5 Tips For Setting Up Your Online Presence To Succeed
When you’re aspiring to major success in the business world, looking at the tools in your online toolbox can feel rather like being a child at a toy shop: there’s plenty of choice, but you might be stumped as to where to start. Which tools would boost your online presence and which wouldn’t?
Thankfully, you can save yourself the potentially convoluted process of trial and error by referring to the following starting points. Heeding these tips can help keep you on the right track.
Establish your authority on social media
Whether or not you currently run a business, your online presence will benefit if, over social media, you convincingly portray yourself as an expert. It could help you to secure a new job or, if you are at the helm of a company, attract more customers or clients to it.
Josh Elledge, founder of upendPR.com, tells Forbes: “Authority is a currency. The more of it you have, the more you can cash in on opportunities for growth of all kinds.”
Use email marketing – but in the right way
Content marketer Julia McCoy argues, in a Search Engine Journal article, that email marketing is even better than social media for acquiring customers. At least, that’s judging from a McKinsey study she cites – but you need to know how to do email marketing “correctly”.
That means being selective about the content you email and how many emails you send. Otherwise, you could just be adding to the inaudible noise – or, even worse, spam.
Line up a regular supply of interesting blog content
Another content marketing activity advocated by McCoy is blogging – but this is another area where “any” content just won’t do. After all, you want to generate interest and a loyal base of readers – and you can’t expect to do that without posting amazing, original content regularly.
What questions is your audience asking? Blogging gives you a golden opportunity to answer those questions – though, of course, they might rather differ between audience segments…
Tailor your content to different audiences
How do you get people to notice you when they are already being bombarded with noise? Simple: you speak to them more directly than your competitors do. This shines a light on the importance of producing different pieces of content for different audiences.
However, while placing a target customer’s name in the subject line of emails you send them is fair game, personalising content excessively can risk making you look stalker-ish – so, be careful.
Open your own online store
This tip comes from Small Business Trends, which recommends this action even if you don’t run an obviously ecommerce-related website. Adding online selling to your repertoire can give you an extra income stream, but you should still be cautious what you stock in that store.
With an intelligent searching tool like Source Mogul, you could find products you are relatively likely to sell profitably on Amazon. This intuitive tool lets you filter products by ROI, purchase price and sales rank.