You’re probably aware that it’s become absolutely necessary for business owners, no matter their industry or field, to have a strong online presence. The days of yellow pages and
customers phoning up businesses to ask for information are slowly sliding into the past. These days, most people will instantly go online in order to find out about your products and services, your operating hours, and where you’re located. Not only that, but they are ‘vetting’ you prior to calling as well. They want to know what your online reputation says about you.

Are you unsure of how to build up your online presence? Not a problem. Check out these five essential steps.

1. Register a Domain Name

The first thing you need to do is buy your very own domain name, also known as a web address. This is very easy to do, and a lot of specialized websites have been created to make it an affordable and quick process. Remember that shorter is typically better—you want your domain name to be memorable and easy to find. For example, if your business is called Smith Family Home Decorators, that’s probably too long to include entirely (e.g., www.smithfamilyhomedecorators.com) so try to shorten it to something like www.smithhomes.com. If the domain name you want has been taken by someone else, don’t worry. You can switch which words you use in it until you find one that’s available. You may be aware there are many different suffixes for your web address, such as .com, .org., .net, and others. Try to always get .com, as it’s the easiest for customers to remember. You can cheaply register a domain name of your own at sites like Hover and GoDaddy.

2. Build a Website

You may have spent years building up your business and your brand. You want to make sure it is properly represented online. To that end, I never recommend a budget or low-end web designer. You’ll most likely end up with a project that looks like it was built on a budget, and is that how you want your brand to be properly portrayed?

Think about it this way. If you pay somebody $500 for a website, how vested in the project do you think they will be? Really, is $500 in the long run very much money? If you don’t have this, then build you simply save up until you can afford a professional. You’ll end up in a much better position when all’s said and done.

Yes there is do it yourself website builders out there, and you may consider them. Just consider the value of your time, and if you truly want to learn how to make a website, or if you’d rather focus on building your business.

 

3. Get Hosting

Hosting is the real estate that your website sits on. You can usually get hosting from where you register your domain, or you can purchase hosting separately. Many people opt to have their web design company host it for them, and that is fine, just make sure that you get access to your hosting account in the event that you need it. Common hosting companies include Hostgator, Bluehost, and Arvixe (one of my favorites).

 

4. Join the Biggest Social Networks

You may already have a personal account on Facebook, but does your business have its own page, too? If not, it may be time to start one. Social networking is a great way to get your
name out there and keep in touch with customers and other businesses in your area. There are more options than just Facebook, however—think about Twitter,Instagram, and LinkedIn. You can use Twitter to tell the world about deals or new products, Instagram to show them off in the best light, and LinkedIn to do some business networking and find new employees. Joining four social networks may seem a bit overwhelming, but you don’t need to use them all day, every day. Think one or two Twitter tweets a day, or one big Facebook post a week. Start small, and things will build up over time as more people notice your online presence and “like” what you do.

It’s important to focus on your target demographic and consider what platforms they use, and then develop your social media strategy as appropriate.

5. Start an Email Newsletter

On your website, remember to include a section where customers can sign up for a newsletter to be emailed to them on a regular basis. Believe it or not, this is one of the most useful ways to build an online presence and keep people up to date about your business, products, and services. Try not to send out newsletters at a rate more frequent than every week—no one wants to be spammed. Make sure the newsletters are informative, interesting, and even entertaining so people won’t just trash them the moment they arrive. A great site for building your own professional-looking newsletters is MailChimp.

Email marketing is definitely one of the most effective forms of marketing if done right.

6. Remember to Update Regularly

Now that you’ve built your own website, joined all the popular social networks, and have an email newsletter going out regularly, you’re done, right? Not quite. The thing is, there’s a lot of

information on the Internet, and more coming in all the time. In order to get noticed and stay noticed, you’ll want to update your website and social networks on a regular basis. Provide valuable, shareable content on your website. Are you an attorney? Provide a series of 30 second videos related to your expertise. Are you a dentist? Provide brief videos or blog posts on related topics. By doing this, not only will you be providing value to your website visitors, but by having more content on your website, you’ll potentially be able to rank for more keyword terms, and that is a good thing!

When having your first website built, it can be an overwhelming experience. You may ask yourself questions such as:

• How do I come up with text for my website?
• What type of pictures should I use?
• How many pages and what should the page names be?
• What domain should I use?

There are so many things to consider, that if I tried to include an all inclusive list, this blog post could easily be 10 times as long as it will be. Consider this a short list of ‘absolutes’.

1. Professionalism

A small business’s website is the first point of contact that your business will have with a potential client– so you can see how quickly coming off as tacky or having sloppy spelling-errors can turn that potential customer right away from your business. While it’s safe to say that a website visitor probably won’t turn into a business customer because a website has proper grammar, spelling, and an up-to-date layout, it’s certainly also true that if you don’t have a website with proper spelling, grammar, and a slick-looking layout; you’re putting yourself at a sore disadvantage. Do you really want people coming to your website and having an experience like this lady here?

As a rule of thumb, set a standard for your website. We prefer to treat a company website as equivalent to sitting down with the business owner and having a chat. If you have a website that looks tacky, it can hurt your business’s image; so you don’t want to compromise on the quality of your website.
As a side note to this, remember, the website is not for YOU. The website is for potential visitors. If your website designer makes recommendations, you may want to consider them. Your website is meant to ultimately represent your company and your brand online, and to help you grow your business, making you more money.

The other day I had a business owner contact me about getting him more exposure online. We didn’t end up working together, partly because I was too expensive, (he was looking for the lowest price), but partly because he loved his flash based website. He thought it was cool and had gotten a lot of compliments on it. I had told him that his flash based website needed redone because it didn’t offer a very good user experience for multiple reasons, including it didn’t work on mobile phones. Anyhow, moral of the story, your website isn’t for you, it’s for your visitors.

 

2. Search Engine Optimization

Most of the traffic on the internet goes through search engines like Google. This is because internet users only remember a handful of website names. If you’re a small business; you’re probably not one of those names. What people can remember is what they want. So if they’re looking for a dentist in the South Jordan Utah area, they probably don’t type in “yourdentalwebsite.whatever” into the URL bar and hit send; they type a few keywords into a search engine and that search engine delivers them a list of possible matches, then they click the one that looks best. Internet users typically don’t bother looking passed the top-half of the first page of a search results page, so if your website doesn’t pop up near the top of a potential-customer’s relevant search; you’re out of luck.

That’s why Search Engine Optimization is so crucial. It makes sure that your website has the right text-content and every one of the quirks that search engines look for when they organize those lists that people see when they search for something. If you get Search Engine Optimization right, search engines will funnel quite a lot of traffic to your website; and a bunch of customers to your door. Truly a must-have.

There’s two types of SEO. On Page and Off Page. On Page has to do with how well your website itself is coded to be read by the search engines. This is essential! It all starts with On Page SEO!!!

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3. A Catchy Domain Name

Search Engine Optimization is great for getting customers to find out about your business and get them in the door, but if you want repeat visitors to your website, or if you want people to recommend your business to their friends; you’re going to need a name that’s easy to remember and easy to pronounce. This is because you want to avoid having one of your happy customers’ friends ask them “Hey what’s a good dentist I can go to?” and your customer having to go “Yeah man just go to indeciperheablelongdentistURLname37.obscure!”— That probably wouldn’t happen. So you want to have some sort of catchy name that fits really well in a sound-byte so people can share it with one another.

 

4. Links to Your Social Media

One advantage that small businesses have is that they’re more personable than large companies are. Take advantage of that! If you have a twitter handle or a Facebook page that you keep up with, definitely include some kind of link from your website to your social media so you can stay in touch with your customers and keep them up to date about any changes in your product or service, as well as dazzle them with your business’s likable personality! A big step-up from your larger corporate competitors!

5. Use Images

A picture is worth a thousand words– maybe even more so in the fast-paced internet world of internet-traffic. Images are important to set the tone of a website before a visitor even reads the first word. If you have a visual service that you offer such as landscaping, painting, tile work, etc. then you will want to use your own photo’s if you can. However, stock photos are also an option if you don’t have any. Images are among the fastest information-communicators on the internet– even better than video, so in a way they’re like the first-impression of a website. It’s important to get the right ones that set the exact mood and personality of your business and illustrate that to the website visitor right away.

6. A Slick Layout and Solid Functionality

Web-design is part engineering and part art. Most of what visitors see is the ‘art’ side of web-design, and most of what they complain about is the ‘engineering’ part of web-design. A well-engineered website runs smooth without hiccups or errors, and seems “solid”, whereas a well-designed website feels clean and professional; it flows well from page to page and seems “polished.” If you have the engineering side of your website done right; no one should think to notice. If you have the design side of your website done right, people shouldn’t be able to help but notice. People remember:

shapes, colors, and problems the most out of any other memory– if you want people to remember your website, you want them to remember the pretty shapes and colors, and none of the frustrations that come with shoddily-engineered websites.

Check out the clean, uncluttered, easy to navigate look of this website. Is it perfect? No, but it is a great start.

7. Easy to Spot Contact Info

The most important thing about your business website is your business; not your website. Often times when people Google something up and your Search Engine Optimized website pops up first; they’re just looking for a phone number to call to talk to a human being. Make sure you give them that as easily as possible if you’re a small business. Your business phone-number, hours, and address should be visible from the landing page if you want your website to route customers to you and your business as soon as possible.

8. Informative Landing Page

The landing page is the first thing that a website visitor sees. A good landing page should have close to all the information a typical website visitor needs. In most cases, this can include basic contact information and a brief, but very readable and satisfying explanation of the business you’re operating. Contact info, call to action, etc.

***BONUS***Responsive or Mobile Version

What does your website look like on a mobile phone? Do you have to pinch, zoom, and pan all over the place to find information? If you are a potential customer and you come across a site that isn’t optimized for mobile, are you going to spend the time trying to find the contact info or are you just going to hit back and go somewhere else? Which of the sites below would you rather visit?

 

As I mentioned in the beginning, this isn’t a complete list of everything that you need, but it should help you get started. Don’t want to try and figure it out yourself? I don’t blame you! If you need help getting your website up, let’s talk, it may make sense for us to work together.