“Digital first” is the latest buzz phrase to do the rounds in boardrooms and conferences. But what does that mean in practice? Find out here how to improve your online presence.
It’s never been more important for businesses to develop online presences. The coronavirus pandemic accelerated the trend towards buying, selling and interacting via the web and businesses that fail to establish themselves online risk being left behind their competitors. Building an online presence is no longer a nice-to-have, it’s an essential.
Here are ten abiding tips for small businesses wanting to develop ecommerce offerings. After you've finished here, consider using our guide on improving the online presence of your business. It breaks down the important factors, common mistakes and details quick wins.
(1) Invest in search engine optimisation (SEO)
Ask yourself whether potential customers will find your site through a Google search or simply as a reference or to gain further information after they’ve already been introduced to you by word of mouth or some other channel. If it’s the former, then you’ll need to think about investing in SEO marketing or least researching key search terms – essentially the words people will type into Google that will lead them to your site.
(2) Develop a social media strategy
Increase your output on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram with new content and invite people to follow you. Adding links to your site will increase traffic. Put a couple of hours every week in your diary for you and your team to work on your social media, creating content and identifying people and organisations to follow.
(3) Be customer centric
Too many websites are built from the inside out, in other words they start from the point of view of the people launching them. Instead, think of it from your customers’ point of view. Is it obvious from the outset who you are and what you do? Is the “customer journey”, from visiting the site and choosing a product, through to completing payment, clear, simple and short?
(4) Choose a flexible, reliable ecommerce platform
If you’re selling online this is especially important. Shopify is among the best known and easiest to manage. Alternatives include Wix, which has a good drag and drop editor while BigCommerce is good for search engine optimisation (SEO) and its wide range of themes.
(5) Think mobile
In 2020 people in the UK spent 82bn hours on shopping apps on their phones and tablets, up by 30 per cent on 2019. Make sure that your site looks as good and works as effectively on a mobile device as it does on a desktop or laptop. This will probably mean developing a mobile version.
(6) Make your site visually appealing
Whatever you’re selling, think carefully about photographs and graphics. We process information around 60,000 times faster visually than we do with text and visitors will make up their mind about your site based on the images that you use. Invest in good quality photographs and graphics and test them with customers, friends and family.
(7) Use email marketing to drive people to your site
Contact people on a regular basis and give them a reason firstly to open the email and secondly to click through to visit your site. Tips and advice as well as industry news and information or even free samples are all appealing. Avoid a hard sell as this will only put people off. Services such as Mailchimp, Hubspot, Sender and Benchmark Email offer templates that allow you to design your mail shots, manage your lists of recipients and analyse the responses that you’ve prompted. They also enable you to stay on the right of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
(8) Keep up to date
New content is essential to building a strong online presence. Blogs on topical issues relating to your industry and advice aimed at your target audience about how to handle new challenges and exploit new opportunities will help to keep you towards the top of search engine results. Ensure that you’re peppering your content with key search terms, those words that customers will type into a search engine when they’re looking for the service that you provide, be that “villas in Spain” or “building services near me”.
(9) Research your competitors
Keeping an eye on what your competitors are doing online is a great way to think about what you want your website to look like and what online content such as blogs you should be producing. It will also help you to develop your differentiating factor – should your site suggest that you’re more upmarket? More affordable? Younger and funkier? Do you want to play the local card or emphasise your green credentials? Looking at the online presence of people in the same sector will enable you to identify your unique selling point (USP) and emphasise this on your site and in your social media.
(10) Consider external support
There might be a time when bringing in an expert makes practical and commercial sense. Identify the knowledge gaps – what don’t you know and what do you want them to help you with? Word of mouth is always the best way to find a supplier in these situations but check with an agency’s other clients before hiring them. Set out clear objectives and criteria for success before work begins.
Developing an online presence requires time and effort but it soon develops a momentum of its own and you’ll find yourself quickly learning new skills that will future proof your business.
