How to take advantage of the Web as a startup

The internet has been around for almost three decades and has led to the birth of many businesses. Today the internet has become a place where businesses meet their new clients and also be able to get information about their competitors. The internet has also made it easier to gather market information to guide you while starting a business. As a startup, you will surely need to find ways of taking advantage of the internet to grow your business

Being on the internet alone will not guarantee you success, but what you do while there is what matters. In this post, I will share with you the top five web tips that will boost your small business or startup growth.

1. You must have a professional website

This should be rule #1 for any startup. As a small business, this is the first thing you need to do. A website is always the go place for most clients whenever they want to know more about your business. Make sure you use your business name as the domain name to make it easy for your clients to find your website. Your website should also be professionally designed to create a good image for your business on the web.

2. Have an active website with a blog 

You do not need to be a fulltime blogger to run a blog for your small business. You can manage the blog yourself as long you can publish regular content that is well researched and relevant to the type of business you are doing. Blogs help in generating free traffic to your website and also creating a relation between the business and your customers.  80% of small business owners that have used blogs on their websites have testified getting positive results. So why not have one for your startup.  

3. Make sure your local business is listed on Google Maps

If you try to do a google search about any service that is available in your local area, you will always realize there are three or four businesses listed among the first links of the search results. This doesn’t happen by accident. The businesses listed are only those that were added on Google maps. Your business being on google maps will give you a chance of being among the search results whenever someone searches about a product or service that you offer locally. Here are the steps of adding your business to Google Maps

• Open a google my Business account. First of all, create a google my Business account. If there’s no business attached to your account, you will see the option of adding a business. Click on this option and fill in all the necessary information
• Verify your business. You will be sent a message on the email that you used to open your google my Business account.
• Confirm your business. After verification, you will need to confirm your business before it’s added to google maps
• Make your google my business listing more appealing. You need to keep adding more details about your business to make the listing look more complete. You can add some images that clearly show the services/products you offer and also a link to your website is important.

4. Know the platforms your customers use and be present there

As a small business or startup, you may not have enough time and resources to be present on all digital platforms. So, it is important to do research and know the platforms that your clients use so that you give those more priority. For instance, you may be creating content on Instagram yet most of your clients are on Facebook or LinkedIn. To know the platforms your customers are using, you may start by creating 2 or 3 accounts on the most popular social media sites. If you create regular content on all these sites for about 3 to 6 months, you will realize the level of engagement is not the same on all the platforms. At this point, you can choose to give the platforms with the most engagement more priority.

5. Make sure your website is Search engine optimized

The power of search engines can never be underestimated in this era. Studies show that over 51% of website traffic comes from search engines. As a small business, your aim should be getting the biggest portion of your traffic from search engines. To have your website ranked higher in search engines results, you need to make it search engine friendly and also create content on a more regular basis. This can be quite time consuming but working with an SEO agency will always speed up the process.

Conclusion

The way you use the web and the internet, in general, will be very critical as far as your startup success is concerned. Your main objective for being on the internet is to connect with your potential clients and other stakeholders. So, ensure you are on the right platforms and don’t waste time on platforms that may not bring you paying customers. You need to do enough homework to find out the right platforms for your business. One final thing you should remember is creating regular content on all your platforms. Fresh content brings life to your website and social media platforms. This is important for SEO of your website and building a relationship with your potential customers.