A digital marketer, Edward Asare has advised business owners to consider having online presence as a critical tool for business growth.

He says this is necessary to give businesses a competitive advantage as it increases patronage due to the huge number of people online.

“If your business is not online, it does not exist in 2023. It really matters a lot. It does not cost much to have a decent website for your page and share content on it continuously so you establish some form of presence on these pages.

"The fact that you have a website alone gives you some form of image, prestige that people would want to associate with because they see you as more serious. If someone is able to find you through search results, it's easier to close a deal for you," he said.

He made these comments whilst elaborating the importance of Search Engine Optimisation to businesses on Master Class on JoyFM on June 14.

Search engine optimisation is the organic method of improving a website's ranking in search results.

He explained that for a business to increase its search optimisation, it must have a website where quality content is generated.

Highlighting ways to develop quality contents he said;

• A business owner must develop unique, engaging, and informative content about their goods or services
• Learn to use targeted keywords naturally in content on the website
• Must focus on user intent and provide value 
• Regularly update and add fresh content to the website.

He added that in running a website or a blog, any image or video uploaded must be properly named.

This, he stressed increases the search engine optimatisation since keywords of these videos can make a business website pop up during a search result.

The digital market continued that in running a website for a business, only the original content must be uploaded.

https://beta.myjoyonline.com/be-consistent-on-social-media-digital-marketer-tells-business-owners

“When you google something and the search result comes up, sometimes depending on how valuable your content is, so many people will go visiting your website. It leads to a lot of traffic. Now this metric is picked by google …the more people come to your page it gives Google an idea that probably you have some very good content on your page.

“So it shows you to more people and that's how they get to know you have original content on your page,” he said.

Another way, he said a business could increase its search engine optimisation, is to partner with media giants like myjoyonline to write articles on their businesses and reference their business websites as sources of their content.

The mentions by myjoyonline, he said increases a business ranking on googles list thereby making their businesses pop up when a keyword relating to their business is entered into search engines.

Finally, he advised business owners to create a profile online using 'google my business.'

This feature allows business owners to enter the names of their organisations, the location, and time of the operations on the internet.