Three steps to give your business an online presence

WHAT happens when you Google your business? Everything that comes up (or doesn’t) is your digital presence - the space your business owns online.

Research found that 70-80 percent of consumers search for a business online before visiting its physical location or buying goods from them.

The internet never sleeps and maximising your online presence gives your business a virtual 24-hour showroom. Below are three key elements in establishing a strong online presence for your business.

• Have a modern, user-friendly and mobile-friendly website. All businesses, regardless of size, should have a website. A website, no matter how basic it is, adds legitimacy and gives a business an online identity. Your business’s website is its online hub – a centralised place where people can find out what products or services your business offers, and contact and engage with your brand. Your business’s website should be cohesive in its messages and design, and be easy to navigate.

In South Africa with most of the 21 million internet users accessing the web from their cellphones, it is especially important that your website is mobile-friendly.

• Make sure people can find your business when they search for it. According to Gravitate Online, a sample of over 8 million clicks shows that over 94 percent of internet users clicked on the first page of results and less than 6 percent actually clicked to the second page and selected a result displayed there.

This means it is essential that your business is one of the first to come up when its products or services are searched, especially in your industry. This is called local Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). The best way to boost your local SEO is by verifying your Google My Business listing.

This enables people to find your business on apps like Google Maps, and, importantly, it allows people to write reviews about your business. Reviews boost SEO rankings and allow customers to stay engaged with your business. After taking the basic steps to improve your search engine ranking, you can work with an SEO expert to optimise your content for local keywords.

• Engage on social media. A business with a good online presence pays attention to its customers and listens to their needs to become genuinely helpful. The best way to do this is to actively engage in two-way conversations on social media platforms such as Facebook or Instagram (depending on your audience).

Your social media following can have a big impact on your overall online presence. Social media engagement such as likes, comments and shares drive online word-ofmouth, social discovery and organic search. It is important to consistently share content on the social media channels that are relevant to your business and to continue nurturing your online relationships by showing appreciation to your followers. You can do this with posts thanking individual customers, or by creating a special offer for your followers.

As the world evolves, it is important for business owners to develop along with it. Seeing the web is currently leading innovation and development, it is essential that your business has strong virtual identity that people can authentically connect with.