SHEcorporated One Step Empire

Step 13 - Building Your Online Ecosystem. Getting In Front of Your People Online.

August 05, 2021 Kristy Carruthers Season 1 Episode 13
SHEcorporated One Step Empire
Step 13 - Building Your Online Ecosystem. Getting In Front of Your People Online.
Show Notes Transcript

This week we are setting up your online ecosystem and building your audience, through social media and other online platforms. This is when you start introducing your brand new business to the world!

We're going to walk you through how to build a killer website, how to start driving traffic to your site, and the strategy to set up social media to fit your business, and get in front of your target audience.

This is the ONE STEP Empire podcast from SHEcorporated.  We are here to help YOU take the leap, and create the life you dream of, by building your own business empire, one simple step at a time.

Make sure you visit us at SHEcorporated.com for any downloads we mention in the podcast. You can also join our community HERE 

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Welcome back to SHEcorporated ONE STEP Empire podcast!

Last week you chose your company structure and got your company registered and applied for all the necessary licenses and permits. You are officially ready to do business!

This week we are setting up your online ecosystem and building your audience through social media and other online platforms. This is when you start introducing your brand new business to the world!

The first piece of the puzzle in your online presence is your website.  It is the anchor, the first place people will generally go to check your company out, and learn more about you.  It’s where you can drive people to join your mailing list, and sell your products and it’s really important to get it right.

It doesn't matter what industry you are in, or what products or services you sell, you need a professional looking website.  

Even if you never sell a thing through your actual website, prospective investors, customers, and partners are going to check out your site, and you want to impress them with a professional product.

The very first step is getting your online address by registering your chosen domain name at sites like godaddy.com, register.com or domains.google, so you have an address to call home on the web.

You may work with a web designer or you may choose to build your own site with a user-friendly interface like Wordpress or Shopify.  If you are just starting out in ecommerce it’s pretty hard to beat Shopify for features and integrations.  If you are selling courses there are sites like Kajabi, and there are specialized providers for almost every industry, so do a bit of research and see what people recommend for the type of site you need.

 

Here are some tips for building a great company website:

  • Take note of how competitor sites are set up and why they may be that way.
  • Take note of sites from other industries you really like, and what appeals to you about them.
  • Take note of sites from companies with a similar brand feel to yours, and how that shows up on their websites.
  • If you are having someone design your site, make a list of 5 or 6 sites you want to show to your web developer, to convey what you are looking for in your design.
  • Start by sketching out a template for your site. Include the general layout and feel for the home page, the headers, and any drop down menus and what to include on each.  Map out the footer and the elements to include on the various pages as well as if you want maps, reviews, social media feeds, blog pages and any other features.
  • Be sure the site is search engine optimized so it shows up in search results.
  • Make sure your site is optimized for mobile devices.
  • Make sure the site loads quickly.
  • Keep it clean and simple; visual clutter will drive visitors away.
  • Make sure you have a Terms of Use Agreement and Privacy Policy 
  • Make sure it’s easy for site visitors to navigate, contact you, and buy your product.

 

And the most important tip is to test, test and test some more.  Test every link and every button.  Browse through the site and imagine yourself as a new customer trying to find information and navigate the site – is it easy?  Does it make sense?  Does everything work?

Once you have that site built you need to get people to visit it!

So let’s start driving traffic to your website

While entire books and year long courses have been written on this topic, the key ways to drive traffic to your website are as follows:

  • Build a solid site with good search engine optimization, quick load times, and high quality original content.
  • Create a social media following and drive them to your site with lead magnets, offers and calls to action.
  • Pay for traffic with paid ads from search engines and social media sites to send you traffic (such as through the Google Adwords program or Facebook Ads).
  • Get links to your site from other high-quality sites.

Next you can start building your audience and your online ecosystem:

Once you have your website built, you can start building the rest of your online ecosystem.  If you know your target audience, then you should have a good idea of what social media they use, and where they will hang out online.

Identify the two or three (maximum) social media platforms you want to focus on, and register your user name.  I suggest that you actually register on multiple platforms so you can secure the same user name everywhere, even if you aren’t going to use them right away.  That way you can help avoid copycats using your name on other platforms, and so you have consistency later when you grow and may want to expand your focus to more platforms.

Are your people on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, TikTok or YouTube?  Or are they somewhere else?  You can’t do it all when you start out, so focus on a couple of platforms and maximize your opportunity there.

There are thousands of full courses on how to grow your social media following and the strategies change by the day, so I suggest you find a short course, even one that's just a few hours on social media strategy, to get you headed in the right direction.  Many courses are for specific platforms, so choose the course that matches with the platforms that you have chosen, and can help you build that account effectively.

One thing that applies to all of platforms, that will make your social media manageable, is to sign up for a social media scheduler like Later or Hootsuite, for example.  It’s nearly impossible to manually post quality content, a few times a day, every day, and consistency is really key.  A scheduling tool is the secret to allowing you to batch produce great content, schedule it out for weeks at a time, and not be tied to your phone all day.

So that’s your one step for this week.  Get your website built and setup your social media and online accounts. 

Next week we are going to look at all the different ways to finance your business and how to figure out how much money you really need.  So join us back here for tips on how to bankroll your new business. 

So make sure you subscribe if you haven’t already and drop us a rating or a comment and hit us up @shecorporated on social and we’ll see you back here next week.