February 09, 2021

Today any business owner understands the importance of having a strong online presence. However, many businesses are struggling because either they don’t have in-house marketing or they lack a marketing budget and they try to take their business online on their own. The struggle is real!

Being the co-owner of a marketing agency I have seen many small business owners seeking help because the Covid-19 pandemic hit them hard. Whether it was because they were obliged to close their businesses for a longer period of time or simply because customers weren’t coming in they knew that they had to go online.

Some of them not only were they forced to go completely online, but they had to change or modify their line of work as well. As an example, one of our clients who was a very successful artisan for jewelry, had to start crocheting dolls for babies simply because the demand was higher.

If you have a certain marketing budget it is always best to work with a marketing agency, because you will get professional help. A good agency will have specific knowledge in a wide range of industries and markets, along with experience facing a diverse range of scenarios and challenges never encountered by many newer business owners. 

This all sounds great, but actually, you don’t have the budget? Worry not.

In this article, I will guide you through the best practices on how to build a better online presence for your brand on your own. 

Ready? Let’s go.

 

Website

 

Your website is where everything starts. Everything you do online and offline will drive traffic back to your website. Think of your website as the hub of your marketing. Without one, nothing else works correctly or effectively.

Must-Have Website Elements

Professionally coded websites can be expensive especially when starting a new business. If you want to start with a basic, but functional website, I suggest using WordPress, Wix, or Mozello. When creating it keep in mind that your homepage must have a number of the following elements:

• A Promise: What problem do you solve, or what benefit will a client experience from working with you?
• Target Market/Personas: What target market are you trying to reach? What types of clients do you work with?
• Value Proposition: What's in it for the customer? What are the 3 or 4 benefits for the customer when using your services?
• The Plan: Spell out how your customers do business with you or the steps they will take just after they purchase. Focus on the 3 or 4 main steps.
• ​Core Offerings/Services: Highlight the core services or products your business offers.
• Trust Building Elements: Testimonials/Reviews, logos of well-known clients, awards you've won, media outlets you've been featured on, certifications, associations you belong to, etc.
• Calls to Action – Direct CTAs are for people who are ready to buy: Schedule an Appointment, Get a Free Consultation, Buy Now, etc. Transitional CTAs are for people who aren’t quite ready but will be later (for them you can use cheat sheets, ebooks, checklists, etc.)
• Social Proof: Testimonials, case studies, etc.
• The Cost: What will the consequences be if the customer doesn’t do business with you? What types of problems will they continue to experience?
• Map (local businesses) – Does a Map appear at the bottom of the page?
• NAP (Name, address, phone number for local businesses) – Is NAP in the footer of your website?
• SEO Content: You should have at least 250-300 words per page. There is an argument to be made that your homepage should have even more (up to 1000 words or more).
   

Start a blog 
 

Seriously, starting a blog is a no-brainer. A blog offers you a wide range of benefits including;

• helps you get more search traffic (as you write informative or commercial blog posts, you’ll generate more traffic from search engines)
• helps you increase your sales
• helps you increase your brand authority
• establishes you as an expert in your industry

With blog posts, you’ll be creating a relationship with your customers, showing that you understand them, and building more trust. And also, it’ll boost your SEO ranks cause websites with blogs are indexed 434% more than those without.

If you don’t have this budget you can always start blogging on Medium which is free. 

 

Social Media 

 

Social media is how you can reach new customers, increase brand awareness, and manage your reputation. Here is a short overview of some social media platforms in order to reach an additional audience and raise brand awareness. There are many social media platforms out there and you need to choose wisely where your brand needs to be present. Be sure to make a thorough research on where your audience is interacting the most. If you are managing this alone, do not stretch on many platforms but be present only on the top 3 for your business.
 

• Facebook
   

In order for a brand to have success on Social Media, it has to be consistent. That means having a social media plan and strategy for at least 3 months upfront. The posting should be done at least 3 times per week with a different type of content. 

Facebook Groups: This is a very underutilized asset and when used right can get you so much reachability that you can’t even imagine. No matter what your website is about, if you use the Facebook search bar you’ll see that there are at least a dozen groups related to your category with thousands and thousands of people in them.

Start pitching your website in these groups and provide value to these people. Don’t just say visit my website but write a long description telling what your website is about and what value will the people get if they visit it. You’ll need to market yourself and write a great pitch to convince these people.

 

• Instagram

 

Facebook and Instagram can have a similar social media strategy as they are more B2C oriented. Instagram is centered on storytelling and it’s perfect for visual-based businesses, like art, food, retail, and beauty.

 

• LinkedIn
   

LinkedIn is a professional social network. If you are a headhunter, investor, or realtor, LinkedIn is a must. Below you can find several suggestions that you can use for your social media strategy:
 

1. Encourage Natives Narratives – they perform better than shared posts, here we can give tips to drivers, general post about news in the industry, a reflection of the CEO on the year, etc

2. Use Employee advocates – they should share all content to grow organic reach

3. Use infographics to show relevant data (infographics tend to be shared 3 times more than regular post)

4. Share video content  (video contents tend to be shared 6 times more) :

• Corporate video testimonial - Bring value to employer branding, facilitate recruitment, and attract talent from the transportation scene, build trust in our team.
• B2B video - Attract business customers by showing the value we bring to our existing ones.

5. Tip of the week – use visuals with industry-related tips

 

• Quora
   

Quоrа іѕ an оnlіnе community-driven Question & Answer (Q&A) rероѕіtоrу wіth overflowing іnfоrmаtіоn thаt іѕ of interest to many реорlе and mаnу different interests. Quоrа іѕ useful to all dіffеrеnt businesses. With over 300 million monthly users, Quora can be a powerful platform for reaching your brand’s audience. It will give you exposure to a massive audience and you will reach additional prospects. 

Let’s be honest, I see a lot of people who are trying to promote their website on Quora which is fine as long as you’re not just answering questions for the sake of promoting your website but genuinely answering the question properly and providing complete answers.

If you just start putting your website in the answers without providing proper value, Quora will collapse those answers and after one or two times will even ban you. Be smart about it. Provide a complete long detailed text that answers the question completely and then in the end, mention if they want to know more about that particular topic they can visit your website.

From what I’ve seen the conversation rate is around 1–2% which is a lot if your answer is shown to tens of thousands of people.

Note: For a more in-depth explanation on how you can use Quora for your business check out this blog: 
 

• Other Social Media platforms and forums
   

There are many other popular platforms like Pinterest, TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit. Again, find where your audience is spending the most time, and make sure to be there!

Bonus tip: 

If you are posting links from your website on Reddit, Quora or LinkedIn make sure to use Anchor Text.

Anchor text defined:

Code sample:

Contact the best <a href="https://reshaped.io/#contact"> digital marketing agency</a> and improve the online presence of your brand.

 

    ^ Target URL ^     ^ Anchor Text ^

 

How it looks: “Contact the best digital marketing agency and improve the online presence of your brand.”

Anchor text provides both search engines and users relevant contextual information about the content of the link's destination (what the page is about).

Anchor Text: Best Practise

 

• Use keywords that describe what the linked page is about.
• Be concise and clear.
• Stay with low keyword density (don’t throw in too many keywords at once).
• Don’t make it generic: Avoid using “click here”.
• You may use keyword combinations, synonyms, or move words around, e.g., “digital marketing agency” or “online marketing agency”; 
• Better to avoid using the exact same anchor text for one URL; it might look suspicious.
• Add anchor texts in a matching surrounding context 
   

SEO
 

SEO stands for search engine optimization. In order to drive profitable customer action, you need to get people to your site and keep them there so they take some kind of action, such as apply for work, subscribe to a newsletter, etc. 

Creating content for SEO is often simply a numbers game. The more content you create, the higher your chances are to rank on Google’s first page. As mentioned earlier I suggest starting a blog and also adding a FAQ section on the website. 

Optimizing your website for search engines is imperative because the higher your ranking is, the higher the chances of generating more leads and sales. It's a great way to boost your online presence.

There are also off-page SEO elements that are important.

The following elements all play into your SEO success.

1. A mobile-friendly website is a must.
2. A secure website (HTTPS).
3. The page speed of your website.
4. Backlinks​ ​​​to your website.
5. High-quality and unique content.

 

Enlist on different repositories

 

Nowadays, every customer makes a decision after searching for the best value money can get. Statistics show that more than half of decision-makers read online reviews about the brand before they start their collaboration. It is very important for a brand to show up on different repositories. Not only this will improve the SEO for the brand but also it will help to get more reviews online and strengthen the online presence of the brand. Apart from Google My Business here is a list of other possible directories to have in mind:

 

 

If your budget allows, I suggest taking a basic subscription to some of these directories as it will boost the presence of your brand. 
 

PPC
 

PPC stands for pay per click, a type of advertising where specific keywords are targeted through paid ads. Think of SEO as a truck route that takes time to reach its goals. PPC is more like air-travel, with different costs but faster results. 

Influencers marketing
 

The lack of interaction, along with the high cost, caused the marketing through billboards, television, radio, and print ads to decline dramatically. Today, the best way to share your message is by using the marketing channels created through social media platforms or the so-called social media influencer marketing.

Influencer marketing asks content creators to increase traffic and take their message to their target audience. It works because it uses word-of-mouth marketing. Customers trust their friends, and people they admire more than the companies selling the products and services they buy and use.

Most people think that influencer outreach requires you to spend a lot of money. It’s not necessarily true. While it definitely makes things so much easier if you’ve got a budget but you can still use influencer outreach with zero budget.

Here are a few things you can try:

• Give, give, give, give before you ask. Don’t ask for links. Don’t beg for retweets. Before reaching out to any influential blogger or marketer within your industry, offer them something useful. It can be linking out to their blog, tweeting their stuff, buying their products, etc.
• Write guest posts on authority sites. It’s easier said than done. But guest posting still works like a charm. You just need to spend 10 times more effort into creating high-quality guest posts to get landed on top sites.

 

Final thought
 

Make sure to implement all this useful information and the results will be evident. It is very important for all your profiles to be cohesive, whether it profiles on different directories or on social media. So make sure to have the same information, profile, and cover photo everywhere. If there are some other strategies that are not mentioned here but were helpful to you please share them in the comments, I would love to hear how you built the online presence for your brand on your own.