How to Grow your Business Online
Once you have your business' website up and running, you may be wondering how to go about promoting it and getting visitors. This post contains some tips on how you can help your website to be found online.
Use social media
One important part to an online presence is social media, particularly for B2C businesses. Once you have your social media accounts set up you can use them to share posts, engage with people and promote your ideas. Use your accounts to post about product launches, facts about your business, product information, service information, run competitions, as well as anything else that you think may be interesting for your audience to read about.
Consumers are heading to social media to find businesses and hear from their existing customers. They can also air their grievances with brands in a public space for everyone to see. You'll also be able to respond to any comments that you recieve, whether these are positive or negative. While no business wants to have to reply to negative comments it can be a great opportunity to showcase your customer service.
Start learning about SEO
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a way of improving your websites ranking with search engines (basically, how far up the list of results you appear). The majority of clicks that happen from a search engine result are in the top 3 links, with very little going through to subsequent pages.
Appearing near the top of the list can put your website in front of relevant audiences. Also, if your business has a physical storefront you can target searches such as "stores near me". This can help to increase you footfall as searches like this are on the rise.
SEO can be a bit of a minefield in itself, but simple things like ensuring your website is relevant and up-to-date is a great way to try and maintain a healthy ranking.
Encourage customer reviews
Customer reviews can be helpful to businesses, this is because other customers value them highly. Some search engines even use reviews as part of their ranking algorithms, so by having more of them you may increase your ranking.
Business blogging
If your business has something to say, whether that be corporate news, industry news, or just something that readers would be interested in, then the business blog may be a good idea. However, this can take time to maintain so make sure you have the resources to cope with it. But interesting posts can spark engagement with potential customers, it can also give you something to share over social media and email.
Email marketing
Email marketing can still be effective. A 2017 study showed that 269 billion business and consumer emails are being sent and received every day. The same study also forecasts that emails will continue to grow year on year. By having consumer consent to send emails to them you are able to share new information as well as occasionally marketing to them directly. Also, email marketing still boasts a high return on investment (ROI) while giving you the opportunity to offer exclusive discount codes to existing customers.
Summing Up
There are several ways that you can boost your business online, from having a website and making the most of SEO, to email marketing. This post has hopefully given you some insight to what you can do to give your business a push in the right direction.
- 16 Dec 2024 - I want to start a business but don't know where to begin
- 09 Dec 2024 - Is franchising the way forward for your business?
- 27 Nov 2024 - VAT - What is it and how do I register?
- 21 Nov 2024 - Outsourcing: Pros & Cons
- 24 Oct 2024 - Why do Businesses Fail?