Establishing a strong web presence through a successful online business can be a really profitable venture. The following techniques will help you get your business noticed online and stand out from your competitors.

Choose an accurate domain name
Many businesses fail to establish a strong online presence because their owners choose irrelevant domain names. The domain name of your online business should contain your key product. For instance, if you sell glasses, you should include the keyword “glasses” in your domain name. Unless you have an already established and reputable online business, customers will find you by typing in the search engine the keyword of the product they are looking for. So, make sure to select an accurate domain name in order to target the right audience and convey the right marketing message.

Optimize your website
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a crucial success factor for your online business. By optimizing your website, your online business earns a higher ranking in the search engine results pages (SERPS). Effective optimization means that when a user enters a keyword in a search engine like Google or Yahoo, your website will appear in the first pages of results. For example, if you sell women’s clothes, use keywords such as “women’s apparel”, “women’s fashion” and so on. Generic keywords like “jeans”, “underwear”, “skirts” etc. won’t bring traffic to your online business. By making your website “search-engine friendly” you can attract prospects and turn them into regular customers. In fact, Google uses “spiders”, a software that crawls the web frequently and finds sites to index.

Pay attention to metrics
Keyword density, keyword frequency and keyword prominence are key factors to get your online business noticed. Keyword density measures the number of times a keyword appears within a webpage against the total number of words on this page. Webmasters suggest that keyword density ratio should ideally be 3% to 4%. The higher the keyword density, the higher the website’s visibility in the search engine results pages. Keyword frequency is very similar to keyword density, but alone is not enough to rank a website high in the SERPS. Keyword prominence refers to the placement of important keywords in the HTML source code of a webpage. Important keywords should be included in the first paragraph of your website so that search engines immediately match them with user searches.

Write accurate product descriptions
Original and accurate product descriptions will earn you a higher ranking in the SERPS. Your goal is to outgrow your competition by adding value to your online business. Include nice pictures of your products so that your customers know what they are buying for and links for targeting long-tail keywords.

Create attractive content
The content of your online business is the most cost-effective way to attract more customers and build up your organic traffic based on your keywords and link building. Major search engines like Google and Yahoo focus on valuable content, which addresses the needs of a specific target audience. By creating unique, shareable content, which may include attractive graphics,  you not only improve the popularity of your online business, but people want to share your content on major social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest and LinkedIn.

Ask for product reviews
Encourage your customers to write reviews on your products or services. This will add value to your online business because happy customers are the best advocates of a company. Unhappy customers will help you improve grey areas. Nevertheless, customer reviews indicate high circulation, which might earn you a higher ranking in the SERPS.

Advertise your online business
If you can afford it, engage in pay-per-click advertising to have ads displayed when users enter the keywords in the major search engines. You may use Google Adwords, the most extensively used form of PPC advertising. Include the important keywords in your Google campaign and target specific audience around the globe through geotagging.
If you cannot afford the PPC rates, advertise your online business in online magazines with global readership. These magazines can potentially introduce your business to an international customer base. The goal is to increase brand awareness and attract more customers to your online business.