Make your online presence effective

Small business owners might not have the time or money to devote to online marketing. Yet having a strong online presence is a necessity in today’s world. If you are not on the web you will be left behind your competitors and won’t get visibility. In order for your business to grow you need to be seen. Remember the saying “out of sight out of mind?”. If your customers don’t see you online they may very well forget you. If you want to be always on their mind then you need to plan a great social media strategy which includes online marketing. I assume you already have at least a website, if not go and get one immediately.

Now, start writing interesting content, the kind that will keep people glued to your website. If they like it, you can be sure they will come back over and again. Write content regularly, don’t just write once and then forget about it. Doing the disappearance act is the surest way to make customers forget you. Make it a habit to write once or twice a week, or more, preferably. It depends on how desperate you are. If you want your business to grow in visibility, then write as if your life depended on it. If you’re nowhere near Charles Dickens, then pay a bit of money and hire a SEO expert. One of his duties includes writing content, so have him study your business and then write about it in a professional way, with all the right keywords so that your page might even get a high ranking. For that, your page needs to be optimized. Again, your SEO consultant will take care of that. Hire him on a short-term and see how it goes. If you are satisfied with the result you can always extend the contract.

So far, I’ve been talking about your website marketing. To have a real strong online presence, you need much more.

A good idea is to have a blog. Again, you need to post frequently and regularly. If your followers know you post each Wednesday, they will show up on Wednesday to see what you’re up to.

What do you need to do besides writing? You need to reciprocate the likes, shares and comments if you want to establish a good relationship with your followers, customers or would-be customers. You never know who’s out there so you better be nice. As an example, suppose I came to your page and left a comment.

 If I see that you liked my comment and came to my page to comment back, well, you can be sure I will keep coming to your blog. This is called loyalty building. A kind of mutual support. You know you can count on me and I know I can count on you. If, instead, you ignore me, I certainly will not bother with you. On the contrary, I will think you snotty and arrogant and I will all but tell you where to go and how to get there. This is the worst-case scenario, obviously. I hope we won’t get to that point.

You would be surprised, however, at the coldness and indifference of some people on the web. You follow them, like them, share them, send a few words…and what do you get in return? The cold shoulder. They are so full of hot air that they can’t even bend half an inch to acknowledge your presence. Well, if you’re like me, you will stay away from such stuck-ups.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not suggesting that you go around liking and commenting just to get something in return. No way! Real kindness is the one done with no ulterior motive. But what does it take to give back something as little as a “like”? It doesn’t cost anything, on the contrary, it will bring immense returns. You will earn in terms of popularity and reputation.

What I mentioned above can be applied….it MUST be applied, rather ….to all your social networks – Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, etc.

Remember that it is in giving that you will receive. So start liking, commenting, sharing and you will see a surge in the number of visitors to your page.