Be found online! Create an online presence

Be found online! 3 key steps to creating your online presence

So you’ve started a new business and you’re ready to tell the world about it? Excellent. You’ve secured your business name, got a logo, identified your target market and your services/products are all mapped out — these are the absolute first things to knock over, which you normally address in your business plan.

Now for the exciting stuff. Here are the first 3 things you need to setup now…

Step 1 – Your Website

Your website is a crucial and essential piece of your brand and overall marketing success. I know some people debate whether a website is necessary if you have a Facebook page, but these are the reasons why you definitely need to have one:

1) Rank higher on search engines, so customers can find you!
Yes, Facebook pages do show up on search engines, but a website gives you more control and oodles of options to boost your search engine rankings.

2) Establish credibility and trust with your audience
Anyone can setup a Facebook page, but businesses that want to establish their credibility will invest in a website, especially in this day and age with so many online scams, customers want to know you are a real business with real people before they engage with you. Simple things like who you are, the services you offer and how to get in touch will make a big difference.

3) Capture & nurture leads from potential customers
Ideally you want to be driving traffic (e.g. customers) to your website to make a purchase, sign up for a newsletter, book a service, share your content and/or engage with your business. You can then measure the success of your marketing efforts and understand your customers better with data and analytics (e.g. Google Analytics)

4) Full control of your brand experience
Facebook and other social platform pages all look the same for every business, they can also make changes to the look and feel (and their algorithms) at any stage. With a website you are in full control of how your business and message is conveyed to your customers, from start to finish. You can guide your customers through the different stages of their buying cycle and provide them with the information they need (when they need).

So now you know you need a website, but you’re not sure who should build it for you. There are plenty of options in Brisbane. Flick me an email and I can happily recommend a number of excellent local web designers.

Step 2 – Choose your Social Media Channels

Before you go jumping into setting up a business page on every possible social channel… STOP! This is where your digital marketing strategy really comes into play, especially if you’re a small business. Spreading yourself too thin across multiple channels is a rookie mistake and is not the path to success.

Ask yourself… who are you targeting? (e.g. stay at home mums, grey nomads, professionals, adventure lovers – who are they, what do they like doing?). What social channels do they use?

I would recommend setting up only 1 (maybe 2) social media channels to start with. Really utilise those channels to their full capability, look at all features and advertising options. With anything new it takes time to build up a genuine following of people who are interested in the services/products you sell (and the additional information and knowledge you share).

It’s hard to go past Facebook, I would normally recommend you set up a Facebook business page as your first social channel, but it really does come down to what services/products you are offering and who your target audience is. For instance, if you are in the mining industry and developing new software to help mining companies on their digital transformation journey, Facebook may not be your best first choice. Perhaps a professional social channel like Linkedin would provide greater reach and marketing success.

Step 3 – Claim your Google My Business Page

Lastly, I would recommend claiming your Google My Business page. This is a free tool, which allows your business details to be displayed in Google Maps.

In additional to that, Google also displays these business profile pages at the top of relevant Googles searches (when someone searches for ‘accounting in Brisbane’, if you have a Google My Business page it will display it in a list at the very top of the search results page, including a map of your location).

Your page is like a mini website with all your business details, contact numbers, opening hours and also allows customers to leave reviews.

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