Grow Your Business Online Archives

Many businesses may exist on the Internet but they truly are not living up to promise

For many industries, online sales make for the vast amount of their takings. Most businesses are online, but the big question is: are they fulfilling their fullest potential? The answer is frankly, no!

Many businesses may exist on the Internet but they truly are not living up to promise, according to Julius Tirrá of Celebian. Understanding the online sphere and how to make the most of it involves knowhow and expertise, however it doesn’t mean you can’t do so with a little forward planning and outsourcing of expertise, according to Tirrá.

Below are seven great ways you can grow your business.

Design a Good Website

A website is a must-have if looking to grow a business empire online. It is your business’ frontline for creating the first impression to your target customers and audiences and the platform to sell whatever products or services you have to offer. That said, it would be advisable to create a website unique to your business, not a copy of the generic ones found all over. One of the advantages of creating a unique website is that customers will be able to distinguish you from the rest, enabling you to build and grow your brand.

There is more to creating a good website than just the aesthetics; it needs to be practical, fast, and more importantly, responsive says Tirrá. This should be, however, relatively easy, especially if looking to create or partner with an e-commerce website. Many e-commerce websites, including Facebook, Flipkart, Amazon, etc., have some of the best platforms you can use. You also won’t have to invest heavily in the website if partnering with these websites.

Ensure the Website Is Mobile-friendly

The website needs to be both desktop and mobile-friendly too. Many people today (including your target customers/audiences) use their smartphones or iPads/tablets to shop online; they need to be able to access and navigate your website on limited screen sizes. As long as audiences and customers can access and navigate your website with ease, you can be assured of stronger impressions and return visits.

Creating a mobile-friendly website has its benefits in that it will boost the userbase, enable you to collect usage data, and even analyse collected data to see which areas can be improved for better performance. With almost everyone today using their smartphones to access the Internet and possibly shop online, creating a mobile-ready website is the way to go. It would help if you also considered creating a profile on some of the social media platforms, such as Facebook, for improved visibility as well.

Embrace Social Media Marketing

Social media provides an excellent platform for marketing and promoting your business. With billions of users logging onto these platforms each day, you can be sure to attract tons of traffic from it. Social media marketing is a highly converting strategy that can help grow your business or brand within a short time, especially if done correctly.

Facebook, for example, has a marketplace section that allows businesses (small and big) to advertise their services and products. You can opt to use the free or paid option, depending on how much you wish to spend on Facebook marketing campaigns. Some of the benefits of paying for Facebook advertising is that your content will be displayed to the target audience, increasing clickthrough rates, and possible conversions. Whatever your ranking is on search engines, you can be sure to benefit from social media marketing on Instagram and others. Twitter, for instance, makes it possible to push specific advertisements to target audiences within your business’ niche.

Email Marketing

Email marketing has been around for several decades and is still effective and efficient to this date. Almost everyone today has an email or two. You can thus take advantage of email marketing to promote your business as well. All you need is to build an emailing list to use for your marketing campaigns and promotions. Asking your audiences to signup for newsletters, running a giveaway campaign, or even promotions with a chance of someone winning a present, are some of the ways you can collect email addresses genuinely. With global audiences and relatively high conversions, you can be sure to get your business known and even earn more clients this way.

Know Your Competitors

Google Analytics (among other tools) enables website owners and managers to study current trends, make predictions, and research their competition. These tools allow one to find similarities and strategies that work for other companies and those that you could use to boost your chances. Google analytics is thus a handy tool that can help you avoid losses by focusing on higher-performing campaigns.

Another advantage of running an online business is that you can research and even find other strategies that could help drive traffic to your website. Some of these analytics tools can help you identify your rival’s weaknesses, giving you a chance to turn the tables around and divert traffic to your business.

Optimize Content

Although you might know this already, the key to getting your business known by organic visitors and search engines is publishing high-quality and properly optimized content. Publishing optimized content on your website and running blogs can significantly impact your search engine rankings and website performance. Properly optimized websites often get a spot on the top page of a search result, translating to increased traffic and online visibility.

The key to optimizing content lies with proper keyword research and usage of the same. For this reason, you want to choose keywords relevant to your business niche and high-converting at the same time. Search engine optimization is one of the pillars of online marketing and plays a crucial role in boosting online visibility and inbound traffic.

Work Towards Increasing Website Traffic

Web traffic is everything when running an online business. It is through the said traffic that you can start converting much of it into potential and even loyal customers/clients. A website that gets tons of traffic is more likely to generate sales/profits than one that doesn’t. Your business thus should unwind and focus on attracting traffic by first creating and publishing unique and high-quality content, optimising your content, then venturing into other online marketing campaigns.

Generating organic traffic is one of the best ways to grow your online business. You can also use paid methods to generate the same. Facebook and Google, for example, offer paid options for directing traffic your way. This however entails paying for such through Google or Facebook Ads. You could also hire online marketing experts to help get your business known and improve traffic as well. You only need to find the best online marketing agency or company, especially one with tons of experience in the field.

By John Stanly

Sourced from Entrepreneur India

By Jonathan Riff

In a crowded online ecosystem, your business needs to stand out to see success.

The online ecosystem is becoming increasingly crowded. The majority of adult consumers are shopping online now, some exclusively, and new brands are launching daily. Competition for consumer attention online has never been higher.

Brands need to use every competitive advantage they can to stand out and position themselves as the more favourable and appealing choice. One of the ways to accomplish this is by leveraging social proof.

The average consumer will trust the opinion and review from a stranger the same way they would if it was coming from a close friend or family member. Consumers also view brands that align themselves with popular personalities and are seen in trusted media outlets in a better light.

It snowballs from there, as the more people who purchase from a brand, the more likely others will follow, right behind them. Social proof helps your brand build trust, which provides you with incredibly powerful marketing leverage. Let’s look at a few ways to use social proof to grow your business online.

1. Publish case studies that showcase your product or service

Every product or service solves a problem, which allows you to showcase just how great of a solution your product is by creating a case study, trial or demo. This is great content that you can use not only on your website to convert more sales, but also share on social media and with your email list.

It doesn’t matter if you are selling a product or service; case studies are a highly effective way to show potential customers that what you are offering delivers as promised. Demonstration videos can be very powerful in terms of converting sales.

A call-to-action that makes a claim is great, but one that also includes a video that allows the consumer to witness it will convert at a much higher rate. Video and graphics — anything visual — will outperform a traditional whitepaper written case study.

2. Display customer reviews in proximity to your CTAs

You are more than likely already focused heavily on collective customer reviews, whether it’s on your Google My Business profile, Facebook page, Yelp profile, Better Business Bureau listing or ecommerce website.

Reviews are powerful, and you can even take all of the reviews you are already receiving and funnel them all to one dedicated “Reviews” page on your website. There are plugins and apps that can help you do this.

Incorporate some of your best reviews into your website design, placing them in proximity to your calls-to-action. An authentic review detailing how amazing your product is located right next to the “Add to Cart” button can help push consumers to the point of conversion.

3. Showcase trust badges on your website to increase credibility

Take advantage of any opportunity you have to instil more confidence in your website visitors. The more confident they are in your business, the more likely they are to purchase from you or request additional information.

Trust and credibility create a more confident consumer. When the barrier of uncertainty is removed from the equation, there is far less friction between potential customers and your product or service.

Displaying trust badges on your website is a way to make your visitors feel confident immediately. Different industries will have different badges, depending on what professional organizations they belong to and what their conversion goals are.

For example, a D2C ecommerce website would want to highlight website security, fast processing times and customer service. They might include SSL badges and badges from their online-payment processor to instill consumer confidence as well as something along the lines of “Orders Processed and Shipped within 24-Hours” to highlight their speed and efficiency.

A local contractor or electrician could use the BBB seal if they are active members or their Yelp review badge to highlight their customer satisfaction. A local Chamber of Commerce badge or other industry-specific organization memberships are also good examples.

4. Publish testimonials in video format

Testimonials from your customer are very powerful, and in video format, they perform better than standard written testimonials. Why? Because it’s coming from an actual person, and when it’s genuine, the potential customer senses it.

Anyone can post up a written testimonial, and consumers aren’t stupid — they know some businesses write fake testimonials. If the video is recording in your office or place of business, even better, as it adds to the authenticity factor. Anyone viewing it will undoubtedly know it’s an honest and genuine review.