Trying to run a business without promoting it online is almost impossible in today’s world. All it takes is one visit to your local bar or restaurant to see that we are pretty much glued to the screens of our phones 24/7. So, unless you promote your local business online, and do so well, the odds are slim that you will be able to reach your customers. Therefore, let’s take an in-depth look at how to organize your online presence and promote your business properly.
Organize your website
In order to have any noticeable online reach, you need to first organize a decent website. Your website will the cornerstone of your online presence, which is why you need to ensure that it is as good as possible. Now, there are many steps you need to take in order to make your website run well and present your business properly. But, taking those steps takes experience and time. This is why we will not cover all of them and instead focus on simply setting up a decent website and making it promote your local business online.
Managing your website
The first thing to do is to set up your website properly. This may sound redundant, but you’d be surprised at how many people simply don’t bother with making their website easy to use and operate. Your website needs to run smoothly and have no safety issues. This means hiring a skilled professional to set it up for you and explain to you how to update it regularly.
Also, you’d be smart to hire a professional graphic designer to help with both your logo and your website. A well-made, smoothly running and properly organized website is a joy to surf and visit. Meanwhile, slow, bug-ridden, and an overall ugly website is something that no one wants to see. Unfortunately, the latter is much more common than the former. So, do yourself and your business a favor, and set up your website the right way.
SEO management
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. When someone types in a service or a product online, a search engine like Google or Yahoo helps them find a business that can help them out. This, as you might guess, is one of the best ways of finding new customers, as all of us tend to rely more and more on our search engines. So, the first step to take is to optimize yours.
For this, you will need to do ample research. You will have to pick your keywords, design your brand and figure out your preferred style of promotion. Furthermore, you need to set up a blog on your website, in order to use your keywords as often as possible. Figure out the style of your blog and start writing interesting articles. If you are not apt at writing, you can even consider hiring a freelance content writer to help you out. But, whatever you opt for, have at least one blog post per week.
Marketing strategy
One of the most important things to consider will be your marketing strategy. This includes your brand, your target audience and your preferred method of marketing. Know that brand design is a serious business and that you should consider yours carefully before you settle on it. Also, try to figure out your target audience as soon as possible. After all, if you are transporting your office supplies anywhere in Boca Raton, it doesn’t make much sense to focus your marketing outside of Florida. So, the sooner you figure out who you are trying to reach, the easier it will be to orient your marketing efforts properly.
Using social media to promote your local business online
Now, unless you’ve lived under a rock for the past 20 years, you know how important social media is. Major news outlets and famous people use social media constantly to both express and inform themselves. Therefore, if you want to promote your local business online, you need to take part in social media. Now, what constitutes social media can be hard to define, as most website steam towards becoming social media platforms. But, for the sake of keeping things simple, we are going to focus on promoting your local business on the three major ones.
Facebook is arguably the largest social media platform for business. Since it uses videos, images, and text in roughly a similar amount, it is the easiest way to promote your local business online as you see fit. What you need to figure out is what kind of an online presence you would like to have. Some choose to simply design their Facebook page and respond to DMs from customers. Others use memes connected to their business and try to present their business page as if it were a person. You can even post useful tips and comments regularly. Whatever you feel will promote your business better, go for it.
Instagram is a bit more personal than Facebook, which makes it hard to directly promote your local business online. Instead, you can try to find social media promoters and see if they are willing to work with you. An Instagram promoter will have a much easier time reaching your target audience. This is because a promotion coming from them will not be seen as on the nose. All you have to do is to find one that suits your line of work properly.
Twitter is best used for tips and comments. You should usually use Twitter as a way to promote your website as it is quite useful when it comes to addressing personal comments. Just remember to keep your online presence as natural and friendly as possible. Even though being generic with your business posts is easy, you really should find a creative way to express yourself if you want to promote your local business online.
Author bio:
Elliot Covington has been a content writer and social media manager for over 15 years. During that time he’s helped numerous companies develop their online presence and reach their clients. Now, he is more than happy to share this knowledge with anyone interested to learn.
