If you own a pet day care business, the Internet can be an invaluable advertising tool. Online marketing can help spread awareness about your business to get you more clients and aid your business' success. The following are all things which you can do to market your pet boarding or pet day care business online.
Start a Website
The basis for online marketing is having a website through which you can be found. First, you will need to register a domain name. The domain name should make sense when linked to your business. For example, if your business' name is Sally's Pet Care, you can register SallyPetCare.com or something similar if that is already taken.
To register a domain name, you can either hire a webmaster to host it on his server or you can use a website which allows you to build your own site, such as GoDaddy or Webs.com. GoDaddy is less expensive, but harder to use.
Whether you hire a webmaster or decide to build your website yourself, you should make sure it is clean and easily navigated. If your business has a logo, that should be incorporated into the design. Visitors should have no problem finding your rates, services and contact information.
Promote Your Website
There are many different ways to promote your website. First, you should help it rank higher in search engine results by using 2 things: SEO content and backlinks.
SEO (which stands for Search Engine Optimization) is the strategic use of keywords within writing to make your website more noticeable to search engines such as Google and Yahoo!. Many freelance writers know how to write SEO content and will do it for a relatively low price. All of the pages on your website should be optimized for search engines.
Backlinking is when a different website links to your website, which means that search engines will consider your website more credible and put it higher on the results list. You can accomplish this, as well as capture the attention of more people, by starting a blog.
Start a Pet Blog
You can start a blog on Blogspot or Wordpress for free. Use your blog to write about pet care related things, such as fun stories about the crazy cat you watch over. Your blog should also utilize SEO content to bring in visitors, so you might consider hiring a freelancer to update it a certain number of times a week.
Find Pet Lovers
You can further promote your website to a target audience by joining pet lovers' forums. PetLovers.com and PawsperousPets.com are two popular pet forums. You can network with an entire community of people who love their pets, while getting the word out about your business. You don't need to blatantly advertise in your posts, but try making your forum signature a link to your website. This will help with both backlinking and collecting interested traffic.
Post Local Ads
Craigslist is a popular and free website where you can advertise your services in your local community. Go to Craigslist.com to start. It should automatically direct you to your general location, but you may need to choose your location if it doesn't do this for you. Click the link on the top left that says "Post to Classifieds," then choose "Service Offered." Under "Pet Services" on the next page, you can post your ad.
Craigslist offers an anonymous email option, which you should take advantage of. Don't post your personal information on Craigslist and only answer inquiries which seem legitimate.
PPC Advertising
Once your website is up and running, you can help bring in traffic by getting PPC (Pay-Per-Click) ads on search engines or other popular websites like Facebook. The beauty of PPC ads is that you only pay if someone is interested enough to click through to your website - there's no wasted money targeting people who have no interest.
Setting up a website and using SEO content, backlinks and pay-per-click advertising to help drive in as much traffic as possible will bring you local clients and help your pet day care business thrive.
