Getting Started
At Scalernet, we believe in the power of free resources for small to medium-sized businesses to grow online through the power of the internet to scale effectively and efficiently.
How does the internet help my business scale?
The fact is that millions of people in your target market are already online, searching for solutions to their problems. Be it on social media, search engines and now, more than ever and rapidly growing, AI models that also have access to the internet like ChatGPT.
What can my business do to take advantage of the internet?
The answer is simple. You already know what your customer needs, you know what their pain points are and how to solve them. They simply just don't know you exist yet.
The lowest hanging fruit is for your business to be where they are, the easiest customers to reach are the ones that are already aware of the problems they have and are searching for solutions. We call this sort of customer "aware" customers who are often searching with high intent and are the easiest to convert.
The best way to get in front of these customers is to start small, in general for SMB's there is a lot of potential in your local area. The important channels to establish a strong, professional presence on include (in order of importance):
- A Professional, Optimised Website
- A well setup and optimised Google Business Profile (GMB)
- Social Media Profiles (depending on your target market and audience)
These are all organic channels that can take time to see results, however they are the most cost effective and compound over time as you build up your online presence.
These channels will be optimised for the "aware" customer who are searching with high intent and are the easiest to convert. When they are looking for a solution your business is setup on the internet in a way that makes it as easy as possible for them to find you and for AI to recommend you to them.
The next step in this funnel is to start to convert these customers into leads and then into customers.
How do I know if people are finding me?
The biggest mistake we see small to medium sized businesses make when they do start investing a strong website and online presence is forgetting to make sure they have a solid method to track their performance.
Important questions your business needs to answer to know the answer to:
- Are people finding me?
- Where are they from?
- What are they searching for?
- Are they clicking onto my website?
- How long are they staying on my website?
These are very important questions to know the answer to in order to guide your marketing efforts. Many businesses have no idea what performance their website is actually getting and we don't blame them as when you are a business owner your priority is to provide the best possible service to your customers and not to spend hours every week learning about marketing on the internet. This is why we recommend using a competent web designer / developer that know what they are talking about when it comes to setting up the right tools and optimising your site for your ideal customer profile (ICP).
The most powerful tools (100% free) you need to track your performance are Google Analytics and Google Search Console. If you don't have these set up or your web designer / developer doesn't know how to implement them, you are missing out and should probably find someone that does.
What should I be tracking?
The easiest and most important metrics to track are what words people are searching for that is resulting in them seeing your website or google business porfile. To see these you need to use the Google Search Console for your webiste, Google Business Profile has their own builtin performance tool that you can use to see these terms.
it's important to identify that these terms are the kind of problems that your business solves as if you are getting views from terms that are not solved by your business, it doesn't matter if you are getting thousands of visitors, none of them are going to convert. It's better to have 10 ideal visitors than a thousand vitors who will never convert.
This process does take time so be patient!
The next most important metrics include how many people are actually seeing your website on google, these are called impressions, where in the results you are ranknig and how many are actually clicking onto your website which would be considered a visitor.
It is also important to see where these visitors are from, if your business is based in England and only speaks english it will not be beneficial to have half your visitors coming from Italy as they might not be your ideal customer profile (ICP) which is important to identify.
Once there are visitors on your website, Google Analytics is the tool that tracks the amount of users you are getting as well as how many pages they are visiting, how long they are staying on your site, and how many of them are converting (this needs to be manually setup by your web designer / developer to identify what a conversion is, if it's a contact form submission, a direct purchase / booking or even a phone call).
There are many other metrics to track that can help you unserstand what people are lookng for and doing with your website which we will also cover but these are the most important.
They're on my website, now what?
As you start to get traffic to your website / GMB / social media you will be faced with the next step - selling your offer and converting these customers to ultimately solve their problem that they were on a mission to solve.
Important Note: If your website is optimised and clear, it will also be pushed higher in the search results for what your ideal customer profile (ICP) is searching for.
Don't lose them!
The biggest loss is when a customer leaves your website because your solution for what they are looking for is not clear enough or seems too difficult for them to get even if you solve exactly what they are looking for in the best way possible but just not able to show that effectively and quikly enough (people are impatent, has to be in seconds and has to be engaging). It's not just about the price! Most customers are willing to pay a premium if they see exactly what they want and can get it easily and quickly with low friction and effective support.
Let them know they are in the right place
People want to feel seen and heard. You know their problem better than they do and you have the opportunity to map out each issue (they will feel like you are the perfect person to help them) and explain to them how they are in the right place to solve this issue as well as how you will do it and the results they can expect.
Make sure they can trust you
It's easy for customers to be skeptical as the internet is a big place which is a blessing and a curse, there are no rules as to what we can put out there.
So it doesn't matter what you promise someone who is reading your website for the first time, if you don't effectively show proof of your claims, they won't be persuaded to contact you. This is where your most important asset as a businesses comes in - social proof. Having strong testimonials and reviews from happy customers is the best way short of doing the work for free to prove to someone new that you do what you say you do and makes their choice to choose you many times easier. The problem is it is also easy to fake reviews, which is another reasons why setting up a Google Business Profile is so important as it is a trusted platform for customers to leave a review on your business which you can use to show on your website and link to your GMB page for proof of your claims. Ontop of that what is even better is to have some form of case studies where you break down past customers journies with their issue, how you helped them and their results. New visitors love reading these and it creates a strong bond to your business making them trust you even more.
Important Note: Social proof is another very powerful tool to boost your rankings on search engines as it is a strong signal that your business is trusted and reputable.
Is it that simple?
It is that simple! However this is a rough overview and there is a lot more to get into to squeeze out as much as you can and truly scale your business on the internet. Luckily, you're in the right place. Scalernet is dedicated to providing you with all these resources for free!
Important Note: The above guide also assumes you have a great and clear offer that you know works for your ideal customer profile (ICP) which you have identified. If you aren't sure or want to improve your offer / ICP, we have a range of resources on Scalernet dedicated to helping you create a great offer that will make your customers tell everyone about you. These resources will be free and are currently being developed for you to use, coming soon!