5 Basic Steps to Create Online Presence for Your Business
According to the leading ORM services India, suppose, you have just started your business and is new to this entrepreneurial world; many questions must have made you think and leave frustrated. Nowadays, every customer turns up to the internet; whether for searching any product or making any purchase decision. Even if you send a casual introductory mail to a recently met person, chances are – he/she will try to find more information about you on Facebook, Linkedin or other social sites to get to know you well. This has become common. Whether you are a normal person or entrepreneur, your online presence has become the actual persona of your life. To boost online presence for any business, Digital Marketing plays an important role.
Statistically speaking, According to Google 97% of consumers use the web i.e. internet to search for local businesses or products/services – and if the vast majority of your potential customers are online, you should be, too. Having a strong online presence is a crucial step of your online marketing strategy, no matter what size your business is or what industry it belongs to. Creating an online presence for your business is now more easy as compared to old digital days. You can even learn these basic online skills through Online Marketing Course or program to have an overview about the online strategies. Before that, you should follow these tactics if you are planning to create your business online.
1) Choose a Good Domain and Create a Website
Your website will be the destination of your potential customers where they would like to land in to know more about your business. Domains are like the addresses of your website. Generally, we recommend your company name to choose as the domain name. However, if you are into blogging or some other online business, you need to have a right domain name for your website which should be related to your business.
The website helps to set up a quick, free profile of your business which can serve as another way customers can find you as well as interact with your business whether you are into restaurants, e-commerce, salons etc. All businesses, no matter how small, should have a website. It can be extremely basic, but it should contain the fundamental
information customers – both existing and potential – need. For example, you have created a restaurant website. However, your website doesn’t have the current menu, opening hours, location and contact information. It will be useless. The website should contain all the relevant and required information so that your customers will love to land on your website again and again. Statistically: ● 88 percent of small business owners accepted the fact that a website has made it easier for customers to find their business. ● 97 percent would recommend having a website to other small businesses. ● 84 percent say their website is important or critical to their business.
2) Brand Your Email
This is one of the top-level basic steps for getting a business online. Getting this basic tasks completed will serve to get you up and running online in the most effective way. This inexpensive yet effective option is a great way to build your brand and look more professional to the outside world as it will give an image to your brand as well.
Using a company-branded email address like yourname@yourcompany.com attracts well – 74 percent of consumers surveyed said they would trust a company-branded email address more so than a free email address or Gmail addresses for businesses.
3) Creating Your Presence on Social Media Platforms
Setting up your business pages on Facebook and LinkedIn is easy and free as well. You can redirect your business name to one of social media platforms to act as your online presence and create an easy way for customers to find you. Social media platforms offer free links to millions of people and a very local and personal way to network with your customers, community, and other businesses. For quick results and visibility, you can look for social media paid promotions as well.
If you have frequent events, sales, or promotions, Twitter is a great way to blast out news to existing and potential customers. Sign up for a free Twitter account and start “tweeting” short messages (just 280 characters) to the people who follow you. They can “re-tweet” and create digital word of mouth about happenings in your business.
4) Build Relationships
No matter in which industry your business belongs to, relationships plays a big role and you will find few online communities related to your industry as well. It will be worthy enough to find out the communities where individuals or thought leaders from similar industry share their opinions and feedbacks. By participating in the relevant discussions and being an active member, you can start building relationships.
Social Media Groups and Linkedin Groups are the best places to start. Quora is another great question-answer platform where users help each other on various topics. One Important thing to note here is, you should participate in the discussion with an intention to add value, avoid advertising your products or services directly as the community might ban you for that. It should be an informative discussion, rather than sales one. Whether you are into traditional or online business, networking plays a big role in your business success. When more and more people start recognizing you online, others will also start looking for you on search engines and social networks online.
5) Keep Track of Your Hard Work:
How do you know whether all this hard work is paying off? Keep track. Check the number of likes or shares on your social media posts daily. Is your presence growing daily on Facebook while Twitter seems not to? Start by tracking website visitors through various online marketing tools.
Google Analytics is a great free tool to track website performance. It gives you detailed statistics about the users visiting your homepage like their location, demographics, browser or device they from where they accessed the site, their age, the source they came from and how they browsed through the pages. Social media performance can be tracked by recording the growth of followers on Twitter or fans on Facebook Page. Over the period of time, you will start recognizing the trend and act according to that.
Conclusion: You must value the importance of building an online presence for your business. Creating an online presence has a huge potential to build a good brand image, spread awareness and attract new customers.