How to Market Your Small Business' Digital Presence in Washington

Welcome to my blog! Here you’ll find digital marketing strategies and SEO tips for small businesses. I share the insights I gathered from 10+ years in tech and design, specialized digital marketing & SEO training, certification in project management and an MBA. 

In this post, I explore the nuances of user search behavior. What do small business owners actually need to consider when marketing to different consumer types? The answer involves a creative lens to evaluate potential customer behavior. Let's dig into these topics and more on a road trip across the Pacific Northwest. Let’s talk digital marketing strategy.

Your Local Customers

Get into the mind of your customers. What are your customer personas - or, in other words, which customers are you targeting?

Let’s say you own a boutique art studio in the San Juan islands in Washington state. Your small business gives classes in watercolor, photography and sculpture. 

A Road Trip across the PnW

A potential customer could be a young professional from Northern California with some discretionary money (and an affinity for art and nature), planning a road trip across the Pacific Northwest with a couple of friends. 

Now get into the mind of your customer…let’s call her Stacy. What is Stacy likely to search for? To start, she may be less familiar with the PnW and may be more likely to search for the Pacific Northwest.

Searches Start Broad, Then Narrow

After a few broad searches like “top things to do in Pacific Northwest” and “top things to do in Oregon Washington,” Stacy learns that the islands around the Puget Sound have a lot of activities she and her friends are looking for, such as shopping, art, museums and beaches. 

Stacy’s business (and her friends’) is within our reach!

How do we get Stacy to find our unique photography class? After all, there are a ton of activities and businesses competing for her attention, including fun things to do out in nature. 

The Digital Marketing of Your Small Business: The Creative Side

This is where digital marketing gets fun and why I love what I do. 

If we get creative and play our cards right, we’ll have multiple opportunities to show up in Stacy’s search results…and the more times she sees our small WA business, the more likely she is to convert into a customer.

What do I mean by playing our cards right? Within the category of photography classes alone, we have the opportunity to position ourselves at the top of Stacy’s searches for the Pacific Northwest, Seattle, Puget Sound, WA. 

While planning for the trip, Stacy brings up the idea of the Puget Sound islands, a short ferry ride away from Seattle. Her friends brainstorm fun things to do:

Whale Watching

Her friend asks if there are any whale watching tours in WA. A quick search reveals that there are many small businesses in the Puget Sound with tour options.

The SEO Opportunity

At a quick glance, these companies appear to be interchangeable.

Differentiate yourself - Partner with a tour to provide photography classes onboard.

You can make it to the top of the search page yourself, or you have the added chance to piggyback off of the tour business’ SEO credibility. 

On the other hand, you could simply take advantage of the opportunities to photograph whales from certain points along the shore on the San Juan Islands while strategically increasing your SEO.

Bigfoot

One of Stacy’s friends has an obsession with Bigfoot and she specifically suggested Washington because of it. Stacy’s friend looks up the San Juan island + Bigfoot and is disappointed to see there is little available for her.

The SEO Opportunity

This is fantastic news for you as a small business! It would take very little work to boost your search engine results for “san juan islands bigfoot.”

Simply marketing a photography class as “WA Sasquatch Snapshots: The Legend of Bigfoot” would give you the opportunity to get your business in front of Stacy and her friends.

Haunted Spots

Stacy watches a lot of ghost hunting shows and wants to see what Washington has to offer. She learns about Friday Harbor’s haunted spots and decides it’s a must-see.

The SEO Opportunity

Most of the Puget Sound’s ghost tours are in Seattle. Occasionally, a local history researcher leads ghost walks in Friday Harbor but online searches for “haunted puget sound islands” or “creepy tours puget sound islands” are lacking, revealing a prime opportunity to position a photography class.

How Will You Make SEO Work for You?

By focusing on photography - just one component of your small business - you can rank for terms like:

• Independent art studio san juan island

• Photography class puget sound islands

• Photography class near seattle

• Whale watching san juan islands

• San juan islands bigfoot

• Creepy tours / haunted puget sound islands

After all, if people can’t find your business, they can’t buy your goods or experience your services.

With just a little creative thinking and unique positioning, you can reach the top pages of Google and help potential customers find you.