In the last two decades there was a paradigm shift in the way businesses operate. Along with the increase in number of the internet users more and more businesses decided to have an online presence. Businesses have made full use of the support they got from social media platforms, the search engines and several other online channels to promote and grow themselves. Increasing the reach of your business have become relatively easier than it used to be. The online world is huge and holds a massive opportunity for every business, provided the strategies are applied properly.

While talking about businesses having online presence the first thing that comes to our mind is digital marketing. It is away of promoting a business through digital media and the internet. According to Statista there were 3.97 billion internet users in 2019. This tells us that how important it is to take your business online. Let’s take a look at some of the other factors that make online presence important:

·       90% of buyers research online before purchasing.

·       77% of people look at online reviews before purchasing.

·       In 2020, 18% of worldwide retail sales was through ecommerce.

Starting from creating awareness, building up credibility, increase the trust factor of audience to increase in sales, online presence can provide your business with huge benefits. There are a lot of technicalities included in building an online presence. Some of them are listed below:

1)     Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is an organic way to drive traffic to your website. It helps the websites to rank higher on the search engine results page. SEO is of two types- On page SEO and Off page SEO. There are various factors that contributes in making a website well optimized for search engine. Some of them are page loading time, mobile optimization, domain age, optimized content, interlinking, backlinking and many more. If your website appears in any of the first three spots in the SERPs then people will trust you more. Studies show that first three results get 60% of the traffic.

2)     Social Media Marketing (SMM)

      Social media marketing is the way of promoting your business through social media. Social media has also provided businesses an opportunity to sell there products directly through the platform without going to the website separately. This allows businesses to create a good user experience. It is the best platform for increasing the reach and awareness of your business. 52% of social media marketers said that social media has a positive effect on their company’s revenue and sales. It helps a business or brand to engage with their customers by putting up interesting posts or stories like polls, live Q/A sessions and all.

3)     PAY-PER-CLICK ADS

PPC ads also known as CPC is way to advertise your business on the internet. Google Ads is the advertising network where advertisers go and create ads. There are various types of PPC ads such as search ads, display ads, remarketing ads, shopping ads and many more. The best thing about these kinds of ads is you can target your audience in a detailed manner. By doing this you will spend your money effectively on those people who is your target audience. Unlike SEO which takes a lot of time to drive traffic, PPC ads drive traffic right from when the ad runs. It allows one to retarget audience depends on how a visitor interacts with your campaign. If done correctly PPC ads have the ability to provide a high ROI.

4)     Email marketing

It is the most cost-effective way to promote your business and drive sales. It allows you to send personalized mails which helps in building meaningful relationship with your customers. But it is important to filter your email list regularly and not spam your customers. This may hurt your business. Email marketing is said to provide the best ROI. Some of the metrics which can help you to measure the effectiveness of your email marketing campaign is open rate, bounce rate, click rate and unopened rate. Any updates or new-ins about your business can be forwarded through emails.

These were some of ways in which online presence of your business can help you achieve great heights.