How to Develop a Strong Online Presence for Your Business

Whether you’ve just set up a business or you’re looking for ways to expand your current business, one of the best things you can do is to concentrate on your online presence. The digital world is a part of most people’s lives, and you can use it to find more customers, expand your marketing campaign, make more sales, and grow your company.

This article will help business owners understand how they can develop a stronger online presence for their business, as well as why it’s so important.

Why Set Up a Business Website

Over the past few years, more and more businesses have focused on creating a company website. Even smaller companies are often found online. This is because it’s easier for people to find your business and learn more about it when there is some kind of online presence.

For example, when you have a website, you have an easy way for people to find where your business premises are located, as well as how to get in touch. If you’re a local, service-based business, this can be helpful when making appointments. People prefer to learn more online, and by setting up your own website, you can exert control over what information people have.

A business website isn’t a one-trick pony. It is useful for marketing purposes, for e-commerce, for testimonials, as a portfolio, as a point of contact, and so much more. By not setting up a business website, you risk being left behind by more tech-savvy companies. 

Digital Marketing

An online presence gives your company the opportunity to take advantage of a massive market. Digital marketing hasn’t completely replaced traditional marketing methods, but it has overtaken traditional marketing as the primary form of marketing for many companies. Yes, traditional marketing is useful, especially in the local market, but digital marketing can reach so much further.

Your online presence allows you to use digital marketing to its full potential, as you can provide links to your website or social media. You can also reach more people and, depending on your business, even expand to a global market. 

To get the most out of digital marketing, it’s important to use experts in the field. For example, this SEO company can help you level up your website content marketing and take advantage of how people interact with search engines. Most people use search engines such as Google to find the products and services they want, and they rarely venture further than the first page. Proper SEO marketing and methods make sure that your business is more visible and relevant to these customers. 

Digital marketing experts can help a struggling marketing campaign excel. This is the best way to find more potential customers and to convert interest into engagement and sales. But you need an online presence for people to engage with in the first place.

Social Media

You can’t talk about having an online presence without thinking about social media. Social media has taken the world by storm, and it’s often an affordable way to market your business and make direct contact with your customers and target audience.

There are a few ways to use social media to your advantage. The first is fairly simple, you need a social media account. There are a lot of different social media platforms to choose from, and you can have multiple accounts. But to start with, focus on platforms that are more popular with your target audience. So if you are marketing to younger people, use social media like TikTok. If you’re marketing to other companies, LinkedIn might be a good option. 

Once you know which social media platforms to focus on, you can make your account and, just as importantly, keep it updated and relevant. You don’t want to spam social media, but you do want to post regularly. Make sure the things you post are relevant to your audience and your business and, ideally, are things people will be interested in.

This might include an inside look into the business, with videos showing products being created and packaged. Or it could be events that you’re taking part in. Or it might be information about your industry. Or you might even have deals and promotions that are exclusive to your social media followers. All of this gives people a reason to follow your company account, especially if they can benefit from deals and loyalty schemes.

Social media is, first and foremost, a communication tool. So use it to communicate with your customers and connect with them on a deeper level. Show your human side.

You can also use social media to advertise your business more traditionally, by paying for adverts to be put on the feed and hopefully generate more interest. Or you can connect with influencers who can hopefully drum up more interest in your business with sponsorship deals.

Using E-commerce

In this article, e-commerce has been mentioned a couple of times, but it’s a very useful and important way to boost your sales. True, some industries can’t operate on an e-commerce scale. You can’t exactly cut someone’s hair online, for example. 

However, if you sell products, e-commerce can help you to expand your customer base much further afield. When you’re advertising products and displaying them, make sure to use good pictures and product descriptions so people know exactly what they’re buying. Incentivise reviews, as more people are willing to buy a product they know other people have enjoyed.

You should also make it easy for people to buy your products. They should be able to navigate your website and find what they need without having to spend ages scouring the website. Then it should be simple for them to actually go through the checkout process.

While it’s good to get people’s contact information when possible for further marketing purposes, give people the option to get through the checkout process more quickly by creating a guest account, and, if possible, you should implement a quick and secure payment method. All of this will lessen the risk of abandoned shopping carts and annoyed customers.

Image Source: Domenico Loia and Jakob Owens via Unsplash