Building Your Online Presence - Where to Begin

Long gone are the days of faxing press releases to the major dailies and vying for an above-the-fold story on the cover of the business section. While printed coverage is nothing to turn your nose at, there’s no denying we’re deep into the “Digital Age.” This means online presence has never been more important for brands, particularly for small businesses.

According to the Forbes article that inspired this post, “97 percent of consumers go online prior to making a purchase to research products and services locally. When they go online, 90 percent use major search engines like Google, Bing, or Yahoo…” Knowing this, it’s hard to believe so many small businesses overlook the importance of the Internet. We realize small business owners have other important things to worry about, so we’re here to break down the fundamentals of building an online presence.

Investigate your competition - peruse their websites, scroll through their Twitter feeds, stalk their Facebook pages and read their Yelp reviews. It’s important to know who’s out there, what they’re doing and why their customers love them (or don’t love them).

Following your competitor research, use a vendor like GoDaddy and check to see if your business’s name is available for your domain name. If it’s not, don’t stress. You can abbreviate or add a word, just make sure it makes sense and is easy to interpret. After you choose and secure your domain name, consider the desired aesthetic of your website. If you have the funds, think about hiring a web designer to create a clean, simple, modern website template. If you’d prefer to save money in this department, use a tool like TemplateMonster.

Second in importance to an awesome website are your social media pages. Facebook is a given and, regardless of your industry, essential. Yelp is also a social media outlet you should strongly consider. Many businesses are intimidated by Yelp because it’s a public platform for people to share their sometimes negative opinions about your business, but if you provide a great product/service, Yelp is an ideal avenue to attract new customers. Other social media outlets you may want to permeate, if they make sense for your brand, are Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube. One thing to note, however, is it’s better to have no social media accounts than social media accounts that are inactive and/or incomplete. Make sure you, or one of your employees, has the time to maintain your social media pages on a weekly basis (at least).

Another great way to create your online presence is through a blog. Position yourself as an industry expert – whether you’re a restaurant or nail salon owner – and blog about the latest and greatest happenings at your place of business, tips for the perfect spaghetti sauce or at-home manicure, and commentary on industry trends. Wordpress and Blogger are both easy-to-use and professional looking blogging websites.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is also one of the most important things to consider when creating your online presence. Use Google Analytics to research the keywords for your industry and how your potential customers are conducting their online searches. After you uncover those essential key words, be sure to weave them into all your online content.

Keep these suggestions top of mind and watch your small business blossom. The Internet isn’t going anywhere, so embrace it and make it work to your advantage.