Digital adviser Alyson Eyval shares her top tips to help you target customers online to create sales and get cash in the bank
1. Build a website
If you don’t have a website – get one! Using Social Media is a great way to promote your business, but in no way should it replace an actual site. Having a website not only provides your business with credibility, but it can bring you business at any time, day, or night, from new and repeat customers.
2. Search Engine Optimisation
Just having a website isn’t enough, it needs to be optimised! SEO helps you rank higher in search engines and makes your website visible to potential customers. There is a lot to consider when planning your SEO strategy, but when done correctly, it can be the difference between getting found on page 1 or finding yourself way down on page 4,5 6 or lower in search engine results!
3. Local SEO
It is crucial for businesses to rank for local search terms. If you are not on top of your local SEO your competitors will be and will always outrank you. Things like claiming listings in directories such as Google My Business and Bing Places for Business can help with this.
4. Track website performance
Use Google Analytics! The goal of Google Analytics is to help you deliver a high-quality website to your customers. Learn to love it and find out what your customers are doing on your website, which pages are performing, and which ones aren’t. Understanding all of this will help you develop a top performing site.
5. Analyse your competitors
When you're building an online presence, remember to be competitive. Researching your competitors will give you ideas for new content and strategies. Develop your website and online presence with your competitors in mind at all times. Keep an eye on how their customers are engaging with them, are they doing something you’re not?
6. Do Email Marketing
One of the top ways to build your online presence is to build and grow an email list. Email marketing is still one of the cheapest and most effective online marketing tools out there. An email list will enable you to engage with current and potential customers on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
7. Create Social Media Profiles
Social media allows even the smallest business to interact with the wider world. With more and more people using social media to research their next purchase your business needs to have a social media presence. You do not need to create a profile on every platform, only the ones that your audience engages with most.
8. Plan your social media posts
Planning your social media posts takes away the stress and anxiety of rushing to think up content to share with your audience. It also means you can automate responses, saving you having to reply to potential customers at unfavourable times.
9. Analyse the effectiveness of your social media posts
Looking into post insights can help you better understand your audience and optimise your content. Understanding the different social media metrics is important in understanding how successful your campaigns are. Just like website analytics, understanding your social media insights will help you develop a top performing social media profile.
10. Paid ads
You can create paid ads on a number of platforms, they can give you fast results, they are often affordable and measurable (if managed correctly), and you can get very specific with the targeting. They are certainly not a “quick win” to gaining new customers and sales immediately, but they do give you a lot of control and allow you to reach an audience that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to from an organic perspective.