REACHING YOUR CUSTOMER IN AN INCREASINGLY DIGITIZED WORLD

Reaching your customer in an increasingly digitized world

How to get your customer to see you when you can’t see them

Taking out an advertisement in a local newspaper simply won’t cut it anymore. Ads on the internet are getting easier and easier to dodge. As subscriptions to daily print newspapers continue to drop and online ad blockers become more prominent (and customers remain loyal to their favorite established brands), it can be hard for a startup to reach its intended market. The ways that businesses utilize technologies such as search engines and social media is more important than ever.

Search Engine Optimization

Think about any time you’ve had a question. What is the first thing you think to do? You Google it. And then you (hopefully) find what you were looking for on the first page. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the necessary tool to ensure that when a potential customer searches a keyword, your business is one of the first to pop up.

In its SEO starter guide, Google’s first piece of advice for businesses creating websites is to give each page a unique name – not too unique that it wouldn’t be captured by Google’s algorithm, but enough to make your business stand out from others that may be similar. If your business specializes in products for curly hair, for example, make sure to be as specific as you can in the URL and the page title. Otherwise, you risk your website falling behind the thousands of other hair care companies that turn up in searches.

This is also important when potential customers make more specific searches. If you use the same title for every page on your website, you could be missing out on a huge audience chunk from more specific searches that don’t result in your web page.

The main point of search engine optimization? Make your business stand out clear as day from your competitors. When a customer makes a specific query on a search engine, you want your business to be the first one that pops up. After all, Imforza states that 75% of users never move past the first page of results. If you don’t make it to the first page of results, at the very least, you’re already a step behind.

Search engine optimization is invaluable. Since you can’t see your consumer, it is important to do everything in your power to make sure that they can see you.