SETTING UP A BUSINESS

We take a local look at Small Businesses in Waterlooville, Portsmouth and Bishops Waltham..

With the local advertising that is on offer these days from papers to magazines, is it really dead or alive? We took an informative and specialised view on the best and worst forms of local advertising for small businesses in the Waterlooville, Portsmouth, Bishops Waltham area of Hampshire. Going back to the days before the internet, the only way to advertise was through local and national newspapers, or localised magazines. This was always the very best way to get your business known, especially when setting up a small business, but with the ever emerging internet and the latest smart phones. People now prefer looking for a local company on the web, and Google is the number choice with over 85% of the UK market.

Spending money on Search Engine Optimisation, for small businesses in Waterlooville, Portsmouth and Bishops Waltham

So is it best to spend money on Search Engine Optimisation for your small business in Waterlooville, Portsmouth or Bishops Waltham? The truthful answer is yes, the reason is that to generally optimise a website for a local search on somewhere like Google, Bing or Yahoo is can cost between £100 and £300 a month. Which we believe is great value for money, and the best thing that can be done for anything on the internet is that it can be tracked. We were asked recently how can you track it, we said that you can through any website you can insert a small snippet of code and throughout the day it can be tracked. This is great to see where, when and what people are looking at, but the truth is that 90% of websites don’t even do this!

Should I spend money on local advertising, if I run a Business in Waterlooville, Portsmouth or Bishops Waltham?

The answer is yes and no, if you can afford to spend money on your small business, then do both. But the main issue with local advertising is that once you have seen an advert once, you have seen it a million times. You don’t really know how many get delivered and the ones that due most probably end up in the bin. Times have changed in 2013, and magazines and newspapers are something of the nineties and are not viewed in the same way. An average advert in a magazine (A4/A5) at full page costs between £130 – £550 a month, and an advert in a newspaper costs from £25 a month for a very small advert (which doesn’t really get seen). Then a full page isn’t really worth talking about, due to the costs!

Nowadays money can be spent much better and smarter, for example find a local company that has the best knowledge and won’t charge the earth for what they do, do as much as you can for free and do it correctly. For example anyone can setup a Facebook page, and we have seen many local companies doing this recently, but most of them only really understand advertising from a paper point of view. If you take the wrong advise or pay peanuts then expect it to back fire on your business, but spend a decent amount on getting your social media completed correctly then your will see the results. You can even pay someone to fully train you.

Best advice for small businesses in Waterlooville, Portsmouth, Bishops Waltham

Our best advice for any small business in Waterlooville, Portsmouth, Bishops Waltham or even Fareham is to consult a expert for expert advice. Look at what you are spending monthly and spend it more wisely. If you have a shop and sell locally and you aren’t on the internet, then we suggest hiring someone that can help you.

As always we can really help you, just use our contact us page and get in contact today.