How to get more clients for a small business

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First, work out where your clients actually come from

Most small businesses can't tell you where their last ten clients came from. That's the first problem to solve — because without that answer, every new euro you spend is spent blind.

Before you change anything, spend a week or two simply asking every new client one question: "How did you hear about us?" The answers will fall into a handful of groups — a referral from someone they know, found you on Google, saw an ad, came from social media, a repeat customer. Write them down. After two weeks you'll have a picture, and it's usually nothing like the one you had in your head.

Why bother? Because getting clients isn't one single action — it's several channels that work at different speeds and different costs. Some bring results within a week but cost you money every single day. Others are free but take months to build. Once you know what's already working for you, you know what to strengthen first and what you don't even need to touch yet.

The simplest way to picture all of it is to sort everything into three levels: foundations (nothing else is worth doing without them), quick wins (cheap, fast, and suitable for almost everyone) and growth engines (for when you want more and faster, or for the long haul). We'll go through them in exactly that order.

Imagine you pay a euro for every visit. If the person who turns up finds an old, slow or confusing website, you've just thrown that euro away. That's why the foundations come first — not because they're impressive, but because without them every other euro leaks straight out.

A tidy website that answers the important questions

Your website doesn't need to be big or expensive. It needs to answer four things in about three seconds: what you do, who for, roughly what it costs, and how to get in touch. More clients are lost to unclear websites than to ugly ones — the kind where you have to click through five pages just to work out whether the business even operates in your town.

Test it the simple way: hand your phone to someone who knows nothing about your business and ask them to tell you, within ten seconds, what you sell and how to order. If they hesitate, the website needs fixing before you buy any advertising. If you'd rather we handled that for you, take a look at how we work with all your marketing in one place.

A phone that gets answered, and enquiries you reply to fast

It sounds obvious, but this is exactly where most deals fall apart. Someone asking for a price is usually asking two of your competitors the same day. The winner isn't the cheapest — it's the one who replies first and clearest. If your enquiries sit until the evening, or until Monday, you're handing clients away for free before you've even started talking to them.

Make yourself one simple rule: every enquiry gets a reply within a couple of hours during working time. It costs nothing and often does more than a whole new advertising budget.

1. Google Business Profile

If your business serves clients in a specific area, your Google Business Profile is the most free, fastest-paying thing you can do, full stop. When someone searches "hairdresser near me" or "plumber in Kaunas", Google shows a map card with a few businesses — and you earn that spot not with money, but with a properly filled-in profile.

Fill in everything: the exact category, opening hours, services, real photos, and a phone number that matches your website. Verify the profile. That alone often doubles the number of calls within a few weeks — with no advertising at all. It's part of the work we cover in our Google Business Profile and reviews service.

2. Genuine reviews

Reviews are one of the few public signals that both people and Google trust. A business with forty reviews and replies to them looks alive; a business with three reviews from 2023 looks abandoned, even if it does excellent work.

Getting them is simple and ethical: when a job is done, ask a happy client to leave a review and send them a direct link. Not everyone will, but some will — and that's enough. Never buy reviews and never write them yourself; people spot fakes, and Google penalises them. There's more on this in our piece on how to get more Google reviews.

3. Local SEO

Local SEO is the work of being found by people searching in your town specifically. In practice it means: your website says clearly where you operate; each service has its own page with the right keywords; and your contact details are identical everywhere. It's a slower channel than your profile, but it's free and long-lasting — once it's set up, it works for months. There's more on our SEO and AEO optimisation page.

Google Ads

Google Ads works when people are already looking for what you sell. Someone types "roof repair in Vilnius" — you appear at the top, and you only pay when they click. It's the fastest way to get enquiries today rather than in three months. The downside: you pay for every click, so without a tidy website and a clear offer your money will burn through quickly.

Meta (Facebook and Instagram) ads

Meta ads work differently: there, people aren't searching for anything — they're scrolling. You're not shown to someone who already wants to buy; you create the want in someone who hadn't thought about it yet. That works brilliantly for visual products and services, for news, offers and local awareness. The click is often cheaper than on Google, but the person is "colder", so you need a stronger offer and a bit more patience.

Lead generation

Advertising brings the person in, but the enquiry itself is only born when you offer a clear, simple next step: get a quote, book an inspection, download a price list. Lead generation is the whole chain from the ad to a completed form in your inbox: the right offer, a clear page, a short form, a fast reply. If you'd like us to take care of that part, have a look at our lead generation service.

One important truth about advertising: it doesn't fix bad foundations, it just speeds them up. If your website is confusing, ads will only show you faster how many people flee it. That's why the advertising section comes after the foundations, not before.

Advertising has one quality: the day you stop, the traffic stops too. Long-term flow works the opposite way — you build it slowly, but once it's built it keeps working even when you're not paying. That's SEO, AEO and content.

SEO and AEO. SEO is about getting found on Google; AEO is about getting AI tools such as ChatGPT or Gemini to mention your business in their answer. More and more people ask a chatbot instead of a search box, and some of those clients are the most valuable of all, because they ask in detail and genuinely intend to buy. The good news is that the work for both directions is almost the same: a clean structure, clear answers, consistent data. There's more in our piece on what AEO is.

Content. Content isn't "writing for the sake of writing". It's answers to the questions your clients ask you every day. Every serious question on the phone is the topic of a future article or page. Someone who finds that answer arrives already half trusting you — and often already ready to buy. It's a slow channel, but a cheap and very durable one, especially in Lithuania, where many of your competitors don't do it at all.

The biggest mistake when chasing new clients is forgetting the ones you already have. Winning a new client costs considerably more than bringing back an old one. Someone who has already bought and was happy already trusts you — selling to them a second time is the easiest sale there is.

Referrals. Happy clients are glad to refer you — but only when you ask. Usually nobody asks. When you finish a good job, just say: "If you know anyone who needs this, I'd be grateful for a referral." It's free, and it works better than most advertising.

Repeat business. A reminder to old clients often brings orders straight away. A short message or email with a specific offer to people who haven't been in touch for six months costs almost nothing. A tidy list of past clients is one of the most valuable things a small business owns — and usually the one it never uses.

You don't need complicated reports. For a small business, three things you can track in a simple spreadsheet are enough.

Enquiries and calls. How many people got in touch this month, and where they came from. If you're asking every client "how did you hear about us", you already have this column. It shows which channel is moving at all.

How many enquiries turned into clients. Ten enquiries and one deal is a completely different situation from ten enquiries and seven deals. If you get plenty of enquiries but few deals, the problem isn't the advertising — it's your offer or the way you reply to enquiries.

Cost per client. Simple arithmetic: take what you spent on a channel this month and divide it by the number of clients it brought in. If Google Ads brings a client for ten euros and your average client is worth a hundred to you, that's not an expense — it's an investment to scale up. If it's the other way round, stop and find where it's breaking down.

The point is simple: measure for at least a few months before drawing conclusions. One bad week means nothing, but the numbers over a quarter start telling the truth.

• Buying ads on top of a bad website. The most common and most expensive mistake. Ads bring people in; a confusing website sends them away. Foundations first.
• Trying every channel at once. On a tight budget, one channel done well beats five done a little. Scattered effort gets no result anywhere.
• Replying to enquiries slowly. A client who waits a day for a reply is usually already talking to a competitor. Speed wins more often than price.
• Measuring nothing. Without numbers you make decisions on gut feeling, and in marketing gut feeling is often wrong. Even a minimal spreadsheet changes everything.
• Expecting results in a week. Your profile and advertising deliver quickly; SEO, content and reputation take months. Mix up the expectations and you'll kill good channels too early.
• Constantly changing direction. A new idea every month, with last month's work abandoned, is a guaranteed way to go nowhere. Consistency matters more than a brilliant idea.
• Forgetting your existing clients. The whole budget goes on new ones, and the old ones are left behind. The cheapest clients are usually the ones you already have.