Online entrepreneurs have an incredibly wide range of marketing options available to them. While brick-and-mortar businesses are typically limited to directory marketing and direct marketing forms, online businesses have a highly valuable extra advantage: the ability to drive customers to them. Through pay-per-click advertising, cost-per-thousand advertising, and long-term SEO (search engine optimization) marketing, you can transform your online service business from a small operation into a dedicated multi-employee company.

After all, online business is all about scale. With effective scaling comes higher returns, more manageable work, and significantly greater profits. These PPC, CPM, and SEO marketing tips won’t just help you grow your service business, but help you expand and scale it strategically so that along with your total revenue, your per-hour profits significantly increase.

1. Always use negative keywords.

Although marketers are keen to point to pay-per-click platforms as a short-term marketing option, the reality is that they require just as much branding and long-term thinking as any other marketing method. The wrong keywords can and will negatively influence your business, causing you to lose customers and online influence.

When bidding on industry-specific keywords, make sure you add negative keywords into your campaigns. For example, if your company specializes in ‘website design’ and prefers to work with large-scale clients with high budgets, it’s probably best to create a negative keyword profile featuring terms like ‘cheap website design’ or ‘one-off website design’. Negative keywords can help you target your audience more specifically, all the while excluding the type of clients that you don’t want.

2. Test different PPC platforms.

The most popular pay-per-click marketing platforms are almost always attached to search engines. Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing, and Bing Adcenter are some of the most powerful advertising services around, boasting huge audiences and the potential to dramatically change your business’s income.

Of course, there’s no reason to stick to just one advertising platform. Create a test budget and market your service business on Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing, and Bing Adcenter. Potential clients are all over the place, and with an ultra-refined search presence it’s easy to accidentally miss some of them.

3. Advertise on other websites.

There’s no point sticking exclusively to search results. Once you’ve built up a basic advertising presence, why not expand your advertising to content-filled pages and other contextual placements. Create a list of popular websites that operate in your niche, and approach them with offers for advertising. Most popular industry blogs are interested in advertising partnerships, and with some testing and effect monitoring, it’s easy to work out which blog and website placements are effective and which aren’t.

4. Create a company blog for SEO.

When it comes to online services, particularly website design and online marketing, most websites are rather thin on content. They’ve got their service pages and occasionally a lengthy biography, but when it comes to industry-related content, most of their site is sorely lacking.

If you’re operating an online service business, an easy way to add ultra-relevant content to your website is through a company blog. Describe new projects and business information, highlight changes to your industry and niche, and give something back to readers and clients. With a twice-per-week blogging presence, your company website can easily have 100 extra keyword-heavy pages within a single year, boosting your ranking and providing real-life examples of your company’s value.

5. Write feature articles for experience and industry power.

A well-received feature article achieves two things for your business: the first is industry exposure, and the second is a potentially valuable backlink to your business website. A dedicated PR presence isn’t just worthwhile for direct media advertising and old-school exposure, but for online authority and SEO. Think about it this way – would your business value 100 useless links from self-made blogs, or several targeted links from high-authority media outlets and local newspapers? Value doesn’t just come through deliberate SEO, but dedicated online PR too.

6. Compare client acquisition costs across multiple marketing platforms.

After a few months of testing, you’ll invariably have some data to compare from your different marketing and advertising methods. From SEO to PPC, CPM advertising to direct email, there are undoubtedly going to be some major differences in the cost it takes to acquire a client, the amount of time required to process their orders, and the all-round value that they’re providing to your business.

From here on, you’ve got to do one thing: find the methods that are most effective, and eliminate all else. Focus your marketing efforts – and your marketing budget – on the platforms and strategies that bring in low-maintenance, high-value clients. Put this strategy into action and you’ll have more time to dedicate to business expansion, less stress from client acquisition, and a significantly optimized service income.

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