Your online presence is the conversation your business has with your market. You can’t afford to get it wrong. It’s more important than having a business phone.

Before you scoff at that last remark think about this: Does Google, Facebook or Twitter have a phone number you can call if you want to speak with them? You can’t reach them by phone. You can only interact with them through their website. Not having a phone number to call hasn’t prevented them from achieving massive success.

After having said that, I hope you can realize how important your web presence is to your success?

First And Foremost Don’t Make These Mistakes With Your Website

Mistake #1 – Your website is static and never has fresh content added. It’s basically an online brochure for your business. Adding fresh content to your website builds your authority and moves your site higher in the search engines.

Mistake #2 – Your website focuses on features rather than benefits. Here’s an example based on features “Our wool sweaters are the best available. They have pockets in the front”.  Your Customers don’t by features. They buy benefits. Pockets on the front of a sweater is a feature; having a place for your keys and keeping your hands warm in the winter are benefits. You’ll sell more sweaters by pointing out that the pockets in front keep their hands warm in the winter and provide a place to keep their car keys.

Mistake #3 – No social proof on your website. Social proof shows your visitors that others know, like & trust you. Testimonials are the most common form of social proof. Video testimonials are best. Second best is a customer picture with quoted text.

Mistake #4 – Not using any buyer incentives. Buyer incentives give visitors a reason to do business with you. They can be things that don’t cost you anything or very little. Examples could be a discount coupon, VIP privileges, special access and many other possibilities.

Mistake #5 – You have no way to build an email list with an autoresponder. Adding an email autoresponder can be a huge benefit. Autoresponders can be used to collect email addresses for a followup marketing series, send out discount incentives or specials. Autoresponders provide instant gratification on auto-pilot, 24/7 for anything customers request.

A Website By Itself Is Not Enough: You Must Supplement With Other Sources

Type any search term related to your business in Google search and see the number of results. Here’s an example. Let’s say you are in the Lawn & Garden business and you have lawn mowers for sale. You would want your website to show up when someone searches for “Riding Lawn Mower”. When I checked there was 551,000 pages with that search term.

What are the chances that your website would even be seen when you are up against 551,000 competing pages? That’s why you need to supplement your website with other sources like social media and digital advertising. You need to be where the public spends their time online.

By having more places where you can be found online your chances of getting noticed goes up accordingly.

The first place to start is with a few free accounts on sites where your market hangs out. It might be Facebook, YouTube, Twitter or any other combination of sites like these. Once you have an idea where your market hangs out you might have to spend some money on digital advertising to get noticed.

There’s isn’t one specific way to go about it.  Each business requires a specific marketing plan because there are so many different situations.

Everything that I have discussed so far comes under the heading of Inbound Marketing using content that you publish. Inbound Marketing uses Internet Technologies to distribute content to a targeted audience over free or very low cost channels online.

Examples of these are: Social Media, Automated Email Sequences, Case Studies, Videos, Article Content, Facebook Ads, Google Adwords and more. It’s the process of building your online presence and establishing a dominance in your market. The benefit is that over time your website becomes recognized as an authority by the search engines and other online sources.

When YOUR interesting, useful or educational content is distributed online over free or very low cost Internet Channels it attracts and brings in business on autopilot. The business comes to you rather than you chasing after it.

Building your online presence takes time. You can shorten the time by spending money on digital advertising. A website by itself just isn’t enough. You could be successful without a phone but without a decent online presence you’ll fail for sure.