Yesterday and on Monday we asked the question: Can small businesses compete with the big boys?

As we have already seen in the previous two posts, the big corporations have certainly cottoned on to the importance of online sales, and have the resources to corner the market when it comes to PPC, SEO, and, increasingly, social media. While there used to be areas in which a nifty small business could nip in and make quick wins, the landscape is now very different.

One area in which the small business still has dominance, though, is the local search. Many small businesses by their very nature can only service a narrow geographical area, and this limitation can become a benefit.

You might choose to optimise, for example, for the specific area of your town in which you operate. It is unlikely that the national and multi-national companies will have drilled down to that level, but you will scoop up all the searches of anyone looking for your type of business in your specific area.

Don’t forget Google’s increasing moves towards local search tied in with the user’s geographic location, too. We’ve discussed before how having an updated profile on Google Maps can pay big dividends, especially when it comes to users who are within a couple of miles of your business. Include photos, videos, and even special offers coupons, all at no cost to yourself, and see your local profile improve.

Then there’s the tailored, local use of social media. Increasingly, businesses are discovering locality-based cliques on Twitter which are easy to break into. No full-on marketing strategy is required: it’s enough simply to be available and communicative, and you’ll find your business becoming entrenched in users’ everyday perceptions of your town.

These are just a few ideas of how to think local, and beat the big boys at their own game. We’d be happy to tailor strategies for your own specific small business: just drop us a line or give us a call.

Yesterday, we asked the question Can small businesses compete with the big boys?. All this week, we’ll be looking at the subject in more depth.

A few years ago, a concept that has become known as the long tail gained currency, and was recognised as a viable way for niche businesses to make money online.

In a nutshell, the theory suggests that while big companies have the money to bid on major keywords such as ‘holidays’ and ‘car insurance’, there is just as much to be gained by the aggregate effects of optimising for many hundreds of less searched-for terms.

In other words, you may never afford top position for ‘holidays’ but you might find that you can perform well on searches such as ‘child-friendly lettings in Dorset’. And while the latter search might only bring you, say, three or four searches a month, put a whole lot of them together, and suddenly you are getting respectable traffic.

Unfortunately, as time has passed, the big businesses have cottoned on to the benefits of the long tail, too. The prime example is Amazon – utterly optimised for any search for any book title, and the other goods it now carries, too. Not only is their entire site structured to build SEO into every element; but also, they can afford the staff and the development to ensure that every new page is optimised to the hilt.

For a small businessperson, the website is almost always one of many responsibilities that come with managing a business. They certainly don’t have the time to monitor search engine positioning and add every long tail term they can think of to their site. The only way to capitalise on the long tail phenomenon is to outsource SEO, and it does make sense to do so (that’s something we can do; just drop us a line if you’re interested).

Success with the long tail will very much depend on your business, and who your current online competitors are. But it’s definitely worth looking in to – or asking us to do that for you.

It’s often said that the Internet is a level playing-field, where small businesses have every opportunity to compete with gargantuan multi-nationals.

Is that still the case? These days, almost all large companies understand the vital importance of a good web presence and search engine rankings – even it has taken some of the more traditional establishments a long time to come round.

Many will now employ dedicated SEO specialists to ensure that they are top of the page for the major search terms. They may also have in-house development teams, allowing them to take advantage of every latest technology – or even lead the way in forging their own new functionality.

The landscape today is very different from the early history of the Internet, when a little bit of online nous went a long way. This has left many small businesses, previously maintaining excellent rankings, floudering in the wake of the big boys. With a small workforce and limited time, how can they compete?

This week, we’ll be looking at how small businesses can vie with the online giants. You may not beat them, but you can stay afloat, with a little know-how, so keep reading for our best insights into surival for the small online business.

According to recent news reports, Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, will occasionally reply to emails from any old man in the street (or rather, at a keyboard). You have to admire that degree of accessibility from the top level of a company. It reminds me of when I’ve experienced quite the opposite.

Now, Apple may not be immediately comparable with a small holiday rental place in Weston Super Mare, but the truth of the matter is, when you make online contact, you do expect a reply. That holds true for a global corporation as much as it does for a small business.

Having identified a slick, attractive website promising everything we desired for our week by the beach, I submitted my enquiry. And then I waited, and I waited, and I waited. Eventually, I picked up the phone, spoke to someone immediately, and made my booking.

They were lucky I did – if I hadn’t liked the look of their place quite so much, I might have tried a few competitor websites and the first one to reply would have got my trade.

Fast forward to the day we turn up at the lodging, to be met by the friendly owner, who wants to know how we found out about her place. I tell her how impressed I was with the website, but that I was disappointed not to receive a reply to my online enquiry.

Oh yes, she beamed, my friend set up that website for me, including the enquiry form. I don’t know the first thing about the internet! Enquiries go into my email but I don’t know how to access them.

Let’s hope that she has plenty of word-of-mouth and brochure trade, because that website, no matter how impressive, is not doing its work, due to one fundamental (if quite incredible) oversight.

The moral of my story is, first, imitate Steve Jobs and make it easy for your customers to contact you… and second, make sure you prioritise replying to those customers.

Steve Jobs might be lauded for his willingness to engage like this – for you, it should be the first principle of running a website.

As the new government takes its place, the BBC reports, there is a frenetic dash to update the official Whitehall website.

Any owner of a website will be well aware of how even the most innocuous-seeming content can date. It seemed like such a good idea to announce that special promotion tied into the World Cup, didn’t it? But nothing beats the feeling of foolishness when you come across a page several months after the championship has ended, and realise you forgot to remove it.

What with turnover of personnel (an issue the government knows keenly), discontinuation of stock or the arrival of new lines, there’s always something that needs updating on a website, and that’s before you’ve even considered the matter of keeping the homepage fresh with news or up-to-the-minute content.

For many, the answer is to outsource – and we’d be happy to talk to you about that. In the meantime, if you do come across a dusty-looking page that should have been updated months ago, take heart: the government are probably sharing the very same experience.

We mostly work with small businesses, and we mostly help them to optimise their sites for the major search engines, so we thought we’d share a link that many of you should find extremely useful.

Google keep a number of different blogs, each pertaining to a niche within its wider business, and one of these is purely for the small business person.

Recent posts have focussed on real-life stories from other entrepreneurs, examining how they used Google to boost business. Read how Google Apps, Google Places and Google Adwords have helped people just like you.

This blog, straight from the horse’s mouth, will fill you in on some of the many technologies we are able to harness for you and your business, and give us a firm basis for any discussions we may have. But don’t worry if it is all Dutch to you – we’ll be happy to explain, and help you make the right selections for your own website.

Strong words from Barack Obama this week:

With iPods and iPads; Xboxes and PlayStations – none of which I know how to work – information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation.

All of this is not only putting new pressures on you. It is putting new pressures on our country and on our democracy.