Many Business owners, unfortunately, fail to make a significant online presence as either they are not aware of what to do or they don’t follow the necessary practices.
The following basic steps will help you in marking a successful presence in the online business.

1. Choosing the Right Website Host

For the newbies, who are starting to go online, developing the right type of website is one hell of a hefty task.
But it’s really not that difficult as it seems. All you need are two partners – a website host and a content management system (CMS) – to help you develop a site.
A website host is the one who provides the technologies and services to host and present your website to the world, whereas the CMS platform is the one to design and develop the site.
While choosing the right website host, you must first be able to determine as to what are the services you actually need. Based on that, you will need to choose from the three basic types – individual plans, dedicated servers, and shared hosting.
You need to do a detailed of each and every plan before finalizing which one will suit your requirements in the best way.

2. Finding a CMS Platform

The second step is to choose a CMS platform. Though there are numerous ways to build websites, if you wish to avoid dealing with coding and technical aspects then a CMS platform is for you.
There are many CMS solutions available in the market, most prominent ones being WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. As you did with the hosting providers, you need to compare multiple CMS platforms before going for the one.

3. Designing the Website

A strong house cannot be built by simply building a strong foundation. You need to structure a house with walls, windows, doors, and various other elements to give a visual appeal to the house.
If a website host and CMS solution are the foundation of that house (website), then the design is the structure.
First and foremost, decide the purpose of your website, whether you need a static website with a sole aim to provide a digital front to your business, or will the website be used for selling products.
It is possible that your business objective change in the future, but initially deciding on a clear-cut purpose of the website will help you choose the suitable design.
Once the purpose is determined, it the time to move to the designing part. You can choose a pre-designed template or hire a web designer to do so for you, both are good enough and depend on the cost and experience.

4. Developing an SEO strategy

Now that your website is up and running, it’s time to divert traffic to the site. Most of the customers don’t prefer to directly type a website URL in their browser.
You need to be able to put your website link in front of them to click and visit, which can be done through search engine optimization (SEO).
A large number of potential customer base searches for the products or services on search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. If they are able to see your website in their search results, they are more like to visit your website and increase the chances of them becoming your actual customers.
SEO is a vast and complete topic and no one has ever been able to do it on their own, without spending a significant amount of time in researching the ins and outs of the industry or hiring an SEO expert to develop a perfect strategy which can bring you on top among your competitors.

5. Investing in Content Marketing and Social Media

With your website gaining a good amount of traffic and performing well in terms of SEO, the next step is to perform better and expand your online presence further by investing in content marketing and Social Media.
With millennials comprising a large number of customers all around the world, it is a good practice to engage with them via content and social media so that they can be directed towards your website.

Conclusion

At present, almost all the modern brands and businesses have some form of a virtual presence. However, only a small number of these businesses actually have a strong foundation that is necessary for their long-term growth.
If you wish to survive for long the in the digital world, you must have your key decision makers to develop a concrete plan, to begin with.
By handing over certain tasks to the outsiders and managing others internally, you can develop a strong online presence that will help you grow profits for your business.