The following is an excerpt from the free eBook From No-Tech to High-Tech Entrepreneur. To get your full copy go here or add your details in the right hand side!
Step 1 Your Website!
Any high-tech entrepreneur understands only too well that developing a solid online presence is vital to building a successful business, and the first step in building your business is to develop a well-designed, intuitive site to help boost conversions and facilitate a well-integrated customer service strategy.
While many business owners question the need for a website, particularly as social media is such an enormous advantage to online ventures, setting up a Facebook page in lieu of a proper website does not allow for the proper integration of all of the online platforms you should be using to promote your business; from blogging to newsletters, webinars, product delivery as well as proper marketing and advertising, a website acts as a central hub for all of your online marketing activities and therefore should be at the center of your online strategy.
That being said, the best thing about setting up a website these days is that it’s quick, simple and easy to maintain; WordPress is a great example of an intuitive platform that allows for comprehensive websites that are lightweight and mobile friendly as well as easy to navigate both for the webmaster and the client.
WordPress is the most commonly used website platform available today and has been around for over a decade; as a result it boasts an enormous range of free plug-ins to allow for increased functionality and integrates beautifully with a variety of essential services such as online software products and other websites that can help to enhance the functionality and user-friendliness of your site.
Step 2 Social Media
Social Media is a vital tool for any online business and there are a number of large and well-populated options as far as platforms on the web today; the key to using social media as effectively as possible is to determine where your target market is and create profiles on those particular platforms.
Facebook is a wonderful option to start with and boasts several advantages from being the largest social network online today, having a well-established history and being a quick and easy way to reach your targeted demographic.
Other essential platforms are Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Youtube and Google+ and depending on where your target market is these mediums of communication can go a long way toward helping you get to know your customers in a positive way; to get started, simply make a profile on the networks of your choice and start inviting friends and family to get the ball rolling.
Another important step is linking your personal profiles with your business pages on each and every network, for example be sure to link your personal Facebook page with your Facebook business page and promote your business to your personal connections as well as your professional ones for added exposure; social media platforms are one of the most valuable marketing tools available to businesses today and utilizing them correctly is essential to getting the most out of your online marketing efforts.
Another important benefit of social media is their highly targeted advertising demographics; Facebook in particular is wonderful for this, allowing you to keep very tight control over who you’re advertising to in order to build up a highly qualified client list without wasting a dime of your advertising budget.
Step 3 Squeeze Pages
An enormously helpful tool as far as converting website traffic to paying customers is the squeeze page, or an opt-in page on your website; these pages allow you to capture leads from potential clients by gaining their email addresses or further contact information in exchange for a valuable giveaway or a tool which will help them solve a particular issue that has led them to your site to begin with.
Giveaways can be formatted in a number of ways, from mp3 recordings to free teleseminars, webinars or eBooks and the more valuable the information they contain, the more likely the consumer will be to give you their information.
Opt-in pages must always be linked to your CRM and for small startups, platforms such as MailChimp or Aweber are a great start; ventures that find themselves growing and needing more can always move to platforms such as Infusionsoft as they need more functionality.
These platforms are wonderful options for helping you save and organize your client details, creating newsletter campaigns and just generally nurturing your leads
You will find more information on how to use squeeze pages with your list building system in Chapter 4
Step 4 Your Blog
A blog is a crucial tool for any high-tech venture; for one thing they are essential to proper search engine optimization (SEO) and allow you to be found and ranked by Google and a number of other vital search engines in order for potential clients to be able to find you.
Your blog also enables an invaluable channel of communication with your customers, both allowing you to interact in a casual and helpful way as well as building a sense of community with those who love your business; once you’ve put together a valuable blog post which helps build customer loyalty by providing your audience with helpful information, you can automatically send your post out to your client base as an email newsletter via your RSS feed.
You can also share your blog posts on different social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter and you can add it to your Google+ authorship for even more exposure and credibility.
There are several essential online tools that entrepreneurs should be using and integrating in order to build a strong online presence, and by setting up and taking advantage of these options your business will not only gain added online traffic, it will help to build a solid conversion rate and help to turn website visitors into paying clients.
