7 tips to help you build your brand online.

Building your online presence and creating a digital footprint for your brand can be a daunting task. 

Here are a few simple tips to help you get going.

1. Website design and user interface (UI)

Why spend all your effort on marketing your business online when your house is not in order? 
Make sure your website is on point. It must look good and load quickly. Long gone are the days of making people wait for web pages to load.

Make it easy for them to get the information they want!

2. Provide useful content on your pages

Think of ways you can use your expertise and knowledge to create content that people will find valuable. 

Anytime you are creating content, keep this in mind...

Information that is non-commercial in nature and provides value to your audience, and is written by an expert, which is you, tends to perform the best on search engines like Google. 

If people find value in what you are saying, they will be more likely to purchase from you at a later stage. 

And another thing: If you always talk about yourself, you will get far less engagement.

3. Be active on your website

If you want to receive traffic on your website, then you need to be active on it. 

If your expectations are consistent website traffic and customers with a 5-page website that is never updated, you need to think again!

Think of creative and fun ways to keep your website updated with interesting topics that your audience will be interested in reading. Blog as often as you can.

4. Know your target market

This seems obvious but, you will be surprised at how many business owners haven't a clue who they are trying to market to or what makes them tick! How can you expect to do business if you know very little about your audience? 

Here are some pointers you can use to help you to identify your potential customers:

• Age group
• Gender split
• Where are they located?
• When are they most active online? 
• What are their key motivations - how will your website fulfil their needs? 

5. Know your competition

You need to know what your competition is doing online. Assessing your competitors' strengths and weaknesses will assist you in growing your own digital footprint. 

You needn't spend money on fancy, expensive software to do this. You can gauge who your competitors are and what they are doing by using Google search. Here's how...

Using search operators

Search operators are command strings that you input into Google search. These commands will provide you with intel on your competition. 

This article will show you how to steal ideas from your competitors without paying for any fancy software. 

After you have identified them, assess the following:

• What are they doing well? 
• Do they update their website regularly with valuable content? 
• Do they have a good website, or is it outdated?
• How do they interface with their customers? 
• Where can you make improvements? 

Knowing your competition will help you to set realistic objectives within a timeframe.

6. Write about and share your own experiences

Plagiarising what other people have written is a complete waste of time - mostly yours! 

The Google algorithm is smart enough to know your content was copied from another site. So it will prioritise the original article whilst your page is buried down the rankings where no one will ever find it. 

Write about your own experiences, what has worked for you and what hasn't. People reading your content are smart. They can pick up an original from a content piece written with no intention very quickly. 

7. Mix it up!

Use video, images, photos and infographics with your written word to get your message out there. 
If you are too shy to be on video, like me, then think of other ways to mix up your content. I like creating infographics, like this one here which I made for this article. Canva has a ton of templates for you to choose from.

Conclusion

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You may also be interested in this article: Critical aspects of operating a small business - what I’ve learned along the way.