6 tips for new online companies

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One of the hardest things to do with a newly formed online company is getting your name out there. There are millions of websites that come and go every day and with the number it is hard sometimes to make a presence in the online world. Most start up companies have little or no advertising money so often paid advertising is not an option. There are some simple things that can be done to help companies grow from a start up and begin generating revenue. All these tips will be discussed in detail later, but for now here is a general run down of tips to help a start up company with little or no advertising money.

1. Learn who the big names in your industry. Like in the offline world, there is a political element to online business. There are certain movers and shakers in just about every industry. Your company is unique and must be to survive (see #2) however you must get to know those who have been successful in the business.

A quick way to do this is through forums. Most owners and creators of online only companies participate in various online forums. The best bet would be to go to Google and search. With a little time and energy you will usually be able to find forums for your industry.

In doing this you will learn good tips from individuals who have been successful before you, and often are willing to help point you in the right direction. Participate in discussion, you never know when partnerships might arise out of friendly discussion.

2. Create a unique selling point. With likely thousands of online companies within the same industry as you it is essential that you can set yourself apart from everyone else. Know what makes your company special and why it is better and different from the others trying to do the same thing.

Try to take a new spin on old ideas. Hosting for instance is a big thing at the moment and there are millions of hosting companies out there. If your company is just a hosting company then you will likely never take off. However adding unique services can help you find a notch in the business. This will separate you from others and potentially help customers choose you over another company in the same industry.

3. Narrow your range. The narrower your service the higher chance you have at succeeding. Say you are a graphic design company you likely are not going to get picked up in search engines when a potential customer searches for “graphic design”.

Many times this is done through specification. For instance if you are going to offer a graphic design service, don’t try to sell that you are just a graphic design service, be a graphic design service specializing in logos or banners for instance.

Try being regional as well. If you are based out of Oklahoma City for instance market yourself as Oklahoma City Graphic design. Businesses often times feel more secure using your services if they feel you are close by. So many times you have a higher return rate on visitors to your site buying your service if they are looking for someone close. As a general rule try to include at least a population of 1 million in your regional range, so if you are in New York you need to be more specific such as “Bronx graphic design” but if you are in a smaller region like say Rhode Island feel free to use “Rhode Island graphic design” as opposed to the city itself.

You can always expand your range gradually as your company gets bigger and is able to attract a wider range of visitors.

4. Get listed. Getting listed in search engines and web directories is the biggest single key to online success. Many times search engines will pick your site up as long as there are a few links coming into the site, however web directories require you to go out and manually submit your site most of the time. This can be a long process, and individually web directories tend to bring little return. However the search engine results that it will bring and the collective hits from all web directories are worth the effort and trouble.

5. Links, get some. I can not stress the importance of having as many quality links into your site as possible. Links help you gain search engine positioning as well as generate more traffic than most other mediums. Many times links to your site do require you to pay the owner of the site linking to you, however there are owners who are willing to swap links with you.

This all goes back to #1 which is knowing the right people. Through contact with other site owners of the same general genre you are able to often times receive links simply by helping them out or even being friendly to them. Most of the time this requires a link back to their site as well, but over time it will help your site grow.

Another way is again posting on forums. Do not spam (repeatedly show the link to your site) the forum, however most forums will allow you to have a link to your site in your signature. Having a lot of good helpful post will help spread your site throughout while building up respect for your company among peers.

6. Be attractive. It is one thing if you can get visitors to your site, but if you can not get them to buy your product or service then the visitors are worthless. It is better to have 20 visitors and have all of them buy what it is you are selling than have a million visitors only to have them buy nothing. You have to have an attractive site with the right feel to it in order to get people to buy your product, and most importantly get them to come back and spread the word about your site which will increase visitors.

Continue to visit gh83 for more tips on how to get the most out of your websites.