Today, there are new websites, social networking sites, online directories, and mobile device applications popping up all the time on the internet, giving small businesses many choices and opportunities to build a solid online presence. The flip side, however, is that if you have been neglecting your website, ignoring your current search engine rankings, or procrastinating about social networking, it’s likely that your small business will be left behind all the other companies (including competitors) that are taking advantage of these technologies and reaching their customers using these effective online channels.
So what can you do to create a strong online presence, become visible to customers looking for your products and services, and stand out at the top of the search engine rankings?
The key is an integrated online marketing strategy that combines your website, social platforms, search engine optimization (SEO), and ongoing online marketing initiatives. For small businesses that are willing to commit to this integrated approach, the results can boost revenue, increase leads, retain customers, strengthen sales, and create the kind of overall online visibility that continues to build on itself over time. Here are the four key areas to include in a successful integrated online strategy:
- Your Website. Studies have shown many times over that a professional, well-organized, up-to-date website has a direct, positive effect on customer loyalty, lead conversions, business credibility, and sales/revenue. Conversely, a sub-standard website can reflect poorly on your business and have a negative effect on consumers. Your website is the face of your business to the rest of the world; make sure it is an accurate reflection of your quality and capability as a company.
- Social Platforms. Not only does a social networking strategy make your business more visible online, recent research reveals that consumers are more likely to buy from the businesses they “follow” socially, and sharing information on sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn can create a significant number of referrals being spread through the social networks, resulting in recommendations and publicity for your business. Another valuable aspect of a social strategy is that the content you regularly post (that also gets shared among your followers and their networks) is also indexed by the search engines, providing you with an ongoing source of inbound links that help boost your search engine rankings.
- Search Engine Optimization. More than 80% of internet users turn to the search engines first to look for products and services, with Google being the most popular search engine today. So if you want to be found by customers and capture traffic from the billions of searches performed each day, your website must be accurately optimized and coded to show up in the search results for the keywords that matter most to your business. Optimizing a website is a multi-faceted process that involves both behind-the-scenes and on-the-page techniques, as well as other criteria ranging from valid W3C web code to inbound link counts to geo-targeted GPS coordinates and more. If you’re not comfortable doing your own search engine optimization work, hire a firm to help you – it’s that important.
- Ongoing Initiatives. Of course, these marketing initiatives are not like a one-time print ad or a direct mail piece. They are ongoing marketing efforts that require continued attention to make sure that your business continues to make progress and improve upon (or at least maintain) the gains made in web conversions, search engine rankings, inbound link creation, online visibility, and so forth. If you do not maintain your efforts going forward, you give your competitors a perfect opportunity to overtake you while you sit on the sidelines and watch your online visibility (and hard-earned results) slip away.
An integrated online marketing strategy is also highly measurable; you can monitor your results and make adjustments along the way to improve your outcomes every single month. For instance, if your web conversions start to fall, a quick e-campaign with an optimized landing page can help turn things around. Or a slip in search engine rankings can be reversed by adjusting your web page content or tweaking the behind-the-scenes data. If you are paying attention and tracking results, it can help your business stay visible online and a step ahead of your competitors.
Being invisible online is bad news for your business. But the good news is that with an integrated online marketing strategy and a commitment to follow it, your business can be more visible online and enjoy the benefits of more leads, more loyalty, and a boost to your bottom line.
