Whether you own a local brick-and-mortar location that's not yet online or you are having trouble sowing internet roots for your business, there are a few key steps you can take to help ensure a solid foundation is built. Let’s take a look at the four key components to getting any company incorporated into the world of online business.
Create a Website
In 2022, people have learned to rely on the internet for almost everything in their lives. This is especially true when it comes to finding businesses to fulfill their needs as a consumer. The phrase “the customer is always right” is as true online as it is in person. A recent study found that over 63% of consumers prefer to interact with businesses through their websites, and this number is on the rise.
Investing in your website is never a bad idea since your web presence is typically one of the biggest impressions you will have on potential customers. A badly formatted or confusing website can be the nail in the coffin when it comes to losing sales. Remember to format your website for mobile devices, where the majority of users spend their time surfing the web.
When building your website, highlight the key information about your brand and keep your navigation simple and straightforward. Using your website to educate site visitors should be of the utmost importance. Be sure to establish ways to track page metrics on your site, which can help you make future marketing efforts more effective.
Set Up Your Google Business Profile
Setting up your Google Business Profile is a great step toward establishing your business online and gaining traffic. This listing gets your business established in three key areas on Google search results: showing up on Google Maps, appearing with local results on a standard Google search, and listed in the knowledge panel for branded search results - which is the summary box that appears on the right-hand side of the search results page.
The quicker someone can find this key information, the more Google will point traffic to your business. This is a relatively simple step that boasts huge results within the Google algorithm, which is a massive part of any online marketing strategy.
Establish Social Media Accounts
Social media is an effective form of inbound marketing that can make or break your business. It is important to set up business accounts on the most popular social media platforms, including creating a Facebook Page. You'll need to create a Facebook profile first if you don't already have one. When setting up your social media profiles, be sure to fill out all the information requested, as this will help the overall visibility of the page by users.
Next head to Linkedin, Twitter, and Instagram. Depending on your target audience, Reddit, and TikTok can also be valuable platforms to join. You may want to create accounts for the platforms you think you’ll use either right away or down the line if only to nail down the usernames or “handles” for future use. The more platforms you use, the more chances you have to reach users, no matter where they spend their time online.
While getting all these accounts created in the beginning is a good idea, it's also wise to narrow your focus to only one or two of these social accounts if your time and resources are limited. With this concentrated method, you can give the most relevant platforms more energy to get them growing quickly, which may be the best choice until you can get a social media
strategy implemented.
Social media is quickly becoming one of the most influential parts of a brand’s online presence, with over 74% of consumers stating they use social networks to guide their purchasing decisions.
Start Your First Ad Campaign
Regardless of your company's size, one of the fundamental steps to growing a business on the internet will be through online paid advertising, through Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising, or social media advertising. The sooner you can get ads running, the more traffic you can guide to your website.
Budgeting for online advertising can be tricky. On average, small businesses start by utilizing between 5 and 15% of their revenue towards marketing. Your initial campaigns do not have to be this large, and you can take time with a smaller investment to determine your ad strategy. If this is the case, you can just run a few small ads, treated as if it was just a study of your market. You’ll gain valuable insights into the who, what, where, when, and why of your audience, and you can use this information to make more informed advertising decisions in the future. Beyond Google, the other big player in the online ad space will be Facebook. Both have their pros and cons, and each offers unique advantages.
Are you having trouble growing your online presence? We can help! Contact us today to learn more about our digital marketing services.