I know that Midlands Business SC is a name a bit different than what most people would choose for a website, but there was a reason I chose that name.
You see, I wanted to increase the likelihood that people will find this blog. If you were a consumer located in the Midlands Region of South Carolina and if you wanted to find a business, you would likely go to your computer and type in “Midlands Business”. As soon as you did that, Google would automatically suggest that you were looking for “Midlands Business SC”…and most consumers would click on that. Hence, that why I chose that name for this website.
So, why did I want you to find this website? Well, I mostly wanted business owners to find this website. Why? Because I know how tough business has been for you in this tight economy and I’m hoping that this website can help you out.
Business owners are desperately trying to find new customers…customers that are wanting and willing to buy. Recent studies have shown that local consumers are more likely to search online for a business of their choice than they are to use the Yellow Pages. The Yellow Pages are being replaced by Google’s search engine.
The problem is that most small to medium size business owners have no idea on how to market their business on the internet. Many of these businesses don’t even have a website, and if they do, they don’t know how to get their website ranked.
That’s the purpose of this website…to convince business owners that many more customers can be found online…more than by using their traditional ways of advertising in the newspaper and the Yellow Pages.
This website will also show business owners that creating their own websites is not that difficult to do and neither is it that difficult to get their websites highly ranked…it just takes a lot of work.
And, for those business owners that don’t have the time and energy to dedicate to online marketing, this website is going to recommend a couple of local online marketing agencies that can help them out. Agencies that are experienced at what they’re doing and can turn a profit for them.
Welcome to Midlands Business SC!
To get you started, read this excellent article that I found online.
Top Ways And Reasons Your Offline Business Can Use The Internet To Market To Consumers
By Joe Collinsworth
**It’s not going anywhere. The Internet is here to stay. Although things change at the speed of light, the web is a method of marketing and keeping in contact with customers that you need to incorporate into your business.
**Many cheap and free ways to market and advertise. The beauty of the web is that you can focus on both a long term and short term strategy for generating traffic, leads, customers. This can be done through a variety of cheap and free methods that you don’t find offline as often without spending a ton of time or money to implement. Plus, all of this can be set up for less than a few hundred dollars.
**If your church or neighbor is twittering and on Facebook, then you know these things have caught on. In these cases if everyone is doing it, it’s a great way to get in front of potential consumers who could use your product or service, if done properly.
**Get a competitive advantage. People are turning to the web to research and find companies more than ever (more than 50% per last study). They are throwing away their big yellow books and weekly magazines to find deals, reviews, and companies that can help them now. It’s either you or your competition they will call.
**Reach a global or local market. Nowadays with the newer technology you can not only target a global market, you can also pinpoint it down to your backyard. This adds a ton of flexibility and power to an online marketing approach.
Continuing on with using the Internet, here are the top 7 ways to get started utilizing the power of the web…
**Web 2.0. This is the phenomenon we mentioned earlier. Facebook, twitter, Squidoo, and others. This gives you the opportunity to take your business online for virtually free and connect with your customers and potential target market. This can even be done without your own website, but that’s never recommended if you are serious about running your company. Other areas to touch on that encompass this are RSS, social bookmarking, among others.
**Search engine optimization. In the long run this is one of the most powerful tactics. That’s probably why many graphics and marketing companies offline will offer this service. This can encompass a number of areas we list, but all in all the benefit is that it’s free advertising, it’s credible, and it’s not as hard as one might think. There is an approach to take and that approach can be changed at a moment’s notice, but it is worth the effort. What is it? Go to a search engine, type in a keyword that matches your business, and see what comes up down the left side/middle of the page. Those top listings that don’t say sponsored search are the sites that are being ranked based on the search engine ranking algorithms.
**Pay per click advertising. This is the sponsored search we mentioned above. However, you will pay for this one, but it certainly doesn’t have to be as expensive as various offline methods and can provide a much higher rate of return. So you don’t spend a small fortune, you’ll want to understand the ins and outs of pay per click.
**Email marketing. This is a great way to stay in touch with customers, offer special deals, offer an informative newsletter for very inexpensive, and collect potential customer information so you can keep them in your funnel.
**Content generation and sharing. Both on your website and off you can write informative articles and either post them on your blog, your website, or distribute them to article sites. You can also write press releases and post them all throughout various press release sites where they’ll get distributed to gain you exposure.
**Video marketing. You can now utilize the many video and photo sharing sites to distribute your very own clip or commercial. Have fun and make it professional. This can be done with a quality camcorder and easily uploaded so that potential consumers will see your video instantly.
**Affiliates. This is a very powerful way online marketing experts generate millions in sales per year. You can recruit your very own army of sales people online who only get paid when you make a sale. It’s a major win win solution.
This rounds out our favorite ways to market an offline business whether local or global online. There are many many more ways you can get the word out (such as lead generation), but these encompass many of those methods.
Bottom line is if you aren’t taking advantage of the web, you are leaving money on the table or giving it away to your competition.
Once again, Midlands Business SC is glad to have you here!








