For your business to grow and thrive, you need clients. Without clients, your business is as good as nothing. Therefore, to get clients you need to promote your business. And what better way to promote it than the Internet? In the modern world, today more than 60% of the world’s population uses the Internet. Most of them use it quite religiously, so it’s an effective way to promote your business through the Internet and reach a lot of potential clients. In the older days, it was all about deciding between a flyer, an ad in a newspaper, or postcards, but now the internet is here to save you from those hassles!
Two Choices to promote your business online
In the most basic of ways, there are two options to promote your business online. It is important to note that without investing money, you aren’t likely to get many clients. Hence, the two ways you can promote your business through, are:
- Save Money & Spend your valuable time
- Save Time & Spend money on professionals
Save Money & Spend your time creating websites and social media pages.
There are several free website-creating platforms available in the market. You can easily set up a basic website and social media pages in a few hours.
Free Website Creation Platforms
-
Wix.com
Wix.com lets users create HTML5 web and mobile sites for free. It incorporates the use of drag-and-drop tools. Although wix.com does have premium features, it lets you add applications for social media, e-commerce, online marketing, and contact forms, to your website for free. -
Website.com
Website.com is another free website-building platform. It has drag-and-drop tools and provides advanced customization options for free. With its various website templates, you can create a beautiful website of your choice free of cost! -
Weebly.com
Weebly.com is a convenient website with easy-to-use tools to create websites, blogs, and online stores. By using this platform you can create an attractive, user-oriented website for free! -
GoogleBusiness.com
GoogleBusiness.com is a platform that allows you to verify your business profile and lets you develop an online presence. Through this platform, you can manage your business through Google for free.
Free Social Media Platforms
-
Facebook.com
Facebook is the top social media app used in the world. It has 3 billion monthly users, and people spend hours on the app. So using it to promote your business free of cost is the perfect choice. -
Instagram.com
Instagram has a unique algorithm as a social media app. It has millions of active users worldwide and is an ideal option to promote your business for free. Instagram tries to get your posted content to the targeted audience. -
LinkedIn.com
LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with millions of active users around the world. It is a platform specially created for businesses and individuals, so promoting your business through LinkedIn is a good idea.
Social media platforms have recently gained popularity among people of all ages. People use social media to upload photos, make friends, share opinions, and communicate with other people. Following its recent popularity, influencers and business owners have also started using social media to promote their businesses or brands. Social media is a highly user-interactive platform that can help your business grow and bring you, potential clients. If you don’t have these apps yet, download them and create a business profile with a professional aesthetic and start posting! Promoting your business through social media is easy as long as you stay consistent and put effort into your profile. Posting frequently will help you get new followers and customers, helping your business grow. Another great idea is connecting your website to your social media profile to increase engagement.
Save time & spend money on professional web designers and digital marketers
Today there are millions of professional web design companies and freelance platforms to hire to organize your business promotion needs.
The Steps of starting a business on the Internet.
1.Domain Name & Hosting Registration
- A domain name is a human-readable form of a website’s IP address, it makes it easier for us to navigate through the online digital world. When registering a domain name you need to check for domain availability first. Of course, you can’t have the same domain name as another website. Once you have decided your domain name you’ll have to buy it to secure and register it. Once your domain has been registered you will need a web hosting service for your website. Web hosting is a service that companies provide that allows you to make your website easily accessible and visible.
-
Domain Name like www.
Once your domain name is registered. All the internet will need is the domain’s name and it will turn it into a link. Adding www. (World Wide Web) to it is part of the domain name. e.x www.google.com
-
Web Hosting
A web hosting service will make your website available and accessible on the internet. Without a web hosting service, your domain name will never be seen by anyone. Hiring a web hosting service is essential for your website and domain.
-
Email Accounts
A professional business needs to have its own email address. It is a vital step if you aim to start a business on the Internet. Your email should be present on your website for people to be able to contact you.
-
SSL Certificate
Getting an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate is essential to enable your website’s identity and allow an encrypted connection. Businesses need to add SSL certificates to their websites to ensure secure online transactions and keep client info private and secure.
2.Website Design or E-commerce Online Shop
E-commerce website designs allow you to create and launch a virtual store to sell products. A client’s perception of your website matters a lot. An online store is meant to be user-friendly and allow users to navigate through your website to create a pleasant online shopping experience. It is all about creating an attractive website with the right color contrasts and font sizes etc.
These are the 5 best website design creation platforms that save time both for clients and designers/developers. Web designers or digital marketing companies suggest a platform that suits your budget and business needs.
-
WordPress/Woocommerce
WordPress is an easy-to-use website-creating platform. It is the most popular platform for content management. WooCommerce is a plug-in that’s part of WordPress made to help with e-commerce online stores.
-
Shopify
Shopify is an easy use e-commerce software with the needed tools to manage your business. It helps businesses create an online store and sell their products online.
-
Laravel
Laravel is a website-creating platform that offers you to create PHP-based websites and web applications. It has a rich set of features that increase the speed of web development effectively.
-
Square Space
Squarespace is a website-creating company that also serves as a website hosting company. It enables users to use readymade templates for sites and drag-and-drop tools to create and modify a webpage.
-
Magento
Magento allows users to create both open-source websites and e-commerce online stores. It has several different customization options to create interactive and accessible sites and online stores.
3.Social Media – Business Pages
Since social media is used by a lot of people, and most probably your targeted audience as well, creating a business profile for your social media account is an effective way to get potential clients and grow as a brand.
-
Facebook
With Facebook being the most common social media platform in the world, it is mandatory to have a business profile on Facebook.
-
Instagram
Instagram is another common social media platform useful to allow your business to grow and divert potential clients toward your business.
-
LinkedIn
LinkedIn, being the most professional platform, is the best option to create a business profile and open yourself to new opportunities.
-
YouTube
YouTube is a video and reel-based online media platform. It has millions of streamers every day. By creating an informative video about your platform you can get new traffic toward your page and website every day.
-
Pinterest
Pinterest is a unique website of its kind. On Pinterest, you can create a gorgeous profile for your business and divert clients in your direction!