Some marketers will have you believe that you need some sort of secret technique to get more customers using the internet and that they are just the ones to do it. That’s the first road block you need to overcome because the only true breakout here is the web itself, the opportunity to finally eliminate the middle man and communicate at lightning speed with your customers. Ultimately you can be found online thought paid traffic, social media, search engine optimization (SEO) or referrals.

Where to get started?

You should always start with what you already have. If you already have a website for your business make sure it looks clean and is user friendly both on desktop and mobile. This is not optional because it’s counterproductive to spend all that time and money to attract people to your site just so they leave immediately after seeing it. You can get a good design done for as little as $5 on Fiverr as well as setting you site very inexpensively.

If you don’t have website that’s not a bad thing because starting fresh the right way is always better than fixing broken parts. Think about WordPress as go to tool to build your website. It’s powerful and free.

Social Media Assets

Do you trust a business that doesn’t have Facebook page? Well, the same will go for your potential customers. Whether you plan on actively use social media for your business or not this is not optional. Get a Facebook, Twitter, Google+ pages setup with your logo and banner and core messages representing your business (Use Fiverr to get a banner design). Other social media channels to consider are LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest (there are a lot more).

By the way if you are in this for real, get used to google anything you don’t know or understand.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO should be at the backbone of any business. Even if you don’t want to become an SEO expert, take time to read the basics of SEO (MOZ has a great beginner’s SEO resource). SEO allows your website to always give the user the information they need when typing specific phrases in the search engines. A search optimized site prioritize the user experience and always provide valuable information to the user. Having SEO in mind when building your business online will make everything else flow more efficiently.

If you are planning on using SEO as a driver for your business, you will need patience. I recommend that you combine SEO with other marketing method or lead generation method mainly paid traffic.

Paid Traffic

Paying for traffic is definitely a viable option for almost all type of businesses. The only part you need to consider carefully is your traffic source. You can get paid traffic almost everywhere on the web from search engine, third party websites and social media. Advertising on search is specially great if you want user to find your business right when they are searching for the service or product you offer (e.g “plumber in Boston” , “colourful t-shirts”).

Referrals

This is when you pay a commission to someone every time they send you a qualified customer. The person sending you the customer work hard to send people to your product and service page and can be paid by different methods such as pay per lead, pay per sale, or pay per click. Depending on your knowledge about your business and your customer behaviour one payout type will be more beneficial than the other. Amazon pays affiliates when the people they send buy a product on Amazon. Most plastic surgeons pay affiliates when then send qualified leads (qualified lead can a phone call with a minimum duration time).

Conclusion

As much as your offer is important to attract prospects, user experience can make or break your business. Having the main social media assets setup will help give your business some social proof and maybe increase your revenues if you use it.