So, you have a beautiful new website and now you want some people to come to see it. That’s online business in a nutshell.

But what are the secrets for online business success?

Building a snazzy, new website, especially if you are new to the online world or a start-up, is often an overwhelming process. Getting to the finish line can feel as if you’re owed some kind of champagne explosion and a trophy.  If you’ve been unfortunate enough to work with a developer who hasn’t quite given you a finished product (do you know how many people are sold a website “package” without copy, content, images and SEO?) you’ve still got a ways to go with making it work for you.

SEO

You may now be hearing that you need to work on your SEO so that your new website is actually doing something – rather than just looking polished. If you’ve nodded and then internally gone “WHAT is SEO?” here’s a simple explanation from WIKI: “Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine’s unpaid results—often referred to as “natural,” “organic,” or “earned” results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine’s users. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search, academic search, news search and industry-specific vertical search engines.” SEO is like a magic database that figures out how search engines work combines it with what people are looking for and mixes it with the creation of search terms or keywords written into the copy (including the names of your images). Optimising your website should include editing of your copy, creating backlinks (to prove you’re actually participating in being part of an online community) and proper naming of your images and coding for specific keywords. In short, taking a strategic approach to ensuring your SEO is as hot as you can get it is the first step to online success.

Blogging

Your blog is a fabulous way of showing your potential clients who you are and allowing them to read more about you, see if they like you and prove that you aren’t just a stuffy business person. People buy from people – blogs are perfect for showing off the person behind the brand. Additionally, providing industry-specific information will prove to your current and potential customers that you are the authority on your business and industry. There are several sources to which you can turn for high-quality content if you feel that you don’t have the creativity or the time to create a fantastic blog. You can outsource to a professional ghost blogger, invite guest bloggers to blog and repurpose content from other copy to create new blogs. Involving your employees will enhance the human aspect of this channel and will also increase your shares as they share their posts with family and friends. Asking your employees or managers if they would like to contribute blog posts about related topics will also increase camaraderie in the office. Ensuring your blog has the capacity for visitors to leave comments and start an interaction is a great method to build your online presence. The engagement will go a long way to show that you care about your customers and business. In the comments below tell me what ‘secrets’ you do in your business to make it an online business success.