Making Yourself Known As A New Online Business
In the old days of physical stores, getting people aware of a new business was often a matter of simply existing on a street for people to walk past. With online businesses, however, a new enterprise is effectively invisible at the start, one name in a sea of thousands of others. Standing out is a necessary skill, so here are a few bits of advice to get you started.
Offers and Freebies
There is nothing in the world better than free gifts to make the public aware of something. The human mind is programmed to be drawn to offers and deals, and a carefully controlled promotion can do wonders for awareness. Great examples include things like the famous Netflix free months, Amazon’s Prime trials or something like free bingo online through sites like Paddy Power, the latter of which giving players a taste of the experience of the wider range of available bingo games.
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The only thing to keep in mind is that your promotions do need careful control. Give away too much and customers may naturally take advantage of the generosity, causing you to lose out on business overall. It’s a fine balancing act which is hard to nail down to a science.
The Personal Touch
A physical business like a local butcher or baker builds up a reputation over time through charm and communication with those coming into the shop. Online businesses may not have the same face-to-face interactions but the same mindset for the owner still holds. Despite not seeing a face, customers still look for that human being behind a business and a strong connection can do great things for your reputation.
It could be something as simple as replying directly to customer feedback, both the good and more importantly the bad. While attaching your name personally to a service or business online may feel a little risky, it’s also a great way for customers to attach themselves to you. The golden rule is to be authentic and truthful in your communications as any lies or grey truths are likely to cause a backlash.
Tech Approaches
This is a little less organic than the other tips, but getting seen online these days can often come down to hard data more than personality. Getting seen in search results on sites like Google is often the number one way that people will discover a new brand, and there is a lot you can do to improve your chances on that front.
Source: Pixabay
A great starting point is to look into basic SEO techniques. While SEO sounds like, and can sometimes be, a highly complex thing to take on, basic approaches can include making sure the code on your site is correctly organized or that your pages have links to other pages included properly. Even just having a couple of hundred words on each page can go a long way.
Make no mistake: doing all of the above is a starting point more than a complete guide and it’s a long process to make a name for yourself. With that said, the advice here should be a great starting point and get you on the right foot!