If you run a business, one of the (many) things you’ll need is an online presence – and not just any old online presence; a good one that people recognize and remember. You’ve got to take things further than just being online and calling it good – you’ve actually got to think a lot more strategically about it and take your online presence to the next level. True, that can be a tough ask, but it’s not impossible, and if you want to stand out, it’s exactly what you’ll have to do. With that in mind, keep reading to find out more.
Make Your Website More Modern
It’s wise to start at the heart of your business’s online presence, and that’s always going to be your website – it’s vital that you have one, even if you don’t actually sell anything online because it gives you a sense of reliability and it makes your business seem a lot more legitimate, so people will be far more likely to buy from you and get in touch to find out more about how you can help them.
Since your website is just so important, it makes sense to turn it into something that people are going to want to visit and spend time on, which means it needs to look good and be easy to use, and that has to be a top priority for you. If it helps, think of your website as the digital storefront of your business; it’s definitely got to reflect your brand’s personality, and values, and give your visitors an easy experience, otherwise, they’re just going to go somewhere else, and you lose out on a sale not just now, but future sales too.
One thing that’s vital is mobile optimization because most users will at least start their search on their phones or other small devices like tablets, and only when they’re ready to buy will they move to the laptop (and if your website is good enough, they might not even do that!). You’ll also have to have a fast loading time, otherwise, visitors will leave before you have a chance to show them anything, plus you’ll want clear navigation, as a website that’s too cluttered and complicated isn’t a place anyone wants to spend their time, let alone their money.
Use LLM SEO
SEO – search engine optimization – is definitely something you’ll need on your website (and, in fact, it should be part of everything you do online), but it can often be the case that when you’re just about able to understand what SEO is and how to do it, it all changes again, and there will be updates that are crucial to put in place, but tricky to get to grips with.
LLM (large language model) SEO is one of those updates, and it really is important. An LLM is something like ChatGPT, and having LLM SEO in your marketing strategy means you’re able to use language and phrases that your customers are going to be searching for, which will make a difference in your product descriptions and content. As you can see, there’s a lot to this idea, which is why the best option is generally to work with experts who can ensure you make the most out of this idea and get ahead of your competitors who might not even have worked out it exists just yet.
You might assume that when you run a business, and you want to use social media to get more engagement and customers, you have to be on every single platform that exists – and you might even have tried to do it. If you have, what was the outcome? In most cases, you’ll spend far too much time on social media trying to connect with audiences who are just never going to be interested in what you’re selling because they’re not your target market. In the end, you may well abandon all your social media efforts and just leave unloved and un-updated pages hanging around, which always looks bad (customers might think you’ve gone out of business if your social media platforms aren’t regularly updated).
So what can you do? Social media is clearly important, but how can you make the most of it? The answer is to use it the right way, and the right way is to make sure you do market research before you start, so you know precisely which platforms (or perhaps just one single platform – there’s nothing wrong with that) will be the best place for your business to put itself. That should be the platform(s) where your target market spends their time, so work out who they are, create content they’ll like and engage with, and post it in the right places. That’s obviously a simplified version of what you need to do, but it’s pretty much right – you’ll just have to go into more detail when you decide to work on it.
Add Customer Service To Your Online Presence
Customer service is a really important part of running a business, and no matter how great your products and services are, if your customer service is lacking in any way, you’re going to end up losing business and gaining a terrible reputation. And you can actually make great customer service a massive part of your brand’s online presence, by using social media (and responding quickly where possible), having clear FAQs on your site, having good email support, having an AI chat on your website for out of hours or simple queries, and so on. These are the kinds of things that can set your business apart and ensure you get noticed, taking your business’s online presence to the next level.
It’s very important to offer as many ways for people to get in touch as you can, and the easier it is for people to reach you, the more likely they’ll ask their questions and go on to buy from you. At the very least, they’ll have a good opinion of you even if they don’t buy, so they might come back in the future, or recommend you to someone else. Whatever the case, giving people the option to call, text, DM, use a chat service, and anything else that comes to mind makes a huge amount of sense.