If you don’t know how to improve your website or your social media accounts for your business, chick this article out. Here are 10 tips on how to improve your business online.
If you opened a new business, digital marketing is a basic way to success. The risk of failing against the market similar businesses is less when you have a good digital marketing plan. Know how to how to improve your business online and compete to win.
1. Know your competitors, and be different
Researching your competitors is important because as a business owner, you need to add value to your market, and to always be different. The best way to start is Google search. So, start by knowing how they position themselves in the ads. For example, results of Google Ads for Nottingham plumbers Terms like “No Call Out Charge”, “1Hr Response”, and “Fully Qualified Plumbers” are significant selling points.
S, you have to consider how to be different from all plumbers who offer the same service. If you don’t have something different in your startup, invent one. Being different is the most important thing when it comes to how to improve your business online.
Here are 6 ways to differentiate yourself:
- Product – most significant yet easily copied and can live short.
- Service – installation, training, speed, easing businesses, and so on.
- Distribution – providers, industrialists, retailers, or distributors you work with.
- Relationship – customer service and employees can be a great way to differentiate.
- Reputation/Image – this may be built by your present customers who may later become your supporters.
- Price – This can also be easily imitated. But, it depends on your product, customers would decide to pay more money if you have something more valuable for working with you.
2. Get your website essentials right
Users are becoming more demanding every day regarding the service they await from a website. They always expect a fast loading website. As a startup, you may not be having a large budget like big companies, yet you may at least get the essentials right.
From the above, you can understand how much a slow website can lessen the chance of turning a visitor into a customer. Website speed or load time is now more important as people are more into online shopping. Check Google’s PageSpeed Insights to know how you can decrease the loading time of your website. Or test it from here to know how you can decrease bounce rates.
3. Improve Google My Business listing and customer reviews
When a potential customer is searching for a service or a product online, your reputation is the factor that makes them decide whether to choose you or not.
Fortunately, Google My Business gives you some sort of control to manage how people grasp your business.
Some of the common mistakes to avoid include:
- copy listings
- Establishing needless listings after an address change
- Misusing business name. For example, including unnecessary promotional messages
Reviews by customers are not something new, yet you might be shocked by how much this is overlooked. We would guarantee this as a priority and a very essential step when it comes to your digital marketing strategy. 30% of people asked about reviews said that it’s the first thing they look at and judge the business through.
4. Create interesting blog content
Almost all local businesses are in very competitive industries. So, you have to consider a content strategy that will lead to good outcomes. Small businesses’ problem is that they don’t usually rank on the first page of Google. So, you have to do something different and to stick with a good content strategy plan. For example, “Plumbing Nottingham” might be almost impossible if you’re just entering the market. This needs significant resources and budget, and it’s not always affordable.
Also, ranking for a broad term may not at the end drive to more customers. That’s why your blog content performs a great role.
Tips you will need:
- Put your audience first
- Make sure the content is SEO friendly
- Use the right tone of voice
- Show readers, they will trust you
As an example, the screenshot below is about how to increase organic traffic for a startup in Nottingham by researching blog content that could be created in house.
5. Consider Google Ads for your small business
Google Ads, was known previously as Google Adwords after improving.
There are 8 steps to take:
- Set your objectives
- Research
- Set a budget
- Set a plan
- Select keywords
- Relevant content
- Send strong message
- Consider the entire picture
New Google Keyword Planner
One of the main steps when making your campaigns of Google Ads Search is choosing proper keywords. Google Keyword Planner was updated on the new link to assist with this.
These new features include finding seasonal trends, breakdown by platform e.g. desktop/traffic/mobile/tablet/splits, and Improved forecasting tools.
6. Create professional visual content
Videos will help you improve at a great rate, and these statics show the reason:
- 97% of marketers say that videos were very helpful for users to understand the product
- 76% stated that it helped a lot in increasing the sales numbers
- 81% of people bought the product after the video convinced them.
Additionally, another stat shows how it’s very important to make videos because more than 1.9 billion users are logging Youtube -which is owned by Google- every month.
Big brands know how important video marketing is, and regularly creating big-budget video campaigns according to the examples below from the likes of Beats by Dre, Apple, Nintendo, and Dominoes.
Even if you don’t have a large budget, you can associate with a good video agency or freelancers to start your video campaign.
7. Improve local SEO
Local SEO is very important if you are a local small business. And Google My Business is a significant part of this. Build a link is always important.
Following newspaper sites, bloggers, awards/festival sites, or sponsorship sites can be useful for you to build a link.
8. Develop email marketing
Email marketing is another basic digital marketing step you have to take to improve your business online.
There is a truly inclusive guide for email marketing from Simply Business which guarantees you know all the fundamental email marketing points which are:
- The legal side of email marketing
- The provider
- What are your competitors doing
- Crafting an effective email
9. Focus on a primary social media channel
Social media marketing strategies keep changing with regular platform updates. Usually, startup owners ask, which social media platform should I focus on?
The answer is so simple.
Choose the platform that you have the most active potential consumers on
- LinkedIn and Twitter are the most suitable platforms if your business is B2B.
- Facebook and/or Instagram might be great choices for B2C customers.
Whatever your choice is, always have a major social media platform that you will concentrate on improving. As a startup owner, you perhaps will not have the needed resource to keep more than a channel growing effectively.
Chatbots
Artificial intelligence is a trend for 2019. In fact, by the end of 2019 selection is anticipated to develop and for chat-bots to become normal for online sellers.
Chatbots are currently at the front of development for startups. As a business owner, it’s never been easier to create your bot. Facebook offers a convenient means to create one with limited coding ability.
According to G2Crowd, there are currently over 300,000 Facebook chatbots live today, it means it is the perfect and most popular platform to use the chatbot.
10. Partner with local influencers
Should Your Brand Work With Instagram Influencers?
You have to consider all the new areas, and definitely, this is one of them.
Currently, influencer marketing is not only for fashion businesses more people are influencing online rather than fashionistas.
For instance, if you have a food-related business you can approach food bloggers, and so on.
