Venturing Beyond Your Local

To be heard, you have to say something. To be seen, you have to go out. To be noticed, you have to stand out.

The same applies for your business online.

Having a presence online isn't just about having a standard website. It's about putting yourself out there, everywhere, wherever possible.

But how do you do this?

The trick is to publish both on your site, and on that of others.

Answering The 'Why?' Question

Many businesses tend to stick to building the content of their own website. How terribly clichéd.

Yes, plying your own website with sparkling fresh content on an ongoing basis is undeniably one of the simplest means of optimising your website for high rankings on Google search results. It is also undeniably a prerequisite for bringing readers and customers back for more on a regular basis - no one wants to read the same stuff day in and day out.

Unfortunately, limiting yourself to publishing content on your own website has the tendency to limit the extent to which the information and the business name travels. Publishing content solely on your own website means that people have to specifically search for your content or website, and you have to pray that somehow you are on the top of that Google search result list every time.

By publishing work on other sites, you are building a name for yourself and/or your business and you are proving your authority on the topic. Readers will respect you for your passion and expertise.

Furthermore, by linking back to your own website from the other sites where you have published content, you will be creating valuable back-links. If your published content is good, there is a high chance readers will follow your link back to your website. Yes, you are generating organic leads! You are also further optimising your site with meaningful back-links, and consequently making your website even more attractive to the Google search engine.

The 'How-To' Guide

So how do you go about doing this?

Firstly, focus on content. Content is pretty much anything you can think of that can be posted online. We're talking articles, media releases, podcasts, web video, opinion pieces, etc, etc and etc. Anything goes. Just make sure the content must be sparkling fresh. Organic even. Just like teachers at school, search engines love to punish for plagiarism, so don't even think about it! This also means that content that you publish on your own website must be different to what you publish elsewhere. Yes, it isn't technically plagiarism if you are copying your own work, but search engines don't know that, now do they?

Secondly, there are numerous means of getting content published. You have the option of utilising news sites, publishing sites and directories. Also consider embracing social media such as Twitter, YouTube or blogs as a viable publishing option - these can build on your brand personality and enable cool guerrilla marketing tactics such as viral marketing.

Finally, while you're out there getting yourself heard, don't ever forget to pay equal attention to maintaining and updating the content on your own website. This is after all where the final conversion happens - it's where all those leads become realised as sales.

On an absolute last note, if time, strategy or the know-how is an issue, ask for help. There's no point doing things if they aren't done properly. Get professionals to assist. Read more about the Nuts & Bolts.