Get yourself out there: how to mark your business presence online
With Twitter, Facebook and up to the minute news taking over the advertising world as we know it, it’s important now more than ever to understand the benefits of marketing your business online. This is more than just good advertising – it also encompasses good use of social media and web design. Here are five ways that you can use the web to get your business noticed.
Get the look
The multitude of custom-built website designs is enough to make any client yawn these days, so try to get a little creative when it comes to designing your website. Good website design is about aesthetics and user accessibility – take GamingClub.co.uk, for example. With quirky, unusual fonts and easy to recognise brands (i.e. Tomb Raider) on its homepage, this immediately draws the user in, while its casino games are clearly displayed to give the surfer instant access.
Be a social butterfly
What use is a beautifully designed website if nobody knows about it? One of the wonders of the modern age of digital marketing is social media, so get tweeting. Studies show that 51% of active Twitter users follow companies, brands or products on social networks, so make sure you use a Twitter handle at the bottom of every one of your web pages.
Blog till you drop
Another way of building up your online presence is to use the power of the written word. Even the biggest named brands use blogs to highlight the simple fact that behind the business model are people, giving your brand a more personal touch and making your prospective clients feel closer to your product. Blogging is a great way to inform others about any work you have done in the local community, with the opportunity to post photos as well as large walls of text. To use it most effectively, make sure you post your blog posts to Twitter or Facebook, and keep them to no more than 500 words, with hyperlinks at appropriate places.
Link back and forth
One of the more subtle ways of online marketing, you can liaise with other businesses and ask them to put hyperlinks to your business on their website. This is a great way of attracting customers almost without them realising – rather than using a large, intrusive ad on the right hand side of a page, a hyperlink, for example, within somebody’s blog, is a more subtle link. Studies show that users regularly spend no more than 10-20 seconds on a website, so make sure that the link they’re going to next is yours.
Be accessible
As we forgo our laptops in favour of tablets, smart phones and more, it’s important to make sure your website is as up to date with the technology as your clients are. So, make sure that your ads are well placed on a page, rather than for example, lurking inaccessibly on the bottom right hand side, and if you can, try to create a mobile version of your site to make it easy to read for those on the go.