4 Steps for Basic Online Business Promotion
Congratulations! You’ve started your own online business and now you’re ready for online business promotion. There are a number of schools of thought about online business promotion, they all come down to the same basic techniques: social media, search engine optimization, and offline promotion. If you start this early on, the entire process can be automated and create recurring revenue for you
Online business promotion starts with a blog.
You’ve started your online business, the catalog and shopping cart software are running, and you’re carefully written dozens, if not hundreds, of product descriptions. But you’re not done. Make blogging a part of your online business promotion. Blog posts are great landing pages for your website, with a much longer and keyword-rich description than your catalog entries. Write articles about typical problems your customers will face, and show how your products are the solutions. Post customer testimonials and photos with the products in action. The blog will become the center of your social media campaign, and improve your search engine optimization results.
Use social media for online business promotion.
Social media is another important part of your online business promotion. Create accounts for yourself and/or your company on Twitter, Facebook, and any social networks that fall within your target market. Follow/friend people who fit within that niche, and focus only on them. But rather than spam them with product messages, promote your how-to articles on your blog, answer questions related to your product, and let them see you as a solution, not a pest.
Online business promotion means optimizing for search engines.
It’s crucial that your website is optimized for search engines, otherwise you’ll waste a big part of your online business promotion efforts. Do simple things, like use important keywords in headlines and anchor text, having back links to your website and blog posts. These will lead to higher search engine placement. As you rank higher in the search results, more people will find you, which will lead to more visits, which leads to increased sales.
Offline marketing is important for online business promotion.
Offline marketing is an important tool in the online business promotion toolbox, especially as you focus on a particular niche. If you sell hand degreaser to car mechanics, go to the places where the gearheads gather. Go to car shows, trade shows, and conventions. Visit the garages in your town and the surrounding area. Buy a mailing list of auto repair shops around the country, and send them a sample of your product.
Tell everyone they can only buy the product on your website. Make cards and brochures with your URL on it. While you can certainly sell your product at these events, a lot of people will say “not right now” or “maybe I’ll come back.” Give them a card and tell them to find you online when they’re ready.
By following these online business promotion steps, you can set your business to run on autopilot. What you’ll see is that your blog will be picked up by the search engines and seen by social media friends, they’ll continue to visit your website, buy your products, and this will be an automatic revenue generator for you.