If you run a small to medium-sized business, you most likely have a customer base that has been built through word of mouth. However, if you plan on expanding your clientele, you must create and define your online presence.
What exactly does “online presence” mean in 2015?
The first step in developing your online presence is designing a website, curating perfect images and copy to fully explain the mission and purpose of the site, and making sure to optimize each page of the website for SEO purposes.
Unfortunately, though this is an essential piece of your digital marketing puzzle, do not think launching a website is the first and last step. Think of your website as the home base to which all your other online marketing efforts point.
A few other elements of defining your online presence include the following:
Social Media
Most business owners procrastinate on activating this step of digital marketing mainly because they do not know where to even begin.
First, you must determine the social networks that will work best for your industry. If your company focuses more on information-based content such as articles, Twitter would be ideal. If you are a company that focuses on in-the-moment visuals, go for Instagram. Networks such as Facebook and Pinterest play a vital role in uniting images and written content. You also can connect each of your networks together. If you choose multiple networks, make sure you keep your brand voice and message consistent across all the platforms.
After figuring out your intended audience and networks, you must decide when and how often you will post per day, week or month. For example, you may want to post a new piece of content once on Facebook in the morning and twice on Twitter, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Always be consistent.
Email Marketing
A second step in defining your online presence is through email marketing. Not everyone has a personal social network, but most likely they have an email address if they use a computer or mobile device on a regular basis.
When establishing your email list, reach out to your regular customers first. Offer an incentive for signing up and explain the benefits, such as coupons and discounts, announcement of new products or priority registration for different services.
In the emails you send, always be sure to include some kind of landing page which links back to your website further describing the email content. Though users may click through for that specific offer or product, they may continue to peruse your website and discover more about your company in the process.
Pay Per Click Advertising
Pay per click advertising allows you the chance to “bid” on certain, relevant keywords in order to appear in the top results of search engines such as Google and Bing. You can also create banner ads to appear on websites related to your product or service.
When choosing your keywords, make a list of 10-15 terms or phrases that people might use to find your product. From there, compare your list to Google Adwords or something similar to make sure your list is relevant to the keywords users are actually searching.
Fresh Website Content
Circling back around to the genesis of your online presence, your website should never be a finished product, but an always evolving, technological organism that you update frequently. Try your hand at blogging about upcoming events or offer video tutorials for your products. Fresh content will also organically help your search engine optimization (SEO) that keeps you high in the Google page rankings.
If you have questions regarding anything we’ve discussed today, please contact SideKick here. We have an entire suite of services that can help you execute your digital marketing needs. Our parent company, Aegis Foundry, also offers other technology and business services such as Nimble (an open point of sale system based on Microsoft SQL that is fully customizable for restaurant and retail management) and CORE Technology (hosting, programming and technology consulting).
