Here in Britain, we have an economic climate in which more and more people are becoming self-employed and starting their own businesses. As the founder and CEO of online vape shop Electric Tobacconist, I understand what it takes to turn an idea into a successful business.

Electronic cigarettes and the e-liquid used to vape them are currently classed as tobacco products. For this reason, no-one within my industry can pay for advertising, so we’ve all needed to look further afield as to how we can improve our company’s visibility online.

I’d already had some experience of this working for my father’s business selling fireworks — an industry in which similar advertising restrictions exist. Because of this, I was aware of the value of search engine optimisation (SEO) as an essential marketing strategy.

Thanks to my self-taught SEO knowledge (and a little extra I picked up on the way), I have been able to achieve excellent visibility across all aspects of my business — and I’m adamant that these techniques and strategies would be effective for any company.

While my industry is unable to perform pay-per-click (PPC) advertising for legal reasons, it doesn’t have to be the primary source of promotion for a business either.

Perhaps you don’t have the budget to carry out a prolonged PPC campaign, or, like me, you consider PPC advertising to be a little fake. Think about your other options and achieve a more genuine style of branding that needn’t be expensive.

1. The Importance of Search Engine Optimisation

The foundation of your online marketing campaign, strong SEO will maximise your brand’s efficiency, allowing you to target potential customers in a precise manner.

As the nature of the UK’s consumer habits change and eCommerce becomes the preferred purchasing platform, SEO becomes an essential tool in the design of both the front and back end elements of your website.

A cornerstone of SEO is the practice of targeting the words and phrases that potential customers search for online. By focusing on these ‘keywords’, we can optimise both our content and the structure of our web pages to maximise our visibility in Google searches.

When combined with a content marketing outreach campaign (more on this shortly), we can really drive our traffic up. All that’s left after that is to convert it to sales!

Vape devices are classified as tobacco products, so can't be advertised in the UK

2. On-Page SEO

While there is less to be said about on-page SEO, this particular area has still been a key factor in the growth of my business. When the Electric Tobacconist website first went live in 2013, it had undergone rigorous on-page SEO testing.

This is a fundamental aspect of a digital marketing campaign — and one that’s extremely satisfying to get right. On-page SEO allowed my vape shop to improve its Google rankings without any additional content marketing, meaning the business got rolling from the moment it started.

3. Combining Content Marketing

Once you are equipped with some SEO know-how, it’s time to out into the big bad world of the internet to promote our business via a content marketing outreach campaign. The value of content marketing comes from its ability to secure ‘backlinks’.

A backlink provides an opportunity to link the website of your business to another through online content (such as blogs, comment pieces, social media and article contributions). This acts to increase your website’s Domain Authority, as well as increasing your brand’s image in precisely whichever way you choose.

While you can promote your business through on-page SEO alone, content marketing holds excellent potential to improve a number of key aspects for your business.

Visibility and traffic are the two most measurable benefits of a successful content marketing campaign, but for new or smaller businesses, the most value comes from the trust you can create around your brand.

While a television advert might have a great impact on someone, the ability to produce informative, high-quality content that both excites and educates potential customers is an invaluable asset to any business owner.

With just a little dedication and patience, anyone is capable of using these three marketing tools to help make their business more successful. Without them, your online presence will be constantly fighting against the tide.

Pascal Culverhouse is a self-taught SEO specialist and founder of online vape shop Electric Tobacconist.