In today’s competitive business environment, having a presence in the digital world is crucial to your success. This can be as simple as a website, landing page, and blog, or as complex as an entire domain name, email address, and Social Media accounts.
While having an interesting and professional website is a good start, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve done all you can to establish your online brand. You need to go the extra mile. Read on to discover more.
Create a Website for your Business
Creating a website for your business is one of the most important first steps you can take to build and nurture your online presence. A good website will help you attract new customers, increase sales, keep existing customers happy and improve customer service.
Here are just some of the reasons why having a website is so important:
- It’s an easy way to connect with your customers and potential clients.
- It helps you sell more products and services by providing more information about them. It also helps you show off your company in a professional way.
- Your customers can find you on search engines like Google and Bing, so they’ll be able to find you easily when they need what you sell or service. This means more traffic for your site and improved SEO rankings for your keywords!
Build out your website properly. This includes setting up blog posts and articles, adding social media accounts, linking back to other websites or products, creating FAQ pages, and more!
Secure your Domain Name
The first step towards establishing your online presence is to secure your domain name. You can register a domain name with a registrar, who will provide you with an address where you can host your website and other related software. Alternatively, you can purchase an existing domain name from another company or individual.
The next step is to purchase hosting services from a company that has partnered with Google or another popular search engine platform. This allows you to install software and scripts needed to run your website on the server for which you are paying.
You’ll also want to consider installing a website analytics program to track how visitors interact with your site and what they do once they get there.
Register the Business Social Media Handles
Social media is an essential part of any marketing campaign, but that doesn’t mean you have to spend all your time on it. However, if you’re going to use social media for your business, there are some things that you should do first.
First, register the business social media handles with each platform that you plan on using. For example, if you plan on using Instagram for your business and Facebook for your personal life, you will need two separate accounts for each. Each account should be set up with different email addresses and set-ups without causing confusion or problems down the road.
Second, check out the platform’s privacy settings so that they don’t take away from what makes your brand unique and recognisable. For example, if it is very important for your brand to use a certain hashtag or phrase to gain more exposure, make sure that this isn’t being blocked by the platform itself.
Optimise your Website for SEO
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is one of the most effective ways to improve your company’s online presence and increase brand awareness.
You can use SEO tactics to rank higher in search results, which helps people find you when they’re looking for what you offer.
Here are some tips on how to optimise your business’s website for SEO:
- Optimise links between pages — linking back to your homepage is a good place to start. This will help you ensure that visitors who land on a specific page are directed there from another page, rather than getting lost in the crowd.
- Use headings — headings can be used to break up long lists of content and make it easier for users to navigate through your site.
- Include keywords in title tags — Google considers these tags as part of the title tag when ranking websites, so including relevant keywords ensures that you rank higher in search results. This can help drive traffic from potential customers searching for similar products or services.
- Use alt tags — alt tags provide additional information about images, videos, and other media content on a web page, including supplemental text describing the image or video frame as well as any additional information.
Build an Email List
Email is one of the most important marketing channels you can use to generate leads and drive sales. It’s also a cost-effective way to build awareness of your brand, which will help when you start to put together a marketing plan.
You can send emails to your list as often as you want, but it’s important to make sure that they’re relevant to what your audience is looking for. If you have a new blog post on your site, send an email about it. If you have a new product available for sale on your site, send an email about that.
If someone follows you on Twitter and likes one of your posts, send an email about that post. You can also use other tools, like Hootsuite or MailPoet, which allow you to track your email engagement rates and even segment your audience based on their interests. This helps you personalise your emails and increase open rates by targeting relevant people with your content.
Try Paid Ads
If you want to get the most out of your website, you’ll want to keep it up-to-date and make sure it’s optimised for different devices. You can do this by adding content like blog posts and videos.
There are two main ways to monetise a website: paid ads and affiliate marketing. Paid ads work best when you’re selling something but don’t want to come across pushy or annoying while affiliate marketing is more hands-off but still works well if you’re selling a product or service.
Paid ads are usually displayed on a simple landing page with a call-to-action button. You can use them to promote specific products or services, as well as offer discounts on other products or services that complement yours. You can also create exclusive offers designed just for your website visitors; these could include free shipping, free trials, or even exclusive access only available through your website.
Provide Customer Service Policies
Customers appreciate knowing what they can expect when dealing with a company, which is why it’s important to have clear policies in place so they know what will happen if something goes wrong. This will also help prevent problems down the road when someone has a question or complaint about their experience with your business.
Encourage Customers to Write Online Reviews
This is the easiest way to give your business a boost. If you have a good product or service, people will naturally want to support you by writing online reviews. This can be hard work, but it’s well worth it.
You should set up a page on your website where people can leave reviews for your business. You should also encourage customers to write reviews on sites like Yelp and Google. These sites are easy to use and will improve your reputation in the eyes of potential customers.
If they like your product or service enough to recommend it, chances are they’ll want other people to know via reviews. It’s not enough for them just to post positive comments on social media; they’ll want those same people to know everything there is about their experience with you so far.
Take time to Engage with Customers
You can’t expect to build an online presence for your business without engaging with customers.
When you engage with your customers, you are showing them that you care about them, their needs, and their expectations. You are establishing credibility with your potential customers by proving that you have the knowledge and expertise they need.
If you want to build an online presence for your business, here are some things that you can do:
- Take time to engage with customers, for example by answering questions on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Be sure to respond promptly and clearly to any questions or comments.
- Answer customer service calls in a timely fashion so that when someone asks a question, they know they will get a response within an hour or two at most.
- Make sure your answers are clear and concise so that the customer can easily understand them. If you use jargon, be sure to explain what it means in plain English.
- If you don’t have an answer right now, tell them so (in a friendly tone). Don’t make them feel like they’re being ignored or that you’re avoiding their question.
Final thoughts
Online presence is the core of online marketing. It sets your business apart from your competitors, and it is a key factor for growth and success.
Without establishing your business online, you will find it difficult to grow substantially. The good news is that internet marketing has advanced in recent years with new tools that are now available online to help you market more efficiently.