Website builders: A guide for beginners

This is near the end of my series of creating an online presence for your business. Here is the basic outline of things you need to do to get clients or customers from online sources:

1. Chose a strategic business name.
2. Create a Facebook Business page.
3. Get a free Google My Business account.
4. List your business on online business listing & review sites.
5. Use a Website Builder to create your website
6. Add pages and blog posts to your website while…
7. Optimizing your website for search engines and social media.
8. Promote your website.

I’ve created articles for the first 4 steps and this article will focus on which website builder is best for you to create a website.

Website considerations:

• Which website builder to choose from? I’m recommending WordPress but I also look at Wix and Squarespace. You want a responsive design, a contact form, main pages, and posts for blogging. All three have that capability.
• Which hosting company? Wix & Squarespace include hosting, WordPress.com does but WordPress.org does not. I’ll explain hosting in a section towards the end.
• Choosing a domain name. You want to use your strategic business name as your domain name. You’ll have to check the availability of your domain name (links below).
• Buy the domain name from your hosting company. Just let your hosting name buy it for you during sign-up and renew it every year.
• Design your site on paper using your competitor’s sites as a reference. Use the basic design on paper to start building your site.

Choosing a domain name is all on you. I will recommend a hosting company and website builder but the final decision is also up to you. And sketching the design of your overall page design helps you visualize what your site will look like.

Let’s start covering all of that with a quick comparison of Wix and Squarespace.

Wix vs Squarespace

Plain and simple, Wix seems to be better than Squarespace if you are interested in having a blog section for your site. Squarespace is the better option if you are interested in a small eCommerce site, although Wix has good eCommerce capability as well.

If you are going to have a brick & mortar business where you sell products or offer services, then Weebly is another option. Check out Weebly if that is your type of business.

Both Wix and Squarespace are good for beginners and each has pros and cons to consider. If I couldn’t choose WordPress I’d go with Wix. Both Wix and Squarespace offer web hosting and are relatively the same in overall cost, though I believe Wix is slightly cheaper.

Check out the following two links that compare the two to see which one you prefer.

Wix vs Squarespace1

Wix vs Squarespace2

Wix vs WordPress

WordPress has 100’s of millions of websites, some estimates are 455 million – nothing comes close to that (assuming those numbers are accurate).

There are also two different versions of WordPress available – .com or .org. I suggest the .org version for many reasons but check out the following link to understand the difference between the two options:

WordPress.com and WordPress.org: What’s the Difference?

There are approximately 160 million websites that were built with Wix. It is simple to use, a drag and drop website builder that does not require the user to know much at all – no techie stuff. But keep in mind that basic drag & drop website builders have extra code and the price is slower loading web pages.

Wix pros and cons:

• Everything happens within Wix.com. You don’t have to go anywhere else to set up your site.
• You don’t have to worry about any technical stuff.
• It’s better out of the box than WordPress for eCommerce.
• It’s got drag-and-drop site-building but drag & drop create slower loading websites. WordPress sites on average load faster.
• Wix has customer service & support — no such support for WordPress, although you don’t need it because of the many forums, FB groups, and hosting company resources.
• Wix can take your site down if they want to.
• There are not a lot of unique designs so your site will look like other sites, and once you choose a design you can’t change it.
• Not all designs are SEO friendly. I’ll cover SEO in a later article but it’s how people find your site over your competitors.
• Blogging and customizing with Wix is not that good.

WordPress pros and cons:

• WordPress — free software.
• There are thousands of themes and plugins available — many more than Wix.
• Far superior design capability with WordPress than WIX or any other website builder.
• It’s the most popular Content Management System (CMS) on the web.
• It’s a better blogging website builder.
• WordPress is highly customizable — you can build any kind of website you want.
• You have total control over your website.
• You have to find and choose a hosting company (see below on who NOT to choose).
• There is a learning curve to WordPress, but you have plenty of time in the beginning.

Why choose WordPress

Let’s be real. It’s going to take many months before you get any organic visitors to your website. And what I mean by “organic” is people who find your website from online search terms related to your business.

You have a better chance of getting new clients from your social media posts, Facebook Business Page, and Google My Business Listing. Other options are posting flyers around your neighborhood, cold calling potential clients, having sales\deals, etc.

The bottom line is that you will have more than enough time to learn the basics of WordPress and build a fantastic website. It takes at least 3 to 6 months before your website will begin appearing in local online searches, assuming you do everything you need to do.

You can have a website up in a day using WordPress. Then you can post links to your website on Facebook and share it with all your friends and family. Also share it on all other social media sites and update your business listing accounts.

What you then do is optimize your website design a little bit every day.

My next article will be on all the options that I have with my theme and plugins. In the meantime, here are the YouTube channels that I think have the best content on all aspects of WordPress:

WP Learning Lab
Darrel Wilson
WPBeginner
WPCrafter

Search their videos for any questions you have on using WordPress.

Also, WPLearningLab and WPCrafter have Facebook groups which you should join and ask questions when you get stumped. You also want to post questions on the WordPress forums, especially forums for your theme and plugins.

Web Hosting: What is web hosting?

You can’t have a website without a web hosting company. What web hosts do is “host” your pages, posts, media files, etc. so that they are accessible by people using the internet.  Or an easier way to understand hosting is that someone else has your website on their computer (server).

No matter what, don’t choose a hosting company owned by EIG. Here is a brief list of hosting companies owned by Endurance International Group:

HostGator, BlueHost, HostMonster, iPage, FatCow, JustHost, Arvixe, A Small Orange, HostNine. Constant Contact, Sitebuiler, …

Check out the following article for more about EIG: Endurance International Group (EIG) Hosting

I currently have two websites hosted by Siteground and it costs just under $20 per month to renew each year. However, they recently increased their rates so I may have to change to A2 Hosting (will update later).

For more options on hosting companies, check out this excellent video by Darrell Wilson on the best hosting companies.

Domain Name

Hopefully, you have chosen a strategic business name. You want to use that same name in your web address – myawesonemane.com. Next, you have to check to see if the domain name is available. Go to one of the following links to check domain availability for your domain name:

Name.com

Instant Domain Search

Buying and renewing a domain name costs approximately $10 or $15 per year but some hosting companies include it free as part of their hosting package(s).

Website Design

You need to sketch out your design – copy your competitors. The main pages you need are:

1. Home page: This will be the first page visitors see so make it good.
2. Services & Rates: This will probably be the next page visited to see your services and how much you charge. Make sure to include a lot of keywords.
3. About: Not a highly visited page but you still need an About page. Get a great profile photo of yourself!
4. Contact: Hopefully, this is the page that visitors go to after your other pages.

Other good pages to have are testimonials, reviews, credentials, privacy policy, etc.

Here’s what you do. Search on Google for the services or products you provide. Do different searches for every town or neighborhood in your service area. You want to look at the websites of your competitors that appear on the 1st page of the search results.

Go to their websites to see what their design looks like. Then rough sketch a design that you want on your side. The main parts of most pages are:

Header
Sidebar
Main content area
Footer

Look at everyone’s header, sidebars, and footers. Sketch what you want in your header, sidebar, and footer. Take a look at this page as an example. Here are some great YouTube videos on how to build a website with WordPress:

How To Make A WordPress Website For FREE 2020

How To Make A WordPress Website | Fast & Easy

How To Make a WordPress Website – For Beginners

A note on that last YouTube link. That guy has a recent video that I think shows using the Gutenberg Editor to build pages and blog posts. I do not use Gutenberg so I installed the Classic Editor plugin. All the videos are over an hour long so grab some snacks and a notepad to take notes.

For the record, I built my first two sites using the OceanWP theme and Elementor Page Builder. I’ll cover all the plugins and custom mods I made for those sites in upcoming articles.

I built this site with my own theme. Contact me if you want me to create a child theme for your WordPress-based website.

Final Thoughts

First off, you need a website! I believe that WordPress is your best option. I suggest using Siteground hosting if you can afford it or A2 Hosting if on a budget. You can get a site up and running in a day. Then spend a month or two writing content and improving the overall design and functionality of your site. Good luck!

The post Website Builders For Your Business appeared first on Kernix Web Design.

I’ll show you how to create the account, tips on maximizing your profile, and anything else that will enable your business to rank high on Google searches and appear in Google Maps.

What is “Google My Business”?

Google My Business is a free tool for small business owners. It allows you to create a business profile making it easy for customers to find your business when searching for local services and products.

You basically create a profile of your business which can be found on Google Maps and from Google searches. After you have an account and fill out the profile, you can post updates to your business involving deals, promotions, discounts, or events in your area that you host or will be attending.

Your business profile shows in the local businesses section near the top of Google search results after the ads. If you search for any business you’ll see exactly what I mean.

What is in the business profile?

A lot! I’ll cover most of the profile fields in detail below but here is a brief glimpse of what information you can add to your business profile:

1. Business details: your address, phone number, website, open hours, etc.
2. Photos and videos of your products, services, or location.
3. Ability to post offers, promotions, sales, etc.
4. Posting updates about your business, employee bios, PR releases, success stories, etc. (whatever works for your business).
5. Ability to see and respond to customer reviews of your business. This one aspect is huge. If you do not have a website, then reviews will help customers choose you.
6. Statistics on how people found your profile (search or maps), if directions were requested, calls made, and more.
7. An app to create and manage your profile from your phone. It allows customers to contact you directly. So you do not need a computer or laptop to create your account, you can just use the app.

If you do not have a website you definitely want to create a Google My Business account. You get to control how your business appears on Google search and Google Maps. But you also want to set up an account even if you have a website.

Check out the Google FAQ page for more information on Google My Business or continue reading.

Creating your Google My Business account

You are going to need a number of things before creating an account, one of which is a Gmail account. If you already have a personal Gmail account, consider creating a 2nd one dedicated to your business. To create a 2nd Google account:

1. Click on the Account photo or icon at the top right of your Gmail account
2. Choose “Add another account”.
3. Set it up as yourbizname@gmail.com

Then sign in to your Gmail account and go to the Google My Business page. Since I already have a listing I clicked on Add a business. Here are a few screen captures you’ll see during the signup process:

Step-by-step how to create your account

The process is really easy and self-explanatory:

1. Enter your business name.
2. Agree to terms.
3. Choose your category. You can only choose one but you can add more later.
4. Add location: even if you do not have a physical location, choose Yes so you can get in Google Maps.
5. Choose your service area outside of your location. I chose surrounding counties within driving distance. Click Next and then Finish on the next screen.
6. Add a contact phone number and website address if applicable.
7. Select the services your business provides. I had to choose Add custom service.
8. Add business hours and then upload a few photos.
9. Click Manage your profile.

There are a lot of options in the account so I’ll give a brief explanation of the most important pages & fields. Some of the fields are really important and others can be skipped if they do not apply to you.

Your Google My Business profile in detail

I’ll go over the most important links that you will see on the left-hand side of your account. The image below shows 9 of the 18 links you see on your Home page after you click your location name.

Home page

This is the page you first land on. All the links are in the left sidebar. In the center of the page at the top is what I call the quick access menu (1st image below). And to the far right is a brief statistics section of your profile once you have statistics to show (2nd image below).

Scroll down the rest of the Home page to see other quick access links but I don’t use anything other than the top links and the links in the left sidebar so let’s look at each of those.

Posts link

This page shows all of your posts which will be empty when you first see this page. There is a blue floating button on the bottom right that allows you to create a new post. Your posts only last one week and then they stop appearing in search results, but they do not disappear from your posts page.

You can add posts at any time or schedule them in advance. Here some ideas for posts:

• Services: Write a post each week on every possible service you provide.
• Service area: Add a map of your service area and mention any exceptions.
• Service hours: Mention the hours that you are available for contacting your business.
• FAQ: Visit competitor websites and look at their Frequently Asked Questions page. You could write a post on every possible question that visitors may have.

Make sure to always include a photo or graphic for each post. I’ll cover in a future article where to find free photos and how to create your own graphics.

Info link

This is a simple page. It shows all the details of your business listing. Change the information on this page as your business changes.

Insights link

This page shows all of the statistics for your business profile. I included some screenshots of graphs for my profile, but check it out from time to time. In the beginning, you probably won’t see much.

If you have a website then Google Analytics will be more useful. One of the most useful parts is the listing of keywords that people type to find your business profile, and/or website if you have one.

Reviews link

No matter how you do it, get your clients to give you positive reviews, not only here but on other review sites like Yelp. This page shows all your reviews and you can reply to any of the negative ones (don’t get negative reviews).

Photos link

This page shows all of the photos, graphics, and videos that you have uploaded. Click the blue + button to upload various media files.

Services link

The Services page is one of the most important pages. You want to add every possible service that applies to your business.

Settings page

You should do what I did for this page – turn all the settings on. You’ll understand when you look at the page.

Unimportant Links

I would suggest skipping the following links:

• Messaging: You need an app for potential clients to contact you. I don’t bother with this feature.
• Website: Do not build a website through Google My Business. If you want a website, build it with WordPress or have me build it for you.
• Users: Skip this unless you have a partner who will sometimes be managing the account.
• Create Ad: You may want to run ads in the future, but skip this step until your business profile is up and running.
• Linked Accounts: I’m not sure what this is but for me, it shows my Adwords account. I use Google Adwords to occasionally run advertisements.

You can check those links out for now, but they are not important to get your listing up and running.

Google Maps

Getting your business listing on Google maps is huge. Here is another reason why reviews are so important because your Google My Business reviews show for your map listing.

Final Thoughts

Hopefully, all the steps, tips, and insights listed above for creating your Google My Business account were helpful. Check out the Edit Business Listing page for additional tips in maximizing your profile.

Hopefully, you have also created a Facebook Business page. If you haven’t then take a look at my article on how to get your business on Facebook.

The post Free Google My Business Account appeared first on Kernix Web Design.

I cover the most important settings and some tips & tricks you can do to make people want to contact you over your competitors.

How to set up a Facebook business page

I have some images for the pages where you can create your Facebook business page, but I won’t be going over every step. Most of the options are easy to understand. Here are some quality links I found that will help you create the page:

1. Facebook For Business: The 1st Facebook link where it mentions that you should have your business name, description, and cover photo ready to go. It also says to have a profile photo, but that should be your logo. So use your personal photo until you get a logo.

2. Create A Page: The 2nd Facebook link takes you directly to create your business page (image below). Obviously, choose the “business” option. The 2nd image below shows the category where you would start typing whatever keyword(s) best fits your business.

3. Create & Manage Pages: 3rd Facebook link that lists the benefits & top features of a Facebook business page.

4. FB Help page: 4th Facebook page that has more in-depth information with links to related topics.

5. Call-to-action help page: And the final facebook link covers CTA buttons (call-to-action). I chose a contact button with the label “Send Email”. This is an easy way for people interested in my services to send me a Facebook message. Choose whichever CTA you prefer.

6. How to create a Facebook Business Page 2020: This is a good article that shows all the steps in creating your Facebook business page. I’m not going to cover each step because I want to cover all the important setup options.

Facebook business page setup

Here is a list of the options after clicking Edit Page Info with a brief description of each (most important IMO in bold text):

1. General: 20 different and important settings.

2. Messaging: Three settings you want to turn on.

3. Page Info: The most important settings, IMO.

4. Templates and Tabs: A listing of the tabs/sections of your page. You can reorder them which you should do. I have the 4 most important as the top ones: Home, Services, About, and Reviews.

5. Event Ticketing: Connect your account to add organizers to this Page.

6. Notifications: Settings for things you want to be notified about.

7. Advanced Messaging: Deals with apps and subscriptions – I skipped this section.

8. Page Roles: Roles for different people who have access to the page. Skip unless you have employees or business partners who will be adding content, responding to messages, etc.

9. Diversity Info: Not applicable to me so I skipped this setting.

10. People and Other Pages: This is for banning someone who isn’t nice. It’s your page so remove any questionable commenters.

* Preferred Page Audience: Skip, no longer available but the link is still active.

11. Issue, Electoral, or Political Ads: Well this is new. It appears FB is a political platform now – I skipped this since I am not a political-based business.

12. Branded Content: Some kind of marketing thing – DO NOT CLICK! You can’t easily get off the page. Wow, FB has really changed.

13. Instagram: Connect your Instagram account to access more features that aren’t available otherwise.

14.. WhatsApp: When you connect your WhatsApp or WhatsApp Business account to Facebook, you can add a WhatsApp button to your Page – I skipped.

15. Featured: Shows pages you have LIKED from your business page, not your personal account. Not sure why this is important.

16. Crossposting: Not important IMO.

17. Page Support Inbox: This is for page support tickets you have submitted to Facebook.

18. Page Management History: This is a history of management actions taken by people who manage this Page.

19. Activity Log: Timeline plus changes to your page – not important, just informational.

Most important setup features

The following are the most important setup features for your Facebook business page. Definitely look into the fields on each of these tabs.

General settings

20 fields that are important to set if they apply to your business.

1. Page Visibility: Make sure your page is published.
2. Visitor Posts: Click the Edit link and select “Disable posts by other people on the Page”. It’s your page and your business. I wouldn’t let other people post ANYTHING that may negatively affect my business.
3. Post and Story Sharing: Set to On so that people can share posts that you create.
4. Audience Optimization for posts: Newsfeed targeting – leave Off.
5. Messages: Click Edit to turn the feature on for people to contact you privately.
6. Tagging Ability: Turn on for people to tag your photos and videos.
7. Others Tagging this Page: Allow people to tag your page.
8. Country Restrictions: Leave blank so that anyone from any country can view your page.
9. Age Restrictions: With the recent COPPA thing, I set this to 18 years or older. No one under 18 will hire me plus they probably aren’t interested in my page anyway.
10. Page Moderation: To block posts with certain words. No need if you set the profanity filter below.
11. Profanity Filter: I set it to Strong. It’s my business and I don’t want anyone commenting with profanity on MY page.
12. Similar Page Suggestions: Check the box on this one so that your page is included in Recommended pages.
13. Page Updates: Not sure what it is but I checked the box for this one.
14. Post in Multiple Languages: I skipped this one but you may want to check this one if it applies to your business.
15. Translate Automatically: Turn this On.
16. Comment Ranking: Turn it On.
17. Content Distribution: I left this unchecked which means people can download my images.
18. Download Page: Not important.
19. Merge Pages: Not sure why you would do this unless you set up your tabs wrong.
20. Remove Page: This is to DELETE your page – don’t do it unless you do not want the page anymore.

Page Info

There are 8 important fields and settings for this tab:

1. Description: Write a succinct description of your business
2. Categories: Start typing your main keywords for your business and select the categories that apply to your business. I chose “Web Designer” and “Website”.
3. Phone Number: Make it easy for potential clients to contact you by adding your phone number here.
4. Website: Add the home page of your website here or leave it blank if you do not have a website yet.
5. Email: Enter the email address for people to contact you. Don’t use your personal email. Get a second Gmail account for this.
6. Address: Enter your business address if you have one or a home address even if you do not have plan on having clients in your place. Skip this if you are uncomfortable putting that information on the internet.
7. Service Area: If you don’t add your address, then definitely add the neighborhood or city of your service area.
8. Hours: Set the hours that you are available. Set each day individually if weekends are different than weekdays.

Messaging

I set the following options to “On”

1. Use the Return key to send messages: This sets the ENTER key to send the message.
2. Help people start a conversation with your Page: I turned it on.
3. Starting a Messenger Conversation – Show a greeting: “Hi ‘username’! Thanks for getting in touch with me on Messenger. Please send me any questions you may have.” This is just an example of an automatic greeting after someone sends you a message.

Notifications

I turned all options “On” and chose the following option:

Get a notification each time there is activity on your Page or an important Page update. This is the first option under the heading “On Facebook”.

Obviously, turn off any option that you do not want to be notified about.

But the most important section is under Services List > Show Services.  I added 3 services: Web Design, WordPress Theme Development, and WordPress Setup and Configuration. I then added a brief description and the rates for each (see image above).

Tips to get the most out of your page

Here are 10 important tips to get the most out of your Facebook business page:

1)  Pin an informative post to the top so that it is the first post first-time visitors will see. This is another work-around for the free business page Facebook offers.

2) Fill out the About page: This is where people can see where you are located, business description, hours, email address, website link, and more.

3) Services tab: I can’t stress enough how important this is.

4) Consider creating a video. This makes you a real person and shows your experience.

5) Write posts for your page and include great photos and graphics. If you have a website with a blog, then you can share them on your page. Otherwise, create posts just for Facebook.

6) Contact me, Share, Like, etc: Pick the call-to-action that you feel would be best for you. I prefer the Contact Me option.

7) Create a Facebook group related to your business.

8) Client reviews! You have to get your clients to give you 5-star reviews on Facebook. Bribe them if you have to.

9) Use your business name in your URL: You can set this up when you create your page. If you already created one, go to Page > About > and click Edit next to the username field. Then change and click create a username. I think you can only do this one time so choose wisely.

10) Reorder the Tabs so your preferred tabs are not hidden in the More drop-down list.

Final Thoughts

Don’t wait. Make creating a Facebook business page for your business a top priority. Let it work for you while you are  busy with your business. Take a look at my article Website Business Name article for more insights.

The post Facebook Business Page (Create & Setup) appeared first on Kernix Web Design.

Online presence for your business

One of the most important things you can do is create a smart business name. Then you need to get your business name on the internet in various ways. And the best thing you can do is create a website, but that is easier said than done.

Here is my breakdown of what you can do to optimize your online presence for your business:

Easy methods

• Choose a strategic business name
• Create a Google My Business account
• List your business on Yelp and other relevant review sites
• Create a Facebook business page
• Create other social media accounts for your business

Hard and/or expensive methods

• Create a website for your business
• Upload relevant videos about your business to YouTube
• Create a blog section for your website
• Learn and implement Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

You want to start with the easy online methods first since a lot of them require little maintenance once you are done. I’m going to touch on all the online methods but I’ll be creating separate articles for some of the methods. I want to focus on the most important first step: your business name.

1. Create a search-friendly business name

You must reject any cute or clever play on words for your business name. No one is going to hire you because they find your business name “funny” unless that is common practice for your industry.

You need to be professional. You want clients and customers to find you through online searches, reviews, testimonials, and portfolios. A good name helps people find your business. Let me go into detail.

Here is what I did for the pet business I owned for the past 10 years. I used online tools to research the search volume for the services I offered: dog walking, pet sitting, and boarding.

The purpose is to find the best set of 2 or 3 words that describe your business. Keep it simple and put a small number of keywords in your business name.

Smart & strategic business name: add your city name!

How do you do a search for something on Google? Don’t you add either “near me”, “in my area”, or an actual city or neighborhood name in your search? I do and so do most people.

For my pet business that made sense, but that does not matter for my web design business. If you plan on selling or offering services locally, then find the best geographic name for your business: City name, neighborhood name, county name, etc.

The main reason to put the city in your name is for a better chance of getting “clicks” from organic search results. This is mostly for people with websites, but review sites like Yelp also show up in search results. And make sure you use the same business name for your Yep account, Facebook business page, Google My Business listing, etc.

2. Google my business listing

This is just as important as your Facebook business page. Local businesses that have a Google business listing are featured immediately below the top few results (see image below).

You have to provide a phone number and an address to actually set up a Google My Business listing. If you are not willing to put that information on the internet, then this is not an option for you.

My pet business was always featured in the business snippet for a number of different search terms: dog walker, dog walking, pet sitting, pet sitter, etc.

3. List your dog walking business on Yelp and other review sites

Yelp is by far the best review site when it comes to where people actually search for businesses and their reviews. Listing your business on Yelp is one of the first things you should do. In my opinion, Yelp, Google My Business, and Facebook are the top 3 online sites to list your business.

I’ll be writing a post that goes into more depth on Yelp and other review sites, but here are some sites where I listed my pet business in the past and my present web design business:

Merchant Circle, Brownbook, Super Pages, Bing Local, Localdatabase, ShowMeLocal, Tupalo, Hotfrog, Angie’s List, Foursquare, Judy’s Book, Alexa, Citysquare, Ezlocal, Mapquest, …

I’m sure I missed some, but you get the idea. I set up accounts for those sites over a decade ago. Some of those sites may not even be that popular anymore. Put your business name and every review and business listing website that makes sense.

4. Social Media: Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, …

Until you actually build a website, or hire someone to build it for you, then having a Facebook business page is absolutely essential. Some people will not even use Google to search for local services but will search on Facebook instead.

Make sure you create a separate page for your business. Do not use your personal Facebook page. You’ll be able to list a couple of your services and your rates. Another thing you can do is add images, such as a Google map of your service area, You can also create posts relating to your business.

Here are some other obvious, and not so obvious sites:

• Instagram: post photos and videos of you and your dogs.
• Pinterest: look into Rich Pins, a paid account, and using Tailwind
• Twitter: not the best but why not create an account
• Tumblr: same as for Twitter

The next two are not technically social media sites, but you can post and reply with links to your Facebook page or website:

• Quora: subscribe to pet-related sections and answer any questions with a relevant link to your site.
• Reddit: you can post articles or reply to threads on pet-related subreddits here as well.

I’ll cover the ins and outs and pros and cons of all of these sites in a separate article. But for now, at least create your Facebook business page.

5. Create a website!

After creating a great business name, this should be one of your next goals. This is a huge topic so I’ll be writing an article on suggestions on how to build your site as well as touching on the two topics below.

You also want to get your clients to write testimonials for you. Once you get them to do that, ask them to add reviews on social media pages, and review site listings. You can add the testimonials on your site and link to the reviews as well. That is huge. When potential clients see 5-star reviews on external sites, it adds to your credibility and reliability.

Your website name should be the same as your business name. Here is another reason why the first step of creating a strategic business name is so crucial. It becomes your brand.

6. Business related Blog

Google tends not to promote static websites. And static means websites that rarely, if ever, change. This is where a blog comes in. By posting articles related to your business on a regular basis, it shows that your site has fresh content.

The problem is that researching, writing, and publishing a blog post every week takes a lot of time unless you hire copywriters to write the content for you.

7. YouTube videos

Quick videos you shoot with your phone will also help your website. You can add the videos as support of your blog articles or as aspects of your business. You want to also add links to your website and blog articles in your video descriptions if you do post on Youtube.

I have not made any videos myself, but I would like to start the process. But I understand that it is also very time-consuming. You are paying either money or time to increase your online presence.

8. SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

SEO is an advanced method of getting onto page 1 of Google search results. There are a lot of do’s and don’ts and it will take you a long time to handle everything that you need to do. I have a good deal of knowledge on the subject, but I am far from an expert. You should do some research on your own.

I’ll be adding links to important topics in future articles on building a website and how to incorporate SEO into your page and post content.

Final Thoughts

You need an online presence for whatever type of business you have. My suggestions are to do all the easy things right away and take your time with the more advanced methods. Be serious and do your research and pick the best name for your geographic area.

The post Website Business Name (Online Presence) appeared first on Kernix Web Design.