Building a Small Business Online Presence

Does Your Canadian Small Business Need an Online Presence?

 ONLINE PRESENCE PLANNING

 As a small business owner, it is even more important for you and your small business to have an online presence.  Whether you “Google” to find a business or not, your customers do and by not having a presence online tells them you are possibly too small to do business with because they cannot find out anything about you or your products. Online presence today is so much more than a website page with your company name, address, and phone number.  If you are not embracing an online presence in your business, you eventually will be left behind.  You may maintain your current business, but you are losing out on new potential business that your competitors will have access.   

Online presence includes not only a website, but so much more.  Gone are the days when a business owner goes through the yellow pages and finds one of the thousands of graphic designers and programmers who market themselves as a web developer.  An online presence is a key part of your marketing today and a good majority of them do not understand marketing at all.  You might get a great looking website that does absolutely nothing for you or could get a great database engine backend and never have your site found.  

The key to your success will be to have a detailed online presence plan that provides each web company with your requirements now and in the future.  It will let the web company know who your target market is, what type of online presence you need, what type of integration you need with the different pieces or systems you have, corporate branding and the look you require, the type of  website content you require, if you want to update website content yourself or have someone else do it, how you plan to capture leads, your budget, and much more.  This will narrow down the companies who can work with you on all of the pieces of your online presence and will also provide a way to document against the actual delivery if there is any question once complete.  If you are just going to a web company and telling them you need a website and giving them a budget, then you are allowing someone who knows nothing about your company and your goals to create your online presence and you will not get the results you expected.

 Once you have all the pieces of your online presence, it is important that each piece helps drive traffic to the other pieces.  If you have a Facebook or Twitter page and are not using the linkages available to drive traffic to and from your website, you are missing an opportunity.

To find out more about our online presence offerings, click on the link.  We  work with full service online presence companies, so that a complete solution can be offered with our services.