Internet Options For Tulsa Small Business Owners

By Donald Lawson

Times are tough all over. Especially if you're a Small Business owner. In my local area of Tulsa Oklahoma, it's even more so for many small companies due to the layoffs in many corporations in the region. Now that oil is going back down, some experts say the Oil and Gas Industry could be the next sector hard hit.

Advertising media such as television, cable and radio spots are outside the budget of many small business owners. This may be a blessing in disguise as many of these advertising media outlets have poor return on investment. But where can a Small Business Owner in Tulsa turn for quality advertising that pays good returns?

Some small business owners will turn to print media such as Newspapers or Phone Books. In the last several years, both of these advertising media outlets have had whopping price increases for their ads while readership has fallen way off. This means there are fewer and fewer people seeing your ads in these places and you're paying more for those fewer readers.

Tracking your advertising results should be important for any small business owner. However, tracking your ROI for Radio, TV and print media can be difficult, if not impossible. Many small business owners that are tracking their results are finding that these media outlets do not provide near as good ROI as they had hoped.

The Internet is the Great Equalizer for the small business person. It allows even the person working from home to compete with large corporations that have departments set up solely for advertising. And what's more, tracking your return on investment on the Internet is a lot easier than traditional advertising media.

Local searches for products and services has been on the increase for a number of years as more and more Online users turn to the Internet to find companies that offer goods and services in the Tulsa area.

Everyone from the large Auto Dealers to the Mom and Pop Cafe can take advantage of local searches. I'm amazed at how many businesses in the Tulsa, Wagoner and Broken Arrow area still do not have websites. These businesses are missing out on a huge portion of potential customers. It's almost like meeting people and failing to give them a business card.

By Utilizing all the tools at your disposal, a small business owner can add a significant amount of income in most cases by starting a local search campaign. If the business owner has a product or service that has National appeal, then their site should also be SEO optimized to take advantage of National and Global searches.

SEM marketing includes many aspects of the Internet. From strategically placing your ads on local directories to taking advantage of Pay Per Click advertising offered by the Major search engines, a small business owner needs to be aware of the business they are missing out by not implementing SEM into their business model.

Placement in local search engines and directories can keep your business in front of likely customers 24/7/365. It can also help brand your company with local residents. It helps them remember you company when they come upon a need for a company provided the products or services yours does.

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