9 different ways to market your business online
Updated: Sep 1, 2020
Don’t miss out on customers online. Get started with a website and digital marketing right now - just follow these nine easy steps.
Are you wondering what the best ways to promote your business online are? Thinking about how you can find more customers and make more sales? Then take a look at this article where we discuss how you can ensure you’re not missing out on any online marketing opportunities by implementing just a few of these simple steps.
1. Website
In 2020, you would think every business owner had gotten around to creating a website, right? That’s not the case, though. Around 36% of small businesses still don’t have a website, leaving them worse off at catching online traffic and turning it into sales.
The first thing a business owner must do is therefore to get a website. A website doesn’t have to be lavishly built with many pages or functions. In fact, a study has shown that easy navigation, great product descriptions, and attractive design are much more important to think about when creating a website. Furthermore, people want to minimize their time spent online looking for a product. So if your website is tricky to navigate or doesn’t tell the user right away what you’re selling, they will probably leave and make a purchase somewhere else.
2. Responsive web design
It wasn’t that long ago that desktop was the preferred device people used to search online. Now, the mobile device has taken over as the most used device. If your website is only set up to cater to the desktop browsers, then you’re missing out on potential customers.
Many website builders already have built-in responsive design that automatically scales your design to be accessible and look good on all devices. It’s something to look out for when you first get started. And if you already have a website, make sure it’s up to par with the speed and design on desktops, tablets, and smartphones alike.
The Cobiro website builder (available in May) automatically scales your website to look good on any device.
3. Search Engine Optimization
Having a website set up is enough for people to find you - if they know what they’re searching for. In many cases, however, your potential customers don’t know who they need, so they will search for your industry or kind of services instead. If your website is search engine-optimized, then you have a much higher chance of them picking you over one of your competitors.
Search Engine Optimization, commonly referred to as SEO, is the process of optimizing your website to get organic traffic from search engine results. SEO sounds complicated, and rolling out a full-fledged SEO strategy takes time and specific skills that many small business owners don’t have. However, with just a few simple implementations, you can increase the quantity and quality of traffic to your page pretty quickly.
Pay attention to the speed of your website, how fast it loads, mobile usability, meta descriptions, content quality, links, and many other things. It’s also a smart move to investigate what keywords your audience is looking for and implement them in your website content. Take a look at this SEO guide for beginners by Ahrefs for a deepdive into what and how. Just bear in mind that SEO is a marathon game, not a sprint, so you won’t get results immediately after optimizing your site.
4. Google My Business
In most cases, potential customers will turn to Google to look up a company, product or service. If you’re not listed on there as a verified business, it gets more difficult for you to offer your services in their search results.
Having a verified Google My Business is free and helps provide information about your business that your customers could be looking for, such as opening hours, phone number, address, and many other things.
If you want to be found online, it makes a lot of sense to list your business in one of the most comprehensive business directories ever put together.
5. Google Ads
Google Ads are Google’s online advertising opportunities where you get to create online ads targeted to customers who are interested in the products and services that you offer. You can target your ads based on keywords to match words or phrases relevant to your product - and which people interested in your services might be looking for. You can also choose to target your ads based on location, age, language, time of the day - or even a specific device that your audience uses more frequently.
Google says the benefits of Google Ads are that you can “show your ads to the right people, in the right place, and at the right time.”
What’s great about it is it’s based on what’s called pay-per-click, or PPC, advertising. That means you only pay for your ads when a visitor actually clicks on it. No click, no cost.
6. Google Shopping Ads
These ads are product-based and come directly from the product information stored on your website. They include image and price and description of the product. Instead of waiting for people to stumble across your online store looking for a product, they now get the product information immediately when they search, making them more likely to make a purchase with you.
Shopping Ads are more than just regular text ads because they include an image, price, and rich information. This will help land customers to your product page with a high intent to purchase.
Products uploaded to your online store are automatically synced with Google Merchant Center, meaning your Shopping Ads stay updated at all times.
7. Facebook Ads
Using Facebook Ads is one of the surest ways to reach your exact audience because they’re so specifically targeted. You can target your ads to users based on location, age, interests, behavior, and other types of profile information.
You decide what you want to accomplish with your ads. Is it to drive traffic to your website? Increase sales? After you’ve found your campaign objective, you set the parameters for your desired audience. Facebook then shows your ads in the newsfeed of the people who exhibit the behaviors and belong to the demographics that match your products or services.
Facebook ads are easy to get started with. Even if you haven’t got professional images to add to your campaign, Facebook has a wide array of photos and video sequences that you can use instead. If you don’t know how to set up audience segmentation, Facebook can even provide you with one based on little information from your side.
8. Testimonials
Once you start receiving more traffic to your site and people are making purchases, we suggest reaching out to your customers after a sale to ask them to review their experience with you. They can do so on Google, which means it’s part of the Google My Business listing we mentioned earlier in this post.
The more positive reviews and testimonials left, the better your business will look on Google and the more likely people are to choose you over a competitor.
9. Content marketing
Half of visitors think a company blog is useful. But that’s not the only reason you should consider starting a blog. Blogs also serve other purposes such as boosting brand awareness and providing more content for search engines to analyze, which will help your site rank better - provided the content is useful, of course.
Besides that, content marketing also helps answer some of the questions your audience might have. That way, you can build trust with your audience, start conversations, and in the end convert your leads into purchasing customers.
You’re well on your way to online success
Just completing one of the tasks on this list is a step closer to success for your online business and growth. But doing them all and incorporating it into your online business routine is where you’ll really see some fantastic results.
Even if you just start out with building a website, you’re still better off than many businesses out there who haven’t gone online yet. However, having a website is not enough to really succeed online. Once you start showing ads and optimize your site, you’ll rank better in search engine results. When you rank better, your chances of more traffic increase. Once you get more traffic, you rank even better - and so on and so forth.
Now, online advertising as a beginner can seem intimidating, and we know that. That’s why we’ve collected all of the easiest ways to get better reach and getting started with advertising on one central platform. Cobiro lets you get an overview of your ads, your budget, and your progress. You stay in control at all times. Want to tweak the ads you’re running? You can do it there. Need to slow down ad spending? Also doable.