How to Build A Healthy Online Business

Make it easy for your customers to fill a virtual shopping cart.

Building a healthy online business requires state-of-the art marketing skills. You can design a phenomenal website to showcase your products or services, but if your customers have difficulting finding you and securing your products, you have lost the battle. Your site must be search engine optimized, and you must have social media savvy and a repertoire that includes at least a little viral marketing. A healthy online business does not just happen. You create it.

Difficulty:

Challenging

Instructions

Search Engine Ranking

1. Write a blog for your site. Share the wisdom -- maybe even some the secrets -- of your business. Provide useful resources your target market can use. Use the blog to increase traffic and to brand your business. The objective is to make your brand synonymous with the field of business you wish to dominate. Use your blog to distinguish yourself from your competition.

2. Create a customer testimonials page on your website. According to the SEO Flicks website, customer testimonials "make sales directly and increase traffic to a website automatically." Testimonials therefore fulfill two of your most important goals as an online business owner. Publish letters or emails you have saved over the years from happy customers. Include pictures, if possible. This is so important that some businesses pay for testimonials about the business.

3. Promote news about your company and your industry. "Harness the power of on line news search," states PRWeb.com. Use news releases for submitting newsworthy information via your site. Tout things such as an anniversary of the business or a key employee, award announcements, a new client or partnership of your business, product launches, or internal staffing changes, for instance.

4. Optimize every page of your site for search engine relevance. Make every word count in the meta tag descriptions of your site and your individual pages, and write tight prose that's rich with keywords for your products or services. Use keywords in text and images without too much repetition.

Site Operation

1. Find an Internet provider that can provide an acceptable page-loading speed. According to BigMoneyWeb.com, having a fast page load improves your search engine optimization rankings. Slow pages drive customers away and lower your ranking in search results. Search engines seek sites with speed because they want happy Internet surfers. So do you. Keep the customers satisfied a snappy site, not bloat or overkill that slows things down.

2. Review and edit your site's organization so customers can find the information they want to read or see. Make site navigation as simple and intuitive as possible. Remove or fix broken links regularly.

3. Insist on high standards for your site's uptime performance. If the site goes down while a customer is trying to check out, your business may lose the sale. Excellent site performance improves your customer's experience and reduces the chance of lost sales. Poor performance by your internet provider calls for a new Internet provider.

4. Make ordering a product or service easy and obvious.

5. Give your visitors a way to contact you or a customer service representative who will respond. Provide well-placed links to a "Contact Us" page that has sufficient means of contact that visitors know they can reach a real person. No amount of technology ever takes the place of personal communication to answer questions and resolve issues.

Viral Marketing and Social Media

1. Create media with the capability of going viral. The online version of old-school word-of-mouth involves viral marketing. Let your site visitors pass your media along to their friends and then to their friends' friends. Set this up properly and it can create a never-ending chain of links back to your online business. Pay-per-click advertising can sometimes drive targeted traffic to your site and to specific items you would like to go viral.

2. Shoot videos that address topics of concern to your business. Show your products in motion if they move. Capture positive emotions associated with your products or services using footage of testimonials. Also include pertinent how-to topics or other information your market wants to know.

3. Create a game or invent a special calculator that functions on your site. Visitors will tell their friends, and the viral marketing triggers visitors who want to play the free game or caluculate something.

4. Spin a good story. Heartwarming or shocking stories, especially if accompanied by intriguing photographs, encourage viral spirals in visitors. Create some content that internet viewers will enthusiastically share with their contacts by email or through such social media platforms as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

5. Brand your business inexpensively through social media outlets. Use them to promote your site constantly by creating a business presence, then posting, replying to comments and referring prospects to your site. Answering questions positions your business as an expert in the field. Use these platforms to get valuable feedback from customers, to keep your site on peoples' minds, and to make connections with people who have the authority to buy your product or service. Social media keeps your online traffic stats growing. More traffic means more sales no matter what your business.

Tips & Warnings

• Find experts to fill the voids where your skills are weakest. Running a successful online business requires a wide variety of business skills: marketing, advertising, photography, web design and maintenance, content creation, customer service, shipping, search engine optimization, inventory management, purchasing, accounting, finance and banking. Owners cannot possibly excel in every area.

• Online advertising can be costly and ineffective if managed by a novice. Learn the basics before you attempt to run your own ad campaign.

References

• Street Directory: Improve Search Engine Ranking: Build A Healthy Online Business
• Converge 2003; Viral Marketing 101: Use It to Create a Healthy Business!; February 2011
• Morgan Hunter; Get Active Stay Active: Keep Your Business Healthy With Social Media
• SEOpher; How a Corporate Blog Can Improve SEO and Offer a Good ROI; November 2007
• SEO Flicks; Customer Testimonials as SEO Tools; May 2010
• PR Web: Use Your News to Drive SEO

Resources

• To Be Rich and Healthy; Everyone can build an online business, why not?; June 2011
• Steve Pavlina; How to Build a Successful Online Business; Steve Pavlina; February 2008
• Biznik; Sick Sites: Simple Search Engine Optimization; May 2008
• Big Money Web; Fast Page Load = Higher SEO Rankings; Brian Flores; June 2011