If you’re the owner of a small business, you might have found yourself wondering if it’s worth the extra time and money it takes to optimize your marketing. While there’s nothing wrong with word-of-mouth, if you’re relying on a passive marketing strategy, you’re probably missing big opportunities to grow and develop your brand.

As a busy entrepreneur, you may want to optimize your marketing and grow your business but aren’t sure how. A few tips outlined in a recent blog featured at Socialmedia Today will help point you in the right direction.

• Investigate Key Phrases. Check out sites like Google Adwords or SwissMadeMarketing .com to find the most common key phrases your potential customers are using to seek information from your industry. Also, expand your keyword search to fields that are similar but not directly within your scope of business. For instance, if you sell children’s apparel, you may also want to uncover popular search terms for fashion in general or photography since these areas are closely related.

• Get Blogging. Blogs are a great way to optimize your marketing by unobtrusively sharing fresh information and ideas with your followers. In other words, they help continuously circulate traffic back to your site. And the better your content, the more likely it is to be shared with others.

• Gain Exposure though Guest Posts to Other Sites. Using the previous example, maybe you could create content for the local newspaper to highlight trendy kid’s styles in the fashion column. Another option would be to partner with a photography website to showcase apparel options for family pictures. Don’t forget about the exposure you can also gain by posting your content onto Pinterest!

You may feel that the investment required to hire someone to help optimize your marketing is a cost you cannot afford. However, the long-term return on investment will be the proof when new clients suddenly come knocking at your online door as a result of more assertive marketing efforts. If you’d like to learn more about how to optimize your marketing, give us a call.