Setting up your own business can be great fun. By fulfilling your dream, you get to learn about yourself and how you can effectively run a business. Now you’re ready to trade and get your first customers purchasing your product or service – what do you do next?

You need to start marketing your company for those potential customers to know you exist, and that you have just the items or services they need – and why they should pick you over your competitors. There are many different ways in which you can market your brand online: here are some of those for you to try out.

Have a website

This is essential to business: you’ll be left behind if you don’t have one. Many users will then find your site through an online search for what service or product you provide or will go through your site to find out more about you.

It’s easy to set up your own website if you haven’t done so already, and you could even do this for free – however, you may wish to consider buying your own domain as this will be more credible and professional. There are many different options available to set up your site, including user-friendly platforms for beginners that will offer all that you require.

Get on social media

Many businesses will need to have social media nowadays, and it’s a powerful tool for you to reach your audience. There are plenty of platforms, though, so it can be tricky to know where to focus. A large percentage of people use Facebook, so start there; you can use this to talk with people and share content. Choose which other platforms will work based on what you’re trying to achieve and where your customers are.

Start blogging

This is an essential part of having an excellent strategy for content marketing. It can take you a couple of weeks to write a blog or just 10 minutes – the length and depth of the post will depend on you, but you must be consistent.

Blog posts are good for search engine optimisation (SEO) when writing about subjects related to your business because they will be keyword dense. Creating valuable content means you will build credibility and stronger customer relationships.

You can also begin link building with other sites, using services provided by brands such as Click Intelligence. Here, you can have links back to your pages from other websites – which will help boost your search engine ranking.

Use basic SEO

This is where you can set up your web pages, so search engines understand their content.
Search engines may then link to you when someone enters a search for what
service/product you provide. There are a few tasks you can do yourself to improve SEO, such as:

● Use a different title on each page
● Add phrases people may search for in page titles
● Include contact and location details on each page

Ask for reviews

Customers want reassurance they’re making the right choice, so may look at reviews. Send a note to your customers thanking them for their business, asking them to leave a review – and include a link on where to post.