Are you looking to grow your small business? Do you want to know more about Online Marketing and how to use it to your advantage? If so, you’ve come to the right place! Let’s get into it.
Why Online Marketing?
The way we interact with businesses has changed. Back in the day, we would go into a shop and spend a few hours talking to the owner about the weather. Or maybe we’d get a coffee and discuss the state of the industry. These days, more often than not, we’re going to be finding the answers to our questions online. Why? Because we’re looking for information online and we expect businesses to provide that for us. If they don’t, we’ll move on to the next website.
With the growing trend of businesses moving online, it’s no wonder that our expectations have changed. However, not everything has changed just because we can now get information online. Being able to research a business before purchasing their product or service is still beneficial. That way, you’re not tempted by online marketing companies that offer great deals but have terrible customer reviews. You can also use the opportunity to verify the business’s legitimacy. But, often times, that leads you to further web pages where you’re tempted by more offers. So it goes without saying that you should only visit trustworthy websites when looking for information about a business.
How Do I Market My Business Online?
Now that you know the importance of being extra careful when browsing the internet for info about a business, let’s get into the nitty-gritty of online marketing. There are three steps you’ll need to follow to successfully market your business online. The first step is to pick your niche.
What is your niche? It’s the portion of the market you’re best suited for and the audience you’ll be targeting with your content. There are many types of niches, from affiliate marketing to product review, and social media to e-commerce. Think of a niche like Netflix, whose target audience is mostly composed of movie lovers. So the content they create is focused on telling stories and promoting movies. Your niche will determine the type of content you create and how you present it. When you pick your niche, you’re also picking the type of customers you’ll be trying to attract. This is where a lot of businesses make their mistake. They’ll rush into picking any old niche just to have content and don’t stop to think about whether or not that’s the right fit for their business. When picking your niche, you need to ask yourself questions like:
Do I have the expertise to succeed in this niche?
If you’re reading this, chances are you already know the importance of SEO. If not, no worries, you’ll learn all about it below. For those of you who do know the importance of SEO, congratulations, you’ve found your niche. You’ll be presenting yourself as an expert in your chosen field and it’ll be easy for people to find you when they need your expertise. Just make sure that you have the necessary experience to back it up. Otherwise, you could end up doing more harm than good by trying to force your way into a crowded market with little to no experience. People learn from experience, hopefully you’ll be able to provide some good learning opportunities for others in your chosen field. For those of you who don’t know what SEO is, it’s nothing more than getting your website’s content to show up on the first page of a search engine.
Where Do I Find My Audience?
Once you’ve picked your niche, it’s time to figure out where your audience can be found. The internet is vast, it would be difficult to find an audience that doesn’t exist somewhere on the web. The issue is you have to figure out where they are and how to get them to consistently visit your site. To do this, you’ll need to utilize online marketing channels that can drive traffic to your site. There are several platforms that can do this for you. The next step is to select one and start building your audience.
Pick Your Platform
If you’re looking to build an audience through videos, you’ll need to pick a platform that supports video content. With the explosion of video content on the internet, more and more people are turning to platforms like YouTube to find the information they need.
This is where you’ll find most of the world’s population. Building a community of people that enjoy your content and value what you have to say will drive traffic to your site. From creating interesting and valuable content to using the right hashtags, you can learn a lot from YouTube on how to best use their platform to grow your audience.
Use SEO To Your Advantage
Now that you have a platform to grow your audience on, it’s time to use your new found expertise to your advantage. When optimizing your content for search engines, you’re not just trying to trick the search engine into giving you better results. You’re also using SEO to draw more visitors to your site. Once you have a decent amount of content on your site, you can use the search function to see what people are searching for, discover topics that are valuable to your audience, and find the most efficient ways to structure your content to optimize it for search.
SEO isn’t something that will just happen, you have to put in the work to make it happen. When you put the right effort into finding and securing key words and phrases, people will start seeing your content when they are looking for the information you offer. Building a brand for yourself isn’t easy, it takes time and patience to do it right.
Marketing Your Business Online
Once you have a decent amount of content on your site, it’s time to start marketing it. Now that you have an audience, you’re in a better position to sell your products. Whether it’s a physical product or a service, everything you need to start marketing your business online is already there. All you need is the courage to do it. One of the biggest barriers to getting started is simply being afraid of going online. You have to find the courage to step out of your comfort zone and try something new. The more you do, the more you’ll learn and the more you’ll grow. Remember, all you need to succeed in online marketing is a good motive and the courage to follow through. If you have those two things, you’ll be able to overcome any obstacle thrown your way. So, where are you going to start?