Having trouble gaining purchase online? Here are some things we have picked up along the way that are easy for anyone to do. Sonder’s mantra as of late is to focus on what we are exceptional at and to not dabble in the things better left to experts in related fields. We may not be social media experts, we may not focus on ongoing SEO, but we do know a thing or two about positioning yourself online. Here is a collection of our thoughts on what is necessary and what can help: First things first, you need a website A destination for all this traffic you hope to garner. (We aren’t going to touch on brand in this post because it goes without saying that at this stage in the game that should have been already established.) A website can be many different things depending on what you need of it. If budget is a concern and you fancy yourself a bit technical, you could set up a Square Space site and have all your website need covered (mind you, things will be a bit restricted when it comes to customization and design). You could hire a freelancer to set you up with a WordPress theme and do some light customization (we recommend making sure you have a solution for keeping up with WordPress updates, bug fixes and maintenance). Or you could approach an agency or studio to get a fully customized site. You could go with a single landing page if you don’t have a lot of information to communicate or the sky is the limit with how in depth you go with pages and functionality. If you are looking for guidance, Sonder can help! Or at least we can point you in the right direction. Write good content & stay organized The best advice we can offer in terms of getting off on the right foot is make sure your content accurately describes what you do. You should use natural language and include terms that people would be searching for online when looking for your service or offering. This goes right down to making sure your images have proper titles, file names, alt tags. If you consistently do this, your site should gain some natural traction on google all by itself. Make friends with Google Before you start your social media blitz you may as well get acquainted with the big guy. Google My Business helps google understand that you exist in your locality. If you have a mailing address this is our #1 recommendation in getting found online in your community. If you don’t have an account, get one, right away. Google will mail you a postcard to confirm your address and then you can fill out your business details and (depending on competition in your area) start showing up in that magic little box that lands above all your search results. Now go be social I think it is pretty common knowledge that social is the easiest way to engage directly with potential clients and spread the word about your business. We believe that it is important to choose a platform that you can regularly engage on. If your business produces something that is visually engaging, start an instagram account and go hard on that platform. If your business is more about conversation and written word, twitter makes a lot more sense. Facebook is good at both and can be a great solution as well. Though if you have an account that is underused it may give the impression that your business is not active and will not bring you the benefits you hope. Bring it all together The idea is to drive traffic to the ‘ol website, right? Well, all this social media-ing is going to have a bigger impact if you have meaningful content to send your users back to. Content that is generated by you and establishes you as an industry expert. So start up a blog or a news section on your site and start pouring your heart out. If you can provide useful information or at the very least give yourself something to share on social media it will be more than just noise and will start to generate traffic on your site and spread awareness. KICK IT UP A NOTCH. If you have done all of this and still want more – or – if you just don’t have the time but want the results reach out to a professional. We can connect you with the right people. There are plenty of opportunities to explore in the way of online advertising / marketing. Share this post Back to all posts