Present & Correct: How To Make The Most Of Your Company’s Online Presence

business online presence

Every business has to have some kind of online presence. And having a strong online presence can be the difference between your business thriving and your business sinking. These days, the internet really is that important, especially for companies in the retail sector. Never forget that fact because if you do, your internet presence will weaken and the performance of your business will begin to slide. If your business’s online presence is not as strong as it could or should be, you need to take action as soon as possible.

Getting this big change right could be very difficult for you and your company. If you take the wrong steps, you could waste money and time. That’s not what you need, so follow the steps below to give your business’s online presence a definite boost. The information you can find below will guide you through each stage of the process. If you make the most of each and every tip, your business will be heading in the right direction before you know it. Start reading now, and then start improving your business’s online presence.

Start Using PPC Advertising

If you’re going to succeed at improving your business’s online presence, you will need to think carefully about how you use online advertising. You’re going to have to advertise your business online and direct more people to your website. That’s vital in the modern business world, especially if you want to connect with younger people. One of the best and more cost-effective forms of online advertising that you can take advantage of is PPC advertising. This is pay-per-click advertising, meaning that you only pay for the adverts when people interact with them.

Post On A Few Relevant Online Forums

Forums can be great places to promote your website and business in a way that is laid back and easygoing. No one wants to feel like you are only posting adverts on these forums, though, so you need to get your approach right. Rather than being too obvious with your advertising efforts on these sites, you should integrate yourself into the forum and its culture. You can show your knowledge, make contacts and become an integral part of the conversation in your niche. Then, you will become a natural and organic part of the ecosystem on that particular forum or forums.

Find Out Which Social Media Platforms Your Target Customers Use

There are so many social media platforms out there. The major two that most businesses should be using are Facebook and Twitter. But if you limits yourself to those two platforms, you could be missing out on a lot. Rather than settling for the minimum necessary presence on social media, think about where else you can find your target customers. If you are trying to target a young and predominantly female audience, sites like Tumblr and Pinterest might be worth considering too. Tailor your approach to the kinds of platforms your target customers use most often.

Write Guest Posts For Other Blogs

Other people’s websites offer you a great platform to show everyone that you are a leader in your field. You can write guest posts showing off your knowledge and abilities. You can then offer links back to your business’s website, allowing people to explore your site and maybe even buy something while they’re there. At the very least, this will help your company to increase awareness and make more people interested in what it’s doing and what it has to offer. Contact blogs that cover trends in your industry, and take things from there.

Ensure Your Website Is Simple To Use And Navigate

No one wants to have to go through a big and complicated ordeal when they use your website. They simply want to be able to see what you have to offer and where they can find it within a matter of seconds. If your website is laid out more like an assault course than a visitor-friendly website, customers will not hang around for any longer than they really need to. In fact, they might even leave straight away. Once customers are frustrated with your website, they will be gone pretty quickly.

Ask For Reviews And Feedback

Your customers will always let you know when something goes wrong and they have a problem with something they bought from your company. However, they’re not always so vocal when things go smoothly, and they have a positive experience of using the business. That’s why you should do what you can do ask for reviews and feedback. Reviews are often posted on a company’s website to persuade other people to buy in the future. Or they can be posted on consumer sites, such as Trip Advisor. Getting feedback is always helpful because it lets you know what you’re doing right and what you’re doing wrong.

Drive More Traffic Towards Your Website Via Search Engines

Search engines are essential for driving traffic towards your website. If you’re not currently using the best and latest SEO techniques, then you are probably not taking full advantage of search engines as you should be. There are so many great things you can do to change that. It’s all geared towards helping your website and its particular pages rank as high as possible when people search for certain terms on Google and other popular search engines. You can take advantage of SEO services from Clark Empire if you don’t want to do it alone. This will allow you to get expert help from people who know what they’re doing.

Interact With Your Fans And Customers In An Organic Way

Interacting with the people who use your company and like what you do is really important. There are good ways and bad ways of doing it. If you get your approach to all this wrong, you could end up annoying people, turning them away from your business or helping them lose interest altogether. You don’t want any of those things to happens, so you really need to find a way to be natural and organic when communicating with fans and customers on social media. This can be tricky, but you just need to maintain a consistent tone and be light-hearted about it.

Create A Google+ Local Page

Google+ allows small businesses to create a local page. If you haven’t done this already, it makes sense to. It’s particularly good for businesses that rely on passing trade and people dropping in. If your business has a local page on Google+, people will be able to find it and read about it by doing a quick search for relevant businesses in your area. Your address will be displayed, and people can head straight over to you. If you sell things, or you run a restaurant or bar, having one of these pages really is essential.

Get Rid Of Old Content And Outdated Information

If your website is full of outdated information that hasn’t been relevant for a long time, it makes sense to get rid of it. If you don’t do this, people will be relying on and believing information that’s not true. So, as soon as something changes, make sure that the information on your website or any other channels is updated. It’s very unprofessional to let these things go unchecked when you’re trying to run a credible business. You should also archive things that have been on your website for a long time if they’re no longer necessary. It keeps your website streamlined and fast.

Consider Creating Blog Or Video Content To Attract New People

You can reach new people and attract them to your company’s website by creating some interesting and informative blog or video content. It helps your website to be found because people can search for helpful content and then end up on your website. The idea is that they come for the content, and then stick around to see what they can buy from your company’s website. It also improves the credibility of your business because people will see that you really do know what you’re talking about, which can only be a good thing for the brand.

Stay Active

Finally, you need to try to stay active. If your web presence is going to be strong, you have to be willing to put in the hard work and keep your social media channels up to date throughout the year. The minute aspects of your online presence become noticeably inactive, people will assume that your business is no longer active or operational. That’s not what you want because it makes it so much harder for your business to attract new customers online, not to mention keeping hold of the customers it already has. So, remember to stay active and don’t let lulls linger for too long.

Now that you know what it takes to improve the online presence of your business, it’s time you started taking action. So, good luck with the changes you’re about to make!

With over 9 years of search marketing experience, Sandra is cross skilled between PPC and SEO. Her experience in search spans across different verticals including Technology, Retail, Travel & Automotive.