At last, you’ve got your business up and running. Now, you want to grow your business online and get more customers. But how? First, you need to make sure your website is up to scratch. This forms the foundation for everything else you do online. It’s a place to direct people to and tell people why you’re the best. Only once you’ve got a good website can you then focus on growth.
If you’ve sorted out the basics, here are some top tips on what you should focus on next to expand your business’ reach:
1. Be Social On Social
Most people are on social media these days, so having social pages as a business helps to increase your credibility. People can look online and easily find more information, reviews or whatever else they need on a platform they are used to navigating. It’s important to be active and contribute new content to your channels to keep up engagement. Whether this is links to blog posts, photos of new products or even brief updates on what’s new, you should make an effort to interact with your customer base.
This means they will get to know who you are and what you’re about and will be much more likely to remember your business should they need it.You should also be interacting with other relevant brands and experts to establish yourself as a thought-leader. This doesn’t have to be anything special, simply engaging with topical discussions is enough. Voice your opinions and get involved to show you know your stuff; give advice and share what you’re an expert on. Soon, you’ll get recognition for this and people will trust your business more if you’re seen as being helpful without an agenda.
2. Get Your Business Noticed
A press release can sound daunting, but it needn’t be. They’re worth mastering as they can be highly effective: press releases are an age-old method of getting your business noticed. Press releases are typically written by you in a journalistic way and essentially contain something newsworthy about your business.
A good way of determining whether what you have to say warrants a press release is to ask yourself:
- Will it interest a wide audience?
- Is there a specific reason to release this now?
- How will this be used?
- Is this a press release and not an article?
You need to be sure journalists will easily be able to use it as a basis for their own article. If your press release is interesting enough to catch their attention, then you get exposure.
3. Use Google Ads
When people need something, they often turn to Google. So, the biggest audience you’re going to get is online, and the easiest way to attract their attention is through Google Ads. This is because when someone is searching for what you’re offering if your ads are set up right, you’ll appear to them. You can get this service done for you with companies such as Adzooma and Wordstream who create and manage your Google Ads account. This is great if you don’t understand fully the ins and outs of Pay Per Click advertising but want to reap the rewards of it being done well.
Of course, different companies offer different benefits of using them. For example, Wordstream offers the ability to manage Facebook ads as well as Google ones within the same software. However, this software means you aren’t working directly within Google Ads. For some, this is not ideal as you’re essentially having to learn two different pieces of software instead of one.
As well as PPC management, Adzooma also offers cost-effective websites with professional copy, designs and lead capturing. This can be particularly helpful if you feel your current site isn’t up to scratch because, if you’re working hard to get traffic to your site, you don’t want to lose them once they get there because of poor usability. On the other hand, as this is a done for you service, you get limited control as they do everything for you. This can be a positive or negative thing depending on your business. Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide what works best for your company.
4. Grow Your Backlink Profile
A backlink is a link from one website to another and getting links from relevant, authoritative sites to yours can benefit you in many ways. For one, it improves your organic search rankings which means your visibility on search engines are boosted. It’s also a way to boost the traffic to your site. There are various ways to get backlinks but one of the easiest methods is to guest blog on sites that are relevant to yours. By posting on popular industry sites, you can refer back to your own offering and pick up free backlinks.
5. Industry Forums
Often advertising is a one-way conversation between you and your customer base. Forums give you the chance to communicate and interact with them directly. Not only does this save you money on marketing, but it allows you to speak on a one-to-one and one-to-many basis with them. Dedicated forums are populated by people who are involved in your industry and want to discuss current topics and news.
This is the perfect platform to get your opinions across and share tips and tricks to build a reputation with them as an industry expert. Also, as a business that takes time to talk to their customers, you’ll see an increase in both trust and reputation with them. So, don’t be surprised if you get some dedicated clients as a result.
Get Growing
These tips are all good starting points for growing your business online. But, whether you grow fast or slow, the important thing is to just keep growing. Be sure to freshen things up regularly to avoid stagnation and find ways to reach out to a wider audience to attract new customers. Also, if you’re doing all this hard work to draw people to your website, make sure that it’s up to scratch and offers an easy user experience.
Level up your back-end. Use top-notch management and collaboration apps. Use 24/7 customer service solutions. Use world class virtual office address for trust and branding. Outsource non-critical tasks, so that you can focus on growing your online business. Do these things well and you’ll start seeing success more sooner than later.