Running a business takes money, and it can be hard to come buy it when you aren’t generating a high amount of profit. You may look at alternative methods of funding like business loans or a company credit card, but it’s important that you use the finance wisely.
One key thing to think about spending your finance on is your business’ online visibility. So, keep reading and discover how you can fund this facet of your business and what you can do to increase your online presence.
Boosting Online Visibility
Let’s look at what you can do to increase your online presence.
1. Create Top Quality Content
One of the most important things that you can do to increase your online visibility is to produce high quality content. With so much competition nowadays, you need to make sure you stand out for all the right reasons.
Whether you post photographer-level photos of your products or create short videos demonstrating how to use them, make sure that you do the best you can and seek out an expert whenever possible.
Just because you may be good at taking pictures of your dinner when out at a restaurant, it doesn’t mean you’re the right person to photograph your business and its products. Potential customers will want to see the very best of your business reflected in your content, so make sure you give them that.
2. Use Social Media
Social media is a fantastic way to create an online presence. Most of the time, it’s free to use and super easy to pick up. You can very quickly gain followers (and customers) via this method, and you’ll be surprised at how many sales you get. Signing up takes a matter of minutes but managing it can be a full time job sometimes.
So, it can be a good idea to look into hiring a Social Media Manager if things get a little too much. But when you’re just starting out, it should be more than manageable for you. Don’t just stick to one platform either.
Make the most of what all the different platforms can offer you. Instagram is great for photos, TikTok is perfect for videos, and Facebook is brilliant for livestreaming. Don’t limit your business to an offline profile and get on social media today!
3. Utilise SEO Strategies
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is very important to every business, and it works as an inbound marketing strategy. Ranking higher on search engines gives your business much more credibility and allows your brand to be much more visible amongst a sea of competitors.
Reaching as many people as possible isn’t going to be a viable option if you don’t improve your SEO either, as your sites and social media profiles will sit at the bottom of the pile, hidden away.
4. Collaborate
Collaborating with influencers is a brilliant way to boost your online presence, and it doesn’t need to be someone extremely famous to work. On social media, there are lots of niche areas, and within those are specific influencers.
ry reaching out to some who aren’t exactly “famous” but do have a fairly decent following and offer them the chance to work together. You could offer to send them a few free products in exchange for them promoting your business via a post, showcasing your business to all of their followers.
This method works extremely well when you’re trying to break into that particular market, as most people who are going to use your product will probably following influencers within that area. You don’t have to spend loads of money this way either, and it can really help boost your business at the same time.
5. Use Paid Ads
Another great feature of social media is the paid ads. Most people spend a lot of their free time on social media, which means they’ll see most of their advertisements on there too. So, you want to utilise this knowledge and start using paid ads.
They can be something as simple as a promoted post on Instagram, that allows you to tailor it’s audience to increase your reach and customer count, or you could go all out and create a whole video advert to go on YouTube.
Whatever you decide, make sure that it’s high quality and easy to understand so that people will actually want to see it, and won’t just swipe away without taking the time to look at it.
6. Have A Website
It may seem obvious, but having your own website is crucial if you want to increase your online visibility. Without it, you’ll find it extremely hard to boost your SEO ranking and you may be putting customers off when they can’t find you online
When it comes to building your website, make sure you speak to a professional (unless you’re an expert) because you want it to look as perfect as possible. Hard to navigate sites will instantly force customers to exit out and you’ll find that people don’t ever use your site.
So, make sure that you have a first-class website available for your customers, and you’ll soon see an increase in your online presence.
7. Ask For Online Reviews
The final way that you can boost your online visibility is by asking for online reviews. It’s all well and good having a customer contact you and tell you something was great, but it’s a whole other story when they actually leave a glowing review.
Whenever people use Google to search for a business, they may look at the reviews, and see how many bad VS good ones they have. If you don’t have any reviews at all, this can sometimes be even more damaging, as the customer isn’t getting any insight into your business procedures.
Businesses that have higher reviews also tend to rank higher when people search for the services that you and your competitors offer, so you want to encourage all customers to leave a review.
Bad reviews can also work in your favour, but only if you deal with them well. Showing that you can resolve a bad review in public will demonstrate that you’re able to take accountability and actually care about the customer experience. This will massively help with your online visibility, so don’t overlook the importance of reviews.
Online visibility isn’t something that just happens, you have to put the work in to get it. This means spending money on paid ads, seeking out a Social Media Manager, and even paying for a website to be built by an expert.
These things will really help you to create an online presence and stand out from the crowd. Being visible online is very important in this modern age, so always make sure you’re focusing on growing your visibility as well as your profits. With a little money and effort, you can have thousands of followers, and a whole heap of new customers to go along with it.
Funding
Now that you know how to increase your online presence, let’s look at how you can fund it.
Business Loans
One of the most popular methods of funding anything for your business is via a small business loans online. These can come in all sorts of different types, with small business loans, fixed term loans, and even collateral business loans being common. The repayment terms will also depend on how much you borrow and what your affordability is too.
Business loans can be super helpful when trying to improve your online visibility as you receive a lump sum of cash that can be spent wherever it needs. However, you will be creating debt for your business, and you want to ensure that you’re able to afford it now and in the future.
Investors
Investors are a great way to inject cash into your business, but you will have to give up some equity and ownership. If you’re prepared to do this, then you’ll definitely reap the rewards of using an investor.
In exchange for a stake in your business, these investors will provide you with a certain amount of money that doesn’t need to be paid back. This is because they will make their cash back through your sales. Using an investor can also bring a lot of expert knowledge to your business, really helping to your grow your online visibility, furthering your success.
