Short answer
- The highest-value marketing tips for most small businesses are boring: a complete Google profile, more reviews, faster replies, clear prices, and staying in touch with past customers.
- Do one 10-minute task a day and one 1-hour task a week. That's enough to beat most local competitors.
- Measure where every new customer came from, so you know which tips are paying off.
10-minute tips
| Tip | Why it helps |
|---|---|
| Check your Google hours, phone and website link | Wrong hours lose customers and annoy the ones who show up |
| Ask one happy customer for a review today | Recent reviews help both rankings and trust |
| Reply to every unanswered review | New customers read replies, especially to bad reviews |
| Add three new photos of real work to your Google profile | Real photos beat stock images for trust |
| Put a price or "from" price on your best service | Hidden prices send people to competitors who show theirs |
| Save a review link as a phone shortcut | Makes asking for reviews a 5-second job |
A step-by-step routine for reviews is in How to get more Google reviews.
1-hour tips
- Test your own website on your phone. Can you find the phone number and book in under 10 seconds? If not, fix that before anything else.
- Write the answers to your five most common customer questions and put them on your website as an FAQ.
- Set up a short reply template for enquiries, so every message gets a fast, friendly first answer.
- Make one offer for your quiet days and post it on your Google profile and social channel.
- List every service you offer in your Google Business Profile, with a sentence each.
- Introduce yourself to two non-competing local businesses who serve the same customers, and agree to recommend each other.
Monthly habits
- Send one helpful email or text to past customers who agreed to hear from you: a seasonal reminder, a tip, or an offer.
- Publish one useful page or article answering a real customer question.
- Check where last month's customers came from, and do more of what worked.
- Post a few times a week on the one social channel your customers use most, ideally short videos of real work.
- Review your prices and packages against your costs and competitors.
Small business marketing tips for 2026: people increasingly see AI-generated summaries and answers before they click. Clear, specific pages that answer real questions, plus strong reviews, are what tend to get picked up and trusted.
Business tips for owners short on time
| If you… | Then… |
|---|---|
| Miss calls while working | Use a call-back text or answering service; missed calls are lost jobs |
| Hate social media | Pick one channel, post real work photos, ignore the rest |
| Have no time to write | Record voice notes answering customer questions and have them turned into pages |
| Don't know what's working | Ask every new customer how they found you, and write it down |
| Want to outsource | Hand off the website, Google profile and ads first; keep pricing and sales calls yourself |
What to skip
- Buying followers or reviews. It breaks platform rules and the FTC's rules on fake reviews.
- Being on every platform at once.
- Long-term contracts with vague monthly reports.
- Redesigning your logo before your website and Google profile work.
If you'd rather hand these off, I start with the basics for most clients: a fast website, a complete Google Business Profile and a review system. See Small business marketing for the order I recommend.