Starting a new business? You already know that a website is essential, but how else can you promote your new business online?
The reality is, if you don’t have a huge budget for pay-per-click ads in the beginning, you’re going to need to rely on organic marketing methods. These can take time. If you work them to their full potential, you’ll gain traction and the web traffic will start to trickle in. At that point, you can use some of your profits to invest in pay-per-click advertising.
Until then, utilize these 5 proven ways to get your new business noticed online:
- Make a Stand-Out Website
Just about every business has a website today. But, most of them are terrible. If you want to dominate your competitors, make sure that you build a website that helps you stand out from the crowd.
Do your market research. A site aimed a tweeners buying Bluetooth earbuds should look and function differently than one aimed at seniors looking to re-finish their bathrooms.
But, no matter who your audience is, make sure your site is clean, packed with good content, and is easy to navigate. No matter how web-savvy the user, if they can’t find your product page, you aren’t going to sell anything.
- Establish Your Social Media Pages
While Twitter, Instagram, Pintrest and slew of other social media sites grow in reach, Facebook is still the king of social media marketing.
Their “boosted” post feature angered a lot of small business owners who went from reaching hundreds or thousands of customers with each post, to needing to pay between $5 and $1000 per post to be seen.
But, as the program has aged, many businesses have utilized the power of boosted posts to reach deep, defined, niche audiences.
Combined with its pay per click platform, Facebook should be our go-to early on.
Integrate Facebook with the other social media sites that fit yoru business. Early on, you’ll have very few followers. But, stay consistent, use your budget wisely, continue to crank out quality content, and soon you’ll have a solid base of followers to market to.
New Business Targeting and Content
- Use Local Listings
Local listing makes the search easier for your business to be found locally. Make sure you are registered with Google MyBusiness (Google Local). Then, use the same address and phone number for all local listing sites. Google likes uniformity in their local results.
- Generate Content
Blogging, with no followers, may seem pointless. But, learn to create, or hire quality content creators, so that your site becomes loaded with search engine optimized quality content such as articles, blogs, videos, picture, and infographics. Google loves information like this, and gives it preferential treatment in the search engine rankings.
Write content for bigger websites. Everyone needs content. Creating great articles for bigger websites will generate links back to your site. This can help drive traffic to your site.
Don’t neglect writing for your local newspapers. Certain demographics (baby boomers, especially) still read the local paper for info. PR pieces are good, but human interest articles related to your product or service can lead to a solid flow of leads and sales because it not only exposes your business to a large pool of customers, being in the paper also lends your business a great deal of credibility.