How to promote your business online
Google was founded in 1998. Since then, online marketing has gone just fine. Hahaha, no, seriously, it can be a jungle out there. First of all, Google has algorithms for everything. Think you can simply copy and paste another company’s website content onto your own? Well, you can, there’s nothing technically stopping you, but the likelihood is that Google will send you a message saying to pack it in, and your website will be more or less blacklisted (meaning you will struggle to rank highly ever again). Some people think cramming your website with keywords relevant to your goods or services will help. But no. There are rules against that, too.
Whether you need a brand new website for a start-up café, whether you want to start an email campaign to promote your new home decorating firm, or whether you need Facebook advertising for lawyers, getting to grips with how to promote your business online is key.
Web design
If you’re brand new to the game of creating an online presence, the takeaway from web design and optimised content (see below) is that everything on your site should be within three clicks of the homepage, and your content should be of value to the reader. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? You’re going to need help. ‘User Experience’ is big business, because visiting a website and finding out you can’t easily get hold of the information you require is the fastest way to ensure that you leave that website and search for another one that will give you what you want – people ‘bouncing’ away from your site increases your bounce rate, and affects ranking.
Optimised content
Ever since the early days of online marketing, the phrase “content is king” has been doing the rounds and more or less holding true. Does your opening paragraph mention the goods or services you are trying to promote? Is your page title no longer than 50-60 characters, ensuring Google can display the full page title in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) – which is something people like to see and click on more often. Have you researched and composed meta titles and meta descriptions? Is the writer in charge of producing the content more of a heavy-handed blacksmith than an artistic storytelling wordsmith? There’s also the small issue of keyword density being between 1%-3%, which can be hard to navigate for the newly initiated. If your web design is flawed and your content is not optimised, you will not rank well.
