Promoting your business online: how to connect with hundreds of thousands of potential customers

(19/01/2012)

Google data shows that there are approximately 823,000 searches made online in the UK1 each month for electrician-related phrases, so if you’re part of the estimated 40% of UK SMEs2 that don’t have a website and rely solely on offline promotion, you risk losing out on a substantial amount of business.

Gone are the days when people only use a telephone directory to look up local electricians; an increasing number of customers nowadays look online – be that on a computer or a mobile device -for home services.
Yell works with electricians and other tradesmen to create websites and promote businesses on the web. If you’re thinking about investing in online marketing, Yell has provided some top tips to get you going…

• Your Website
The first, and most important, step is to build a website. Think of it as your store front in a virtual high street! You needn’t build it yourself - the cost of employing a web designer or web design agency can be pretty small these days. Just make sure that you can easily and cheaply make changes to your site so that it can grow with you. You’ll also want to think about the look and feel of the site so that it’s identifiable with your brand, and the content of the site; it ought to display an email address, a phone number, information on the company, testimonials from other customers, industry accreditations, rates and fees as well as the area you work in for a start!

• Facebook
Once your website is up and running, have a think about social media. By setting up a brand page on Facebook, your business can be found in just a few clicks. It’s an easy job that can be done if you have just a spare hour or two and access to a computer and is well worth doing - Facebook bosses announced this year that 30 million people in the UK use the social network- that’s almost half the UK!

• Twitter
Twitter can be a fantastic and, of course, free way to promote your business. If you use Twitter for business, you can build up a group of engaged customers who then receive whatever messages you put out, allowing you to speak to people who are interested in what you do, directly. And they can talk back!

1.Data from the Googlr Adwords Keyword Tool
2.2001 Ipsos MORI Survey
3.

Related categories:  Electrical market   Heating, ventilation, refrigeration   Industrial   Office and commercial   Power    Residential   Security, fire and safety