If you run a business, it’s essential these days for it to have a strong online presence. Chances are that most, if not all, of your (potential) customer base will find you through your website, social media, or other online footprints. If you are building your business from the ground up, your online presence will help you build your customer base. If you already have an established customer base, an online presence will help expand it. So if your website’s information is out-of-date, poorly organized, or just plain missing, customers either won’t find you at all, or worse, come to your site and leave, and your business will suffer. It’s important that your information is up to date, engaging, and helpful to your would-be customer why they are on their “buyer’s journey.”

Let’s look at how a well-developed online presence benefits your business and a few ways you can take action to improve yours.

1. Your Website

Your business’s website is probably the most important thing you can invest in digitally. It will represent your brand to the world and is where customers interact with and purchase from you.

Whether you are building a new site, or reviving an old one, you should take a look at different website builders and hosts that easily help you build your site. Common ones are WordPress, Showit, Squarespace, and Wix, most of which are pretty inexpensive. (Depending on your industry, my personal new favorite is Showit!)

Depending on the type of product or service you offer, your website might contain different information. But just about every good website should include:

• Contact info: Up-to-date, prominently placed basic information about your company, including your street address, email, phone number, and social media links. It’s important to also include an easy way to contact you, whether by email, phone or a contact form embedded in the page. This is particularly important if your business serves your local area.
  
• About/Products/Services: A clear description of the purpose of your business, along with the products or services you offer. This should be prominently displayed and easy to find on your site (you could create an About or Services page, or put it directly on your homepage or main landing page).
  
• Testimonials: Reviews from previous happy customers will help provide more details on the services you provide, and most importantly establish credibility for your business.
  
• Call(s) to Action: A call to action (CTA) to motivate your potential customer base. This could be as simple as asking customers to get in touch with questions, to comment on news items or blogs posts, or to sign up for a newsletter or free informational download.

All of these improvements will help bring customers to your business, whether they found you from a Google search or came to your site directly. Making your website engaging and easy to read and navigate will work wonders in building your customer base.

Once you have this essential information on your site, you can start looking into ways to bring traffic to your site who may not have visited before. Depending on the industry you are in, you can create content about your products or services or industry trends. Examples include:

• Blog posts (relatively short and easy to read)
• Videos 
• Podcasts

Another important key to increasing your site traffic is to implement SEO (search engine optimization) using specific keywords. Doing this will increase your ranking in search results when someone does a Google search for services relevant to yours. The easiest way to get started with SEO is with a plugin like Yoast SEO. Learn more about how SEO works and how to get started with it.

While your website won’t bring consistent traffic and sales overnight, it’s worth this investment of time and energy to make it as user-friendly as possible. Your site’s credibility will continue to build until your business is the go-to in your industry.

2. Your Social Media Channels

Establishing a social media presence for your business can help complement all the great work you’ve done on your website. This is not to say that you should create an account with every social media platform out there. Instead, take some time to research your intended audience and which channels they commonly use. A good start is to create a Facebook business page, since almost all demographics use Facebook. From there, you can branch out into other platforms that make sense for your business.

You can use your channels to promote your products or services, inform people about discounts and upcoming sales, and share content from your site with a larger audience. And while your website should provide an easy way for customers to get in touch with you, you can also communicate with customers via your social media accounts if they have questions or problems with your services. This will further help your business build credibility with the public.

Just like your website, it will take time to build a following online, but it is worth the time and effort in growing your business.