Having a strong online presence
Before we get into the HACKS to get you more clients and more revenue, we need to talk about why YOU need a STRONG ONLINE PRESENCE.
The more ways you can get your business in front of your target audience, the more opportunities you have to build clients and revenue!!!
- Get discovered: A strong online presence allows your ideal customers to find you through a simple google search! Because you will come up first!
- Legitimate business: 56% of consumers won’t consider a business legitimate without a website and strong online presence!
- Market your business 24/7: With a strong online presence, your ideal clients can find you any time of day, anywhere in the world, without you having to do anything!!
- Save money: tools like Google Analytics and online digital marketing sites will give you all the stats you need to show you where you need to spend money, and where you can save it!
You can also get our hashtag hacks here!
hack number 1
You NEED to have a MODERN, ATTRACTIVE, FAST LOADING, USER-FRIENDLY WEBSITE WITH SEO OPTIMISATION.
Now that sounds like lot… But bare with me.
With today’s technology, design, and readily available SEO tools, this isn’t too hard to achieve.
Your website has to look good because 99% of your competition will have beautiful websites – designed by amazing web developers (like the website architects ;)) – so there’s no excuse. And your clients know this!
It also has to be fast loading, user friendly, and optimised for SEO because that way, google will love you and clients will actually be able to find your website! Search engines favour sites with fast loading times… so get yours in check!!
number 2... Think audience, not followers
It’s not a numbers game! Depending on your current following this could be good news or bad news… But it just means that you have to focus on getting seen by your IDEAL client – instead of having a large but random following of people who will never buy into your business!
IDEAL CLIENT = MORE ENGAGEMENT = MORE MONEY
So thinking of your audience, you need to decide what platforms are right for you! Being a small business, we dont have the time to be active everyday on every platform! But we can single out one or two and work our best to get the engagement we deserve!
For example, Facebook is popular with ages 25-34 and has over 2.7 billion users, however it has the smallest reach due to how users interact with the platform – favouring showing ‘friend’ content and paid advertisements, opposed to Instagram or Pinterest where users utilise the Explore features to discover new accounts.
3... Search listings
The best way to show up in search listings is to ACTUALLY SHOW UP!
Believe it or not, some small businesses forget to show up on multiple search engines. The best way to do this is to update your Google my Business profile as if it is the homepage of your website – after all, if a client googles you this will be the first thing they’ll see!
Now Google is the biggest search engine, but its not the only one! You need to make sure your site is showing up on Bing, Yelp, Facebook, even Foursquare! Anywhere you can add info about your business and links to your website… you should be!
To beat the dreaded algorithm, you need to populate every field, meticulously:
- Contact information
- Website
- Category
- Hours
- Description
- Photos
- Menus/offerings
- Booking/reservation options
And this information needs to be monitored regularly to ensure you’re directing potential clients to the right place – No one trusts a business with outdated, incorrect information.
4! email marketing and ads
Use email marketing to stand out in your subscribers’ inboxes.
Email marketing has an advantage over social because your audience have actually opted in to receive marketing from you and unlike social media, your content is less likely to get lost in the mysterious algorithm.
The three main things to focus on for email marketing are:
- Write irresistible subject lines: You’ve heard of click bait right? Well ideally you want an amazing, irresistible, CLICKABLE title that actually follows through on the content!
- Build your list: You want your list to be a community so offer a free service to help your subscribers that they can only access by sign up, such as a free guide, or discount off first purchase.
- Segment your list: You do NOT want to come across as spam! While you might love an email or 2 a day from your favourite businesses, your clients won’t! You need to make sure there is a way to segment your subscribers so everyone gets what they want. Some may be happy to receive multiple weekly updates, whereas some might only want to hear from you once a month! Doing this will increase open rates and reduce unsubscribes and spam reports!
99% of email users check their email every day, some as much as 20 times a day
Social Ads
Social media ads have higher reach than organic posts and can be easily targeted towards specific users, compared to search engine adverts.
Here are tips for advertising on: