As a small business owner, publicity through online presence appears to be a zero-low cost solution. It is indeed. But like any other marketing media, it does require strategy and planning. Even for making free web pages and profiles, you invest in your precious time and you must know to maximize the returns. Below are some essentials for a business owner for their online business presence.
Have a Website: If the business is online, having a website is obviously a must. But what about those, which just have to have some information page? The answer is despite various free domains and social network sites, having your own business domain and website is the first wise step and investment. The equity that you are going to build for your brand name will not be dependent on other domains.
Brand strong & unique: Small business owners are often enticed into self-help and free or low cost web- design tools. They forget that they are investing in two things here- their own time and their first time impression. Hiring a cost-effective small medium web design consulting can not only save your time and struggle, but also establishes your unique branding.
Marketing Tool: You must know that your website is a marketing tool. You have to invest in wisely for your logo or brand development, webdesign and development based on your business domain and your target audience. . Your website should follow design principle, aesthetics and branding to make it unique and create a recall value. Corporate colors, typography and content supports in building a brand.
User-friendliness: While getting a webdesign done, remember simplicity is the best. Some people try to showcase lot of images, graphics, videos, splash screens, presentations etc. But remember that you should not overload. Heavy takelong time to load, too many graphics can be a clutter, while Flash etc are not even Smart device and search engine friendly. There are other ways to make simple static websites rich with dynamic feature. Usability is very much important. Navigation should be very simple and easy to reach.
SEO: Unless you have a well optimized website, there is a very little chance that people outside your circle know about your website. There are a lot of factors on which SEO depends such as content, keyword density, back-links, site map, coding, loading time of web-pages, etc. Optimize your website for better search engine rankings.
Content Management System (CMS): CMS helps you to store and manage your website content in the database. Through your admin, you can manage the content edit and manage your website even if you have no programming skills. Though there are hundreds of CMS solutions available, but WordPress is the most preferred one.
Blogging and Social Media Interaction: Blogging has become an effective marketing tool that allows visitors to get the latest news of your company. Post a blog every week with right word count and writing style to make people visit your site again and again. Additionally, integrate your blog to various social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more to make your users subscribe to your blog posts and find more involvement from people you many not even know.
Popularize your Website URL: Print your website address on your business cards, corporate stationary or other marketing collaterals that you use. You have an attractive logo, business card and letter head ready for promotion
