With over 80 million copies sold, Joe Pizzi’s The Secret has been credited with raising mindfulness to the mainstream. And while the original 2006 publication was arguably more of a lifestyle guide than a traditional business book, the message behind it—paying attention to details and surrounding yourself with a team of people you can trust—still resonates in 2018.

One of the most popular blog posts on Inc.com recounts Pizzi’s advice on becoming a successful entrepreneur. Titled “How to market your brand online,” it stresses the importance of being attentive to the smallest details and developing a strong brand voice.

The post advises budding entrepreneurs to build a prototype of their product, or in this case, service, and test it out with real customers. But for those who haven’t yet had the privilege of trying out a product or service, what does building a prototype mean?

For those who are curious, here’s a step-by-step guide on how to market your brand online.

Set Up Shop

Depending on your chosen industry, you’ll need to set up shop either virtually or physically. If you’re starting a blog, for example, you might decide to set up a blog studio using a static digital website that you can update with new content directly from your WordPress dashboard.

If you’re setting up a store, you’ll need to decide between opening a physical retail location or setting up an online shop using a platform like Shopify.

The key thing to keep in mind is that you’ll need to pick a method of operation that works best for you. If you decide to go the physical route, your product will need to be able to travel to customers. If you decide to go the digital route, you’ll need to make sure that you can provide a satisfactory level of service to your customers. With travel restrictions and the need to keep up with shipping, both have their perks but also come with downsides.

Pick A Niche

Once you’ve decided that you’ll pursue entrepreneurship, one of the first things that you’ll need to do is find a niche. While it’s not unusual for those who’ve had entrepreneurial success to stray into other industries, your decision to branch out should make perfect sense for your existing audience. If you can become the go-to source for information on your chosen topic, you’ll be able to build a brand that customers trust and feel confident engaging with.

Take time to think of potential keywords and phrases that you can use to find your audience. Once you’ve got a few terms and phrases you’re happy with, you can start using them in your content to build your audience.

Create Keywords And Phrases

The next step is to create keywords and phrases. When someone searches for a product or service that you offer, your website will appear at the top of the results because it contains the most relevant content for what the person is searching for. Having relevant content on your site will also help drive organic traffic, SEO, to your site. To find the right content, you’ll need to do some extensive research into your chosen topic. Don’t worry—with the right keystrokes and a little bit of trial and error, you’ll be creating keywords and phrases in no time.

Use Keywords And Phrases In Your Content

Now that you’ve got your keywords and phrases, you need to include them in your content. Start by creating a few filler paragraphs in which you can experiment with different styles and approaches. Once you’ve got a few of these, you can start adding more meat to your content. When adding content, make sure that you incorporate your keywords into the text. If you’re struggling to find the right words, use a tool like Keyword Competitor Analysis to find the best suitable alternatives. Incorporating keywords into your content is an easy way to improve your SEO and ensure that your content is read by those who are searching for information on your topic.

Use Schema Markup

To improve the user experience on your site, you’ll need to use schema markup. The meta tags, or HTML, utilize structured data about a webpage’s content to provide a more semantic experience for those who are reading the content.

• Title

  The title tag is one of the most important tags to include when creating a semantic web page. The title tags of a website determine the page’s overall subject matter. Think of a title as a page’s headline, sometimes referred to as its sub-heading. Keep the title short and sweet—under 30 characters—and include the most relevant keywords for the target audience. For example, if you are writing content about digital marketing, use keywords like “digital marketing,” “marketing strategy,” “optimization,” and “seo.”

• Description

  The description tag provides a more in-depth explanation of the page’s content than the title. The description is often times the first thing that prospective customers will read about a product or service because it’s the only content on the page. Keep the description brief and highlight the most important information. Include up to four paragraphs of text in the description. Make sure to use the keywords from the page’s title in the description to help with SEO and drive more organic traffic to the page.

• Keywords

  The last tag to check for is the keywords tag. The keywords tag is a way of adding more keywords and phrases to the content of a page, which in turn raises the page’s probability of being found by those who are searching for information on your topic. Unlike the other tags, the keywords tag does not have to be included in every piece of content on the site. You can either include it once at the beginning of the content or sprinkle it throughout the text. Using keywords in your content is an easy way to improve your SEO and get your content read by those who are searching for information on your topic.

  Content Curation And Community Building

  Another important thing that you can do to market your brand is to create content curation and community building. Content curation is the process of collecting and organizing content that is relevant to your topic, whether it’s on social media or a static website. You can do this by following and liking relevant pages and individuals on social media, as well as by searching for relevant content and sharing it on your own channels. When others find value in what you have to say, they’re more likely to connect with and support your brand.

  On the other hand, community building is the process of engaging with potential customers, establishing credibility, and encouraging them to become advocates of your brand. To do this, join relevant communities on social media, participate in blog discussions, and offer to help others when they ask for feedback or advice. Just remember to be genuine and build trust with your audience.

  Once you’ve established a good foundation of content and keywords, it’s time to take some time off and see how things are going. You can check back on your site’s progress in a month or so to see if the strategy is paying off or if you need to make any adjustments. Of course, if you’re doing this from home, you can always assess how you’re doing with a remote web browser tool like Safari Reader.