In the UK more than 45.9 million people have access to the internet. This figure is set to rapidly increase in the next few years. The enormity of this figure emphasises the importance of your company having a commanding online presence. What is a commanding online presence? Near enough every business is expected to have some form of representation online, whether that is through a website, a blog, a social media account or all of the above. The internet is now an everyday tool used by people to access information about everything and anything, from business locations, to general knowledge questions to prices of products and where to buy them. Without a distinct representation of your business online that is highly functional, informative and true to your brand, your customers will be led to believe that you are not to be taken seriously. How should you go about solving this issue? Below are five categories that online success can be divided between.
Search Engine Optimisation
If you have a website, it is important that it is visible to your customers. If your customers can’t find you online, what’s the point in having a website in the first place? The most popular method of finding businesses online is through Google, or other search engines. There are specific processes you can implement to your website that will increase your chances of being selected by Google to appear on the search results for keywords relating to your business. The better optimised your website is, the higher it should appear on the search results.
Social Media Presence
Having an active social media account is a great way to connect with your customers and also to share content about your products or services. It’s basically free advertising! However if you choose to have a social media account you need to be consistent with posting as you don’t want it to look abandoned as this is unprofessional. People will notice if you do this! Also only choose social media that is relevant to your business and customers. If you don’t have any rich visual content to share then Instagram probably isn’t a good choice as this is a photo and video sharing app.
Building Connections
Part of SEO is building high quality links to your site in order to show Google that your site is trusted. One way of building links is by reaching out to bloggers and asking them to link to your website from theirs. This is a great way to make connections with people of significance in your industry or even people of significance to your customers.
Promotion
A great way to boost your online traffic, promote your brand and to increase revenue is to implement email marketing or paid advertising.
Ease of Accessibility
The rise in the use of smart phones has led to a large percentage of people using the internet while on the go. This means it is more important now than ever for your website to be compatible with mobile devices.
