Building an online presence for your small business has many benefits. However, the two significant advantages to building a strong online presence are that it allows you to target more prospective consumers by enabling them to locate your brand; and keeping present customers engaged.

With an increasingly digital and technologically driven world, it’s become highly essential for brands to be easily accessible to their customers online. According to TechCrunch, the convenience of shopping, price comparisons, and the opportunity to perform more comprehensive research on a particular brand and business, along with many other factors, eventually lead many customers to make purchases online.

Furthermore, considering how the COVID-19 pandemic forced new business methods, many businesses with an online presence survived the sudden shift towards the ‘new normal.’ And with every passing day, we see more start-ups coming up, eager to attract customers in the digital age. Even if your business functions entirely in the physical world – for instance, a fast food outlet, many customers might discover you based on how strong your online presence is.

So, what do you need to build a kickass online presence for your small business? Here is a simple 5 step checklist that can guide you through it.

Your Small Business Online Presence Checklist

1. Build A Website

A website is the first critical step in building a strong presence online for your small business. Your business website serves as the brick that holds the structure of the entire household (your small business). A business website also works like an encyclopedia for your small business. All the information about your brand should be available on your business website, including your company’s data and biographies, product and service catalogs, content, and more.

The primary objective of having a website is to get more visibility which attracts more customers and improves sales. From the moment users land on your small business website, your target has to be to convert them into potential buyers. Therefore, from your website design to navigation, everything needs to be top-of-the-line to maximize your conversation rate. You also need to constantly rebuild and upgrade your website so that it doesn’t look outdated.

What Do You Need To Build A Strong Website?

• A Good Domain Name

Coming up with a business name may seem like a small step, but it is a very crucial one. Your business name serves as the identity for your small business. While it may not be that tedious, it requires making hard creative decisions, which might build up a lot of confusion at first.

When deciding on a domain name for your small business website, you need to think more than just what sounds good; your domain name should be able to describe what your business is about and make it clear to your target audience about your niche.

For instance, a name with a .icu domain extension can be a perfect choice to come up with a remarkable and memorable name for your small business. .icu is a generic domain name, also one of the largest selling ones. It allows businesses, brands, and individuals to create a distinctive presence online.

Suppose your small business offers handmade portraits to your customers, a domain name such as www.arthouse.icu can be a good fit.

• A Unique Web Design

When your users land on your website, they will first notice how it looks. Your website design is the first impression your users will have about your small business. Therefore, creating a strong and impressive website design is another extremely essential step.

To do so, you can either hire a website designer or freelancer to do the job for you and make your website look like how you picture your small business, or you can use a website builder online and pick from templates that match your taste. Whatever you choose, make sure that your website design is well-balanced and not too chaotic.

• Getting Traffic On Your Website

It might have seemed like building a website for your small business was the most challenging task. However, once you launch your website, your second goal is to get as many people to check it out, and for that, you need a strong online marketing plan in place.

Various online marketing tactics can help you raise awareness about your brand and drive traffic your way. You can’t get your sales up if people don’t know where to find you. Therefore, you need to commit to consistent marketing efforts to bring your audience to your small business.

Let’s dive into some of these marketing strategies.

2. Google My Business

Search engines today are modern-day phone books and directories. In today’s era, search engines are the digital counterparts of these phone books and manuals.

Google is the most popular search engine out there. Therefore, having a Google My Business listing is highly crucial for small businesses. It is free and helps you market your small business via Google search, and allows your brand to become visible on Google Maps. Apart from this, the program also allows you to upload images, make paid Google Ads, build a website, get reviews and feedback from your customers, and a lot more. If that was not enough already, you can also create an effective SEO strategy that will help you improve your ranking on Search Engine Result Pages.

3. Being Active On Social Media

Social media platforms are often mediums where brands begin to establish their online presence. It is primarily because these platforms allow brands to create business profiles and advertise themselves for free before the launch of their website. Furthermore, social media platforms are an excellent method to generate traction for your small business in the long run.

According to Shareaholic research from 2017, social media accounts for 25% of website traffic. It just goes out to say that an excellent social media presence can do wonders for your small business’s overall online presence. Therefore, treat your social media presence as an integral part of your marketing plan.

Let’s look at how you can use these different social media platforms to benefit your small business’s online presence.

• Facebook

Having a Facebook page for your small business will allow you to reach your biggest potential audience. According to Statista, you can reach a whopping 2.7 billion monthly users. However, it’s not something that’ll happen overnight. You will have to invest time and effort into building your Facebook page and posting quality content regularly for your potential audience to notice you. Another way is to make use of paid Facebook advertising to become visible to your target audience.

An effective way to use Facebook is as a forum that allows your customers to ask you questions about your small business or share their feedback with you.

• Instagram

With over one billion active users monthly, Instagram is a powerful social media platform that’ll help you build a strong online presence for your small business and reach more and more people who can turn into loyal customers. There are around 200 million people on Instagram that view at least one business profile. Furthermore, Instagram is the best place to tell your story through a sequence of photos and videos. Instagram also allows you to convert your profile into a commercial e-store.

• Others

It’s better to be on select social media platforms that resonate with your business idea than to keep up with too many social media accounts. If you are a B2B business, having a LinkedIn Company Page could be a perfect option to communicate with other businesses within your niche. If you have a lot of content that you would like to share with your audience, such as real-time updates, Twitter is the place for your small business.

Choose a platform where you can find the ideal audience that’ll like engaging with your small business.

4. Content Marketing

A lot of brands today invest in original content marketing. Posting on social media and uploading pre-existing content is beneficial, but creating original content related to your small business helps you establish yourself as a thought leader and expert in your niche. Apart from this, content marketing allows brands to communicate about their products and services along with providing knowledge or entertainment to their users.

Content Marketing is extremely popular among brands for the numerous advantages it has. It can be in many forms, too, be it blog posts, YouTube videos, or podcasts. A Forbes article stated that there are about 5 billion views on YouTube videos daily, and about 44% of the US population listens to podcasts. It just proves that content marketing is one of the best marketing strategies to help you communicate with your audience about your business and increase sales.

5. Email Marketing

According to Statista, over 1.5 billion more people use Gmail worldwide. It opens up an enormous possibility for email marketing for small businesses, including cold and warm emails.

It opens up an enormous possibility for email marketing for small businesses, including cold and warm emails.

Email marketing is a cost-effective approach for small businesses to reach out to their consumers, expand their client base, and develop their reputation in the market.

Most importantly, email marketing is cost-effective and less complicated than most people believe.

Building an email list is a fantastic method that helps you engage and connect with your brand’s audience. It also allows you to reach out to them instantly and make them aware of any significant sales, news, or material you have.

One thing to remember with Email Marketing is to have a professional email id of yourself. A professional email id makes you look credible while giving your audience details about your business and website. For instance, john@art.icu is much more professional than johnart@gmail.com.

Small businesses can use email marketing to inform their audience about discounts, promo codes, or sales running on their website. They can also tell them about new product launches and keep them updated and engaged about their current products and services.

Bottom Line

It might seem like many things to tick off from the checklist to build that perfect online presence for your small business. However, all of these marketing strategies work perfectly when they are connected. For example, your social media platforms can urge your audience to visit your website, increase your website traffic, and then encourage them to subscribe to your email list.

Your website can help visitors learn about your small business, the products, and the services you offer. While your social media can keep your customers engaged and informed, and your Google listing helps your potential buyers find you easily. Everything is interconnected and will help your small business retain more customers, boost sales, and stay on top.