Building an Online Presence: Your First Steps
If your business isn’t online yet, thinking about making the transition can be overwhelming. Even if you already have a website and nothing else, there are so many ways you can build your web presence. Each step you take towards building an online presence will have a powerful impact on your ability to reach potential customers. That means you have a huge opportunity to increase your sales and revenue.
Today we’ll break down a few important steps to help launch your business in the right direction online. These are all practical steps that if done correctly will transform your business presence online.
Before we get started, we wanted to break down an important aspect you need to consider when approaching the online side of your business. Google and other search engines will “rank” your website and content. This is based on a wide variety of factors, and your approach to “ranking” is called SEO, or search engine optimization. This is how you will optimize your website to rank higher and be seen by more people. The higher your ranking, the more potential customers you will be able to reach.
Now that you understand this part, let’s get started.
Google My Business
Google is known as a giant of the online world. Without being present on Google, your business simply won’t succeed online. One easy and no-cost way to be on Google is their Google My Business platform. This should be your first step in building an online presence. It’s an easy way to let your customers know your location, hours of operation, and any special announcements you may have. You can also collect reviews here.
Even if you don’t have a website, you can create a Google My Business listing. Google My Business is a quick and easy way to show up in search results online. When a potential customer searches for your services or product you’ll be able to pop up in their search results. An example would be if someone searched, “Pest Control in Birmingham, Alabama”. If you’re a pest control company you want to make sure your business is one of the first to pop up.
Setting up your account is easy, and you can even take a free class from Google before you do. It walks you through the ins-and-outs of setting up your page properly. The only part that takes time is you will have to verify your location by having a postcard with a code sent to your address. Watch our tutorial here.
Creating a Website
This one may not feel simple if you’ve never created a website before. The great thing is, you no longer have to know code or be a web designer to start a website. There are tons of great website hosts that have easy-to-use templates, or better yet, companies like ours who will design them for you. It’s nearly impossible to rank on Google if you don’t have a website, and you definitely won’t rank highly without one.
Even if you start with something basic, it’s better than nothing. Remember, you can always rejuvenate your site as time goes on to improve it, add more, and make it shine. You just have to commit to doing it and not letting it sit there.
If you have an old, outdated website, it is important to update it. Fresh images, new blog posts, and keeping your website current signals to search engines that your website and company are still around and that you’re worth ranking higher. There is no better time than right now to work on this!
Other Local Listings
Yelp, Angie’s List, Thumbtack, and more all offer additional online listing services similar to Google. Depending on your industry and what your company has to offer, it may be worthwhile to seek out additional ways to list your business online. Every listing will help grow your online presence and help with how you rank online.
A key piece of your SEO strategy is called backlinks. This just means that every time a link back to your website is shared, it shows Google and other search engines that your website is active and worth linking back to. This means that these search engines will prioritize ranking your website over others that don’t have backlinks.
Joining Social Media
Social media platforms have become huge since the days of Myspace. Now there are so many options from Tik Tok to Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, and that’s just scratching the surface. While you won’t necessarily want to be present and active on every social media platform, being present on the platforms where your target audience is spending their time is important. It will give you a new way to reach buyers, it will help you build connections and build trust with them, and it also allows your company to look more professional online.
Not to mention, you can use social media in powerful ways to help your SEO ranking. You can use it to lead people back to your website, to provide backlinks, to help images rank on Google images, and improve your online visibility just to name a few.
Even if you just start with one social media account it can make a huge difference. If it’s too much for you to handle on your own, we’re here to help set up your accounts and we can even manage to post regularly for you.
We hope these practical tips will help you launch your company’s online presence in the right direction. When done well and with intention we know from experience that this can earn you better brand recognition, build brand loyalty, and lead to more revenue.
Was this article helpful to you? If you need help with building an online presence for your business contact us directly at https://fusiononemarketing.com/contact-us.