Key Strategies To Boost Your Local Business’s Online Presence

Being an entrepreneur is an exciting endeavor. It’s always a rewarding feeling to see your vision come to life, and to see people liking the products that you put out. However, being an entrepreneur does come with its own set of challenges. For one, balancing your time between your own business and your personal life becomes a bit more difficult, and it can be especially frustrating when, after all the time you invested in your own work, your business just won’t take off the way you wanted it to.

 

This is what makes building your brand through a strong digital presence important, and it’s not just about having social media accounts for your business. According to a survey, 85% of consumers conduct research before buying anything online. What, then, can you do to improve your business’s online presence?

 

 

The first step in building an online presence for your local business is to develop a professional and user-friendly website. According to a survey by Verisign, 84% of US consumers believe that a business with a website is more credible than one that only has a social media page. Meanwhile, 88% of small business owners agree that having a website made their businesses visible and accessible to consumers.

 

It’s not enough to just have any website, of course; it is important to make sure that your website boosts your brand’s image. The key here is to have a website that looks professional and is easy to navigate. A clean and modern design can help you in establishing your brand’s voice and image without distracting your readers. As well, your website must be easily viewed whether the customer is using a laptop or a mobile device. Finally, keep your website interactive by using fillable forms as this gives the impression that you value the input of your customers.

 

 

Beyond the design and interactivity of your website, you also have to make sure that you offer quality content. While a good-looking website can help draw your target market in, it is the content that you offer that makes them stay and keeps them engaged. This is because when users come to your website, they are primarily looking for information regarding a product or a service, and the way to provide this would be through the content of your website.

 

Aside from keeping your customers engaged, steadily posting relevant and up-to-date content in your website bolsters search engine optimization (SEO) as well as positions you as an expert in your industry or field. In turn, when new and potential customers use keywords that are related to the product or service that you provide, your website easily shows up in search pages, making your business more visible.

 

 

Once you have a well-developed website with strong and relevant content, you can use social media to further engage with consumers. Social media offers free access to reach a huge number of potential customers. After all, 83% of Instagram users state that they discover new products and brands through the platform. Furthermore, since a study by Pew Research Center shows that 49% of people who have social media accounts admit to checking their socials multiple times a day, having a strong social media presence also boosts your brand’s visibility.

 

As with having a website, having a social media presence doesn’t simply mean opening social accounts and posting ads regularly. To ramp up your social media marketing, you also need to identify your social audience and know what keeps them engaged. You can do this by accessing the analytics feature of your social media account. Another way to have a strong social media presence is to build relationships with engagement. One survey shows that 57% of online users reach out to brands through social media because they have a question about a product. With this in mind, actively engaging with your customers through social media by answering their questions or assisting them with any other concern allows you to build a deeper connection with them.

 

As mentioned earlier, owning your own local business can be challenging, but the sense of accomplishment that you get after seeing your vision come to life is a feeling like no other. Having a strong online presence is one good way to keep your business booming.