Time to Get Serious About Blogging
It's time to get serious again about blogging after having spun through a small handful of unrelated obsessions over the past few months. I've been busy reshaping the landscape around my home, with many hours spent clambering through mud with a shovel and long days operating heavy equipment I probably have no business getting near (with subsequent evenings avoiding heavy sighs expertly operated by my spouse, whose kitchen looks directly onto the scene of devastation I have wrecked in the back yard).
In the process of doing all of this I've met and spoken with at least a dozen small business owners -- landscapers, rock purveyors, rental shop owners and equipment dealers -- some of whose businesses remain all but invisible to customers seeking information on the Internet. They know they should improve their web marketing and may even have taken a few steps in that direction, but some still don't have the basics in place:
- A web site with content comprehensible to search engines like Yahoo! and Google.
- A basic paid search advertising program.
- Simple email-driven customer relationship management.
I don't mean to chastise small business owners with little in the way of time or resources to devote to on-line marketing -- I can't afford to chastise anyone given that my own web site is still on the launch pad -- but meeting a smattering of local business owners has provided me with a powerful reminder of the value of the guidance I, or someone like me, can offer businesses. I'm grateful to be in a position to offer real, concrete help. MarketingType will, I hope, eventually become a resource for some of the many businesspeople out there going it alone, who can't afford to pay a consultant or a company to do this stuff for them.
