The greatest threat for new entrepreneurs comes from financial risks. This is why new entrepreneurs have to leverage everything that’s at their disposal.
The internet is one of the assets that can be, and have to be used, to get a better position in the market. Especially, now, when the world is becoming increasingly digital.
You should know that building an online presence requires knowledge, time, effort and a little bit of smart investing.
Once you have established it, you can reap numerous benefits. For instance, increased lead generation and conversion rates, easier marketing strategizing, better customer service etc.
But let’s cut to the chase, here are five ways to build an online presence when you are new in the game.
Identify Your Target Audience
The online world is huge. Before you start devoting your resources to building an online presence, you need to identify your target audience. Who are they? What problem are you going to solve for them? How is your solution better from the others found on the market? When you find out answers to these questions it will be much easier for you to create messaging to drive marketing and sales.
Beside this, you will have to identify who or what influences the buyer’s decision. With all this information in your hands, you will have a “royal flush” and you will increase your chances of creating a powerful and potent online presence. Furthermore, by becoming accessible to different types of customers, you will compete with more success and be able to develop cost-effective strategies.
Get Your Website Up and Running
The best way to sink in your first digital footprint is to get your official website up and running. Basically, you got two options ahead of you, either to pay a good deal of money to a web development firm to build a website for you, or to build one yourself.
Now, I know that the idea of you building your own website might seem overwhelming at first, but did you know that you now have access to web builders that don’t require any technical knowledge whatsoever? These are Squarespace, Weebly, Wix etc.
These website builders have intuitive drag and drop interfaces that will allow you to get your website up and running in no time. Keep in mind, though, that building a website might be a one-time-thing, but in order for it to remain a valuable asset you will need to constantly update it and tune it up for the best user experience. At some point you might consider publishing an FAQ page and/or self-service help center to further increase the functionality of your website.
Follow the Basic Search Engine Optimization Guidelines
The power of search engine optimization (SEO) should never be underestimated. Stay with this sentence and make sure you memorize it. When you are new in the business world, you have to do whatever needs to be done to get yourself and your business know to online consumers. Devising an effective SEO strategy and following it is the best way to go about this. Before you start researching keywords, let me tell you that SEO is about more than using proper keywords. If you want to be highly ranked and easily found, you have to figure out the purpose of your official website and to make sure it actually meets this intended purpose.
Once you decide the purpose of your website, you can start using keywords to provide the audience with valuable purpose-driven content. For instance, if you are starting an ecommerce website to sell gadgets, you can share reviews for each item on your store.
You can also blog about how some gadgets in particular improve the quality of life and how to use them in real-world situations. When you create useful content, your digital presence will be recognized and enabled to grow.
Leverage Social Media
Social media are powerful tools that, when used properly, can make it much easier for you to establish a good reputation online. The two most popular social media networks are Facebook and YouTube, with Twitter and LinkedIn coming in at 3rd and 4th place on the list. Millions and millions of people use social media every day in search for fun, information, interaction and for meeting new people.
If you identify your target audience, you will know when they are most active on social media, which one and what kind of content they prefer. This will make things much easier for you when you need to make a social media strategy.
If you want to leverage the power of social media to its fullest, you absolutely have to start using social media analytic tools. This will allow you to get familiar with user activities, become aware of every piece of feedback and better understand your followers overall. With this info in your hands you will be able to schedule posts at times when most of your target audience is online.
If you are completely unfamiliar with social media networks and SM marketing, you should know that influencer marketing can be your shortcut to successfully building an online presence.
Embrace the Way of the Guest Blogger
Guest blogging is another efficient way to get recognized out there in the digital wilderness. But in order to harness the power of guest blogging, you really have to write valuable content. Your content has to be original, informative and entertaining enough to attract as many readers as possible.
Before you start writing, dedicate some time to find relevant blogs where you can guest blog and identify which one of those attracts the people from your target audience. If you want to say competitive in these waters, you need to be ahead of the curve, and to be there you have to write about new and exciting stuff. Or old stuff in a new way. You get my point.
These are the seeds of online presence that you have to plant with care, and tend to them carefully while they grow before you can make a significant impact on your online audience. Make sure to remember that all of the elements of your digital presence puzzle interact with one another, meaning that neglecting one is the same as neglecting the entire strategy.
This is why you want to make sure to follow the best SEO practices, keep your website top-notch, stay active on social media, do regular market research and write valuable and relevant content.
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