LEARNING

The complete guide to marketing your business

What every business owner should know about digital marketing, distribution and growth.

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1. Start with a marketing strategy, not a marketing channel

Before commissioning a website, buying advertising or hiring someone to manage your social media, you need to understand what you're trying to achieve.

Marketing strategy is the foundation that connects your business objectives to the activities, channels and campaigns you invest in.

Without it, you risk spending time and money on activities that look productive but don't contribute to your business goals.

What should your marketing strategy include?

Business objectives

What do you actually want marketing to achieve?

For example:

  • Increase brand awareness in a particular market.

  • Generate qualified leads.

  • Increase online sales.

  • Launch a new product or service.

  • Enter a new geographical market.

  • Improve customer retention.

  • Build authority and credibility within your industry.

  • Attract new business partners or investors.

Your objectives should be specific enough that you can measure progress.

Audience and customer understanding

Who are you trying to reach? What do they need? What problems are they trying to solve? Where do they look for information, and what influences their purchasing decisions?

Don't just define your audience by age, location or job title. Understand their motivations, challenges, objections and expectations.

Measurement

How will you know whether your marketing is working?

Establish a baseline and decide which metrics matter. Website traffic, qualified enquiries, conversion rates, newsletter subscriptions, returning customers and revenue are generally more useful than simply counting social media likes.

Positioning and messaging

What makes your business different? Why should someone choose you over a competitor? You need a consistent explanation of:

  • What you offer.

  • Who you help.

  • What problem you solve.

  • Why your approach is different.

  • What evidence supports your claims.

Channel strategy

Where should your business be visible?

This might include organic search, AI-powered search, social media, email, PR, advertising, industry publications, events, partnerships and offline marketing.

You don't need to use every channel. You need to identify the channels that are most relevant to your audience and objectives.

Quick wins

  • Write down your three most important business objectives.

  • Identify your primary and secondary audiences.

  • Review your website and social profiles. Do they clearly explain what you do?

  • Ask your sales and customer service teams what questions customers repeatedly ask.

  • Identify five competitors and examine how they position themselves.

  • Establish a handful of meaningful marketing KPIs.

Tip

Don't confuse marketing strategy with a content calendar. A content calendar tells you what you're publishing and when. A marketing strategy explains why you're publishing it, who it is intended to reach and what you want it to achieve.

2. SEO and GEO: Make sure people can find you

Your business could offer an amazing product or service, but if people cannot find it when they're looking for something you provide, you're missing opportunities.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) and generative engine optimisation (GEO) help make your business discoverable across traditional search engines and AI-powered discovery tools.

These disciplines are becoming more important as people change how they research companies, compare products and find recommendations.

What is SEO?

Search engine optimisation is the process of improving your website and online presence so that search engines such as Google can understand your content and present it to people searching for relevant information.

SEO isn't simply about adding keywords to a webpage. It involves several interconnected areas.

On-page SEO

On-page SEO focuses on the content and structure of individual webpages.

This includes:

  • Page titles and meta descriptions.

  • Heading structures.

  • Relevant keywords and search intent.

  • Internal linking.

  • Image optimisation and descriptive alt text.

  • Clear, useful page content.

  • Logical URL structures.

Off-page SEO

Off-page SEO concerns signals beyond your own website that contribute to its visibility and authority.

These can include:

  • Backlinks from reputable websites.

  • Digital PR coverage.

  • Industry publications.

  • Relevant business directories.

  • Expert contributions.

  • Brand mentions and citations.

Technical SEO

Technical SEO ensures that search engines can access, crawl and understand your website.

This includes:

  • Website speed and performance.

  • Mobile responsiveness.

  • Crawlability and indexability.

  • XML sitemaps.

  • URL structures.

  • Canonical tags.

  • Structured data and schema markup.

  • HTTPS security.

  • Broken links and redirect management.

  • Core Web Vitals.

Content SEO

Content is one of the most important components of a sustainable SEO strategy.

Your website should answer the questions your potential customers are searching for. This might mean publishing detailed guides, comparison articles, case studies, tutorials, industry commentary and frequently asked questions.

Rather than publishing dozens of generic articles, concentrate on creating useful resources that demonstrate your expertise and address genuine customer needs.

What should you do for GEO?

  • Publish detailed, genuinely useful content that answers specific questions.

  • Explain your products and services clearly and consistently.

  • Use descriptive headings and logical content structures.

  • Include relevant facts, figures, examples and supporting evidence.

  • Publish case studies demonstrating your expertise.

  • Make your organisation, authorship and expertise clear.

  • Ensure important business information is consistent across your website and external profiles.

  • Build a presence on reputable third-party websites, publications and industry platforms.

  • Use structured data where appropriate.

  • Make sure your website can be accessed by the search crawlers you intend to support.

You should also monitor how your brand appears in AI-generated answers. Test questions that potential customers might ask and examine which companies, sources and recommendations are appearing.

GEO is an evolving discipline, and no one can guarantee that a particular optimisation technique will secure AI citations or recommendations. But keep an eye out for new developments.

What is GEO?

Generative engine optimisation (GEO) is the practice of making your business and its content easier for generative AI systems to discover, understand, reference and potentially recommend.

People increasingly use tools such as ChatGPT, Google AI experiences and other AI-powered search assistants to research products, find service providers, compare solutions and ask questions.

These systems don't necessarily present information in the same way as traditional search engines.

Instead of simply returning a list of webpages, they may synthesise information from multiple sources to produce an answer.

GEO therefore involves improving the quality, clarity, structure and credibility of your online information so that AI systems have useful material to draw upon.

It overlaps significantly with good SEO, but introduces additional considerations around how your brand is represented across the wider web.

Where should you start with SEO and GEO?

If you've never invested in either, start with the basics.

  1. Set up Google Search Console to understand how your website performs in Google search.

  2. Set up Google Analytics 4 or another suitable analytics platform to understand website behaviour.

  3. Conduct a technical SEO audit.

  4. Research the keywords and questions your target audience uses.

  5. Review your existing website content and identify gaps.

  6. Optimise your main service, product and landing pages.

  7. Create a content plan based on customer questions and search intent.

  8. Review your brand's visibility across relevant AI search tools.

Quick wins

  • Rewrite vague page titles and descriptions.

  • Add descriptive headings to important webpages.

  • Improve internal links between related pages.

  • Update outdated articles and statistics.

  • Add useful FAQs to relevant service pages.

  • Make sure your contact details and business information are consistent.

  • Publish a comprehensive article addressing a question your customers frequently ask.

Tip: SEO and GEO aren't separate content factories. A well-researched, clearly written article that answers a genuine customer question can support both traditional search visibility and AI discovery. Focus on usefulness, accuracy, authority and accessibility rather than trying to manufacture content for algorithms.