The Internet is a big place — about 1 billion websites, and growing! But this doesn’t mean that local businesses are just a drop in the bucket.
Quite the opposite, actually.
The Internet has actually revolutionized the role local businesses have in the larger digital economy. They can now compete with the big guys through an effective online presence.
Sure, building an online presence can be time consuming; it doesn’t happen overnight. But, it can be less cumbersome and frustrating if you know where to begin.
What is an online presence?
An online presence is the culmination of every identity you’ve created (both personal and business-driven) and the interactions those identities have participated in online.
Your online presence is very broad and, when built correctly, it can spread brand awareness and gain you:
- Fans
- Followers
- Website traffic
- Leads
- New customers
… and anything else you could ever want for your local business.
Start Building Your Online Presence
Not sure how to start building your online presence? There’s a lot that goes into it — from setting goals, to creating different profiles and accounts, to building a website and engaging with your audience.
To help the overwhelm, we’ve created a quick reference guide to jumpstart the process:
Your online presence has big potential to get you and your local business known in this vast space called the Internet.
Attract New Customers, Expand Your Reach
Making your business known is a vital part of attracting new customers, no matter the industry in which your local business operates. In the past, there were two primary methods for accomplishing this, either through direct advertising or through word of mouth. With the availability of the Internet, however, there are new options available to you. By improving your online presence, you can reach millions of possible customers, easily outstretching the reach of most traditional advertising mediums and extending word-of-mouth possibilities exponentially.
Remember, the more online visibility your company has, the more likely people within your industry will look to you for necessary products or services.