“Small business isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s for the brave, the patient and the persistent. It’s for the overcomer.” – Anonymous

At Radiant Marketing, the passion that ignites all of us every single day is that of helping small businesses (like us) achieve their goals and make an impact on the world around them. We may love to laugh and have a great time stretching our creative wings at work, but we are incredibly serious about small businesses and all of the wonderful things they add to the economy and daily life. In light of that, when we heard that Google was providing an opportunity for small businesses to host live workshops for National Small Business Week, we had to say “yassss!”

We are so stoked about hosting our workshop on “How to Grow Your Business Online” that we couldn’t help but want to share a sneak peek of the topics we will be discussing (we may be great at digital marketing, but let’s face it – we’re terrible at keeping marketing tips for success to ourselves!) If what you read next is vibing with your small business wants and needs, sign up for the full workshop here.

Tips for Leveraging the Interwebs for Your Small Business

1) Set Up Google My Business

“If you can spell ‘Nietzsche’ without Google, you deserve a cookie.” – Lauren Leto, founder of humor blog “Texts From Last Night”

While Google is a fantastic resource for proving your friends wrong, in spelling or other trivia, it’s also a great resource for your small business. Google offers a service called Google My Business – it’s an easy-to-use tool for getting all of your business details out into the world and searchable.

We’ll go into comprehensive detail at the workshop regarding the importance of this resource and how to set it up, but here are some  of the key takeaways –

• Google My Business makes sure your business is front and center when your customers search for you.
• Customers can see your local listing and what you’re all about – it can host your address, phone number, business hours, website, and even your review score.
• You’ll have a review score: your happy and satisfied customers will have the ability to give you feedback and all the heart-eye emojis they want.
• You can also share the best pictures of your business – the building, employees, your products, etc.

2) Make Sure Your Mobile Visitors Are Having an Exceptional Experience

Everyone has a smart phone these days – even your grandma. I don’t know her, I’m just assuming. What I’m really trying to get at is that many of your customers, potential or otherwise, will be searching for you via their mobile device. In fact, 88% of consumers who search for a type of local business on a mobile device call or go to that business within 24 hours. Unfortunately, 61% of those same consumers are unlikely to return to a mobile site they had trouble accessing and 40% visit a competitor’s site instead (see this article on 2017 mobile marketing statistics).

So what does it all mean?? It means that in order for your small business to have a successful online presence, you need to make sure that your site is optimized for mobile viewers. It’s a simple tip, but it’s a really important one to set yourself up for success in the mobile and digital age.