now paying off for my small business. I have several new subscribers every day on my YouTube channel and local business enquiries for my web design services are more regular than ever before. There is still a long way to go if I’m realistic.
In Conclusion, don’t forget to take advantage of my limited offer for Small Business Owners. Contact me now and lets get your website audited fro absolutely free of charge. Just register it here on the free website review page.
If you just want me to do this for you then I’m sure I can try my best to accommodate you. Especially if you are a local business in the Bournemouth, Christchurch or Poole area. If I’m currently available then I’m sure we can get your business moving in the right direction. Even if you just have a question, then contact me directly via my contact page for more help.