The Ultimate Guide to Marketing your Business Online

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In a constantly evolving business marketplace, one thing is certain – the Internet is here to stay. Online marketing is essential if you are to get ahead in today business world. With around 4.66 billion global Active Internet users – 4.2 billion of whom are regular Social Media visitors – it is vital to know how to market yourself in this digital age. In this blog, we cover the essential information you need to know about how to market your business online.

Make your Website Mobile Friendly

Whether your business is a traditional, bricks and mortar shop or an online service-based enterprise, your store front needs to include a website that is optimized for Mobile accessibility. Nothing says behind the times and out-of-date quite like a non-optimized website. Mobile friendly optimization allows users to quickly access key information about your business, service and product without fuss and frustration.

Key features of mobile friendly optimization include:

• Responsive site speed
• Enable JavaScript, HTML and CSS code
• If you are providing video heavy content on your site, consider a content delivery network such as CloudFront or Azure to reduce customer frustration and wait time.
• Avoid using pop-ups.
• Check in regularly with your website to ensure a lightning-fast load on your mobile.

Talk the Talk of your Customers

Your website, and any blogs or social media content associated with your business needs to talk the talk your customers search for. What are the specific phrases and words your customers search for? It’s these words and phrases you are looking to include in your website, within blogs that you publish on your site, or which link to your site, and within your Social Media content. Free or low-cost monitoring tools, like BuzzSumo and Ahrefs allow you to find out which search words people use to find your business.

Stay on Trend

Aim to stay ahead of current trends that relate to your business and ensure your web content reflect these words and phrases. For example, if you run a food business – stay ahead of the latest drinks, fashions and places to go that your ideal customer who enjoys your food products might aspire to. Include references to these things in your web content. Blogging is a fantastic way to build in the words and phrases your potential customers are searching for, as it allows for of-the-moment content, and can easily be shared across multiple Social Media platforms in a way that adds value, rather than appearing as a form of direct marketing. You can also get clever and review and update older blogs with fresh content to recycle and keep things current.

In addition to staying on top of trends when it comes to content, you also need to ensure you’re using the communication channels that your customers use the most. In order to connect with your clients immediately, MessageMedia mentions that an SMS strategy can make a huge difference. One way you can implement this is by automatically sending SMS messages. This can save you hours spent on manual tasks, will improve customer experience, and keep your tone of voice consistent. Rather than initiating and replying to text messages one at a time or relying on generic mass texts, you can simply streamline common tasks with smart messaging. Connecting with your audience and solving problems can be automated with a few clicks.

Think Quality

Online marketing is all about the SEO – Search Engine Optimization. You are looking to convince a Search Engine (of which Google is, by a country mile, the brand leader) that your web content is of value to the viewer. Web content that offers quality and easy to access content is regarded by Google as being of value. You can achieve this by:

• Keep paragraphs to a sensible length.
• Limit the use of the passive voice.
• Use shorter sentences – ideally under 20 words – with clear, easy to understand vocab.
• Divide content up with sub-headings that incorporate key words and phrases.
• Look to add meaningful phrases and words within the meta descriptions of content.

And to make life really simple, consider investing in a SEO plug in, such as Yoast, which provides tailored feedback on the current SEO status of content, with advice on how to improve optimization for greater reach.

Connect to Secure Back Links and boost SEO

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Consider how you can secure backlinks to promote your business’ SEO, or search engine optimization. Securing a link to your website on another person’s content or website is known as a backlink, in that it will take a potential customer back to your website. Getting backlinks to your website on other websites, particularly if these other sites are high traffic, can boost your Google rankings, so that your website appears higher up in the list Google shows in response to a search. Use your existing networks, and secure other contacts and connections to get your site linked on others. This can take the form of:

• Use your existing advertising budget to offer free samples and products to significant contacts who can list your website and product on their web content.
• Offer to write guest blogs for relevant websites, in exchange for a link back to your business website.
• Create blogs upon your own website that add value and offer something of use to potential customers. You can then include links to your articles and blogs on forums.

Pay Per Click to Manage Traffic

Making use of the above tips helps to create organic traffic to your web content. There will be plenty of times when that’s sufficient to create custom and interest. However, in more lean seasons, you may want to consider PPC as part of your marketing strategy. PPC, or pay-per-click is an online advertising model where you pay each time a user clicks on one of their online ads. Opting for PPC means your website appears as a promoted site, and will be listed prior to non-ppc sites. For you as business owner, PPC means your website is more likely to be offered as an option for potential customers to click upon, and you only pay as and when they do click. PPC is akin to footfall in traditional marketing and advertising – it’s a way to ensure you have people walk past your shop front, or web listing. Whether they enter (by clicking), will depend on the snippet (the brief description of that appears as a summary of your website) you have on offer. For this reason, combine PPC with a well thought out snippet.

Google My Business

Google my Business is a no-brainer when it comes to marketing your business online. Google My Business allows you to list your business location on Google Maps and local search results, cost-free. This offers a range of benefits, including improved Local SEO and the ability to have feedback and testimonials listed for potential customers to see. Google My Business also lets web users access your business by phone, via your website and provides Google Map directions with a click of a button.

So, moving away from traditional forms of advertising to online and digital marketing need not be a headache. According to HappyCleans, who utilized a lot of these techniques to grow their business, it has greatly boosted their digital marketing portfolio. With a few simple tips and techniques, you can begin to transform your business marketing to be a good fit for the needs, wants and desires of your online audience. Before long, you can be digitally marketing like a pro.