The internet is big business, and with the eCommerce market being worth $1.9 trillion last year, every small business owner should want an online presence
The internet is big business, and with the eCommerce market being worth $1.9 trillion last year, every small business owner should want an online presence. The good news is that eCommerce is expected to become more valuable, with some suggesting that it will reach $4 billion by 2020.
The internet is big business, and with the eCommerce market being worth $1.9 trillion last year, every small business owner should want an online presence.Click To Tweet
If you do not have a website for your business, you may be part of the astounding 46% of businesses that still did not have one as of last year. They are crucial in the modern marketplace not least because most Americans now own a smartphone. When your potential customers can search online for just about anything wherever they are and whenever they feel like it, you are inhibiting yourself by not allowing yourself to be found. However, if you do have a website, you will still have to do a lot of work. With about twelve million online stores, you have a lot of competition. However, there are lots of ways that you can set yourself apart too. If you want to improve your online presence, here are five ways of doing it:
Invest in a domain name
If you already have a website, you might hope that you have a degree of brand recognition with your customers and that they can remember your details and logo. If this is not the case, then you may need to consider overhauling your website and starting over, especially if you do not have an engaging and easily remembered name. Investing in a new domain name is not as expensive and difficult as you might think (https://www.shopify.com/domains for instance) and it will allow you to rebrand yourself.
Actively engage your customers
Social media seems to be taking over the world and being left behind is just not an option. However, it is not good enough to just post on Facebook or tweet about your great prices and high-quality products. You need to actively engage your customers. One way of doing this is to be funny in the hopes of going viral and getting lots of free publicity. The Merriam-Webster Twitter account is a great example of how effective this form of marketing can be. It is award winning, in fact.
Invest in SEO
There is little point in developing, testing and launching your own website and then marketing it online if no one can find it. Investing time and money in your SEO rankings is a basic but vastly important part of building your online presence.
Start a blog
Starting a blog is another great way to attract visitors to your site. If you post fresh, original and useful content, they will keep coming back for that and will see your great offers in the process. The entire discipline of Conversation Rate Optimisation (CRO) is dedicated to making casual visitors into paying customers. A blog is an effective way of doing it.
There are some things that do not change, whether a person is online or shopping in the real world and one of them is feeling safe. Investing money in protecting the transactions that your customers make with you is a great way of making them feel comfortable enough to come back to your site again and again.
