At a family dinner, someone asked me if I could help a professional with his company.
Here’s the situation:
The person in question is transitioning from his day job to his side gig. He’s starting to work as a masseur and needs more clients. Can I help him?
The answer is yes, but this type of project presents certain challenges:
- Time constraints: Because massage is currently a side gig, the time he’ll likely be able to devote to communication and marketing will be limited.
- Brand recognition: His brand is currently unknown. This means the first step is building brand awareness and trust. This takes time.
- Low budget: Financial resources are tight, which limits the scope of what can be done.
For an agency, this type of client can be tricky. Projects like these are often hard to make profitable – for both the client and the agency. That’s the reality when working with tiny companies or freelancers who are just starting out.
But I still want to help. And that’s also the idea behind this blog: Providing self-help resources and knowledge for tiny companies or freelancers who are just starting their self-employment journey, and others whose budgets are a bit too tight to consider outsourcing.
This post is your go-to reference. It’s designed to guide you through the initial steps of establishing an online presence, building credibility, and attracting clients.
Where do I start?
So, how would I approach things if I were starting my brand online today? How would I address the problem of establishing visibility and trust for my business?
Theory and strategy
You can start by reading about the theory. Do some thinking and learning about how marketing and brands work. Then map out a short strategy outlining how you could address this new challenge.
Here are some questions you can consider:
- How does brand awareness work?
In a nutshell, branding is a mix of becoming visible, repetition, and eventually, becoming trusted. You can read more about that here. - What do you want to say and sell?
Understanding who you’re talking to is very important. But at the beginning, I would also try not to overcomplicate it. I’ve outlined some questions you need to ask yourself here. - What is the best marketing channel for your business?
Should you invest in a newsletter, social media, or ads? Here is a breakdown of the various marketing approaches companies currently use.
Some branding and positioning
At times, you might hear that logos and brand names don’t really count for that much. I don’t agree. But you don’t need to overcomplicate this in the beginning. A very simple logo might do the trick in the first months of your endeavour. You can always change it later. There may be fees and minor headaches, but chances are, you’ll figure out what is important as your marketing activities evolve.
Reminder: A logo is not a brand.
Some steps you can take now:
- Outline your brand (values, message, tone of voice, purpose)
- Get a logo
- Have some professional pictures taken—of your face, but also of your location.
At this point, you may not even need business cards or flyers.
Start the grind
This is where the real work starts.
1) Get the domain
You want to get one of these as early in the process as possible. Domainr makes it simple to explore variations. You want to go for the simplest version. And it’s best to choose a .com if you have the option.
Tip: Before hitting “purchase”, search your domain in the Wayback Machine – Do any shady results appear in the search (for example, casinos, porn sites, or other strange things)? This is a red flag that you need to find a different domain.
2) Set up a landing page
Make the domain available to Google. You want your domain to be “visible” and indexed by Google as early as possible. For the first few months, Google will « sandbox » the domain. This means your domain is in a test phase and it will almost never appear in Google search results. After a few months, when Google understands that you’re not a spammer, your site will start to appear more in searches.
Tips:
For the landing page, you can use carrd or Squarespace .
3) Improve your Google Maps Ranking
For a small, location-based company, this is really the most important thing you can do. Even before you create a website. More details.
4) Get a website
This is fairly obvious. When you’re starting out, a website builder, à la SquareSpace, will do the trick. If you have a larger budget, you can hire a freelancer.
5) Testimonials and recommendations
For sure, through your network, you are able to get your first customers. Your initial clients might be friends or family. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that they publicly rate your service.
Tip: Ask your first customers to share their testimonials on Google. Then ask their permission to share them on social media or publish them on your website later.
6) Start posting on Social Media
The level of challenge connected to this task may depend on whether your business is one that easily translates into images. If you bake cakes or you’re a designer, this part can be quite easy. But if you’re starting out as a change-management consultant, you’ll want to use a platform that is better suited to your business, like LinkedIn.
7) Get listed
There are loads of online registries where you can get yourself listed. These could include TripAdvisor, Clutch or Crunchbase. Just don’t use Local.ch if you’re in Switzerland.
8) Setup Google Analytics
Now you’ll want to know if all that effort was worth it. Setting up Google Analytics, will give you indications of where the traffic to your site comes from. These are the areas where you might want to double down.
There are other options, ones with simpler dashboards or with a privacy and data-sovereignty focus. The links I’ve provided here are both for paid tools.
9) Setup the Google search console
With the Google Search Console (GSC), you can easily monitor how often your site appears on Google, which keywords or phrases trigger your site, your site’s position in the search, and images from your site in Google Images. Additionally, GSC highlights issues such as page errors or blocks and website speed problems.
10) Basic SEO optimisation
You’ll want to make sure that your site appears in Google searches and that it hasn’t been de-indexed. You also want to ensure that the performance is OK. Then with a short keyword search, you want to ensure your site at least appears when someone searches the keyword.
You might need to add the keyword in the meta title and as an H1 tag on one of the main pages. I need to write a blog post on this.
( Applies mostly if you are doing B2B.)
11) Outreach
Depending on your industry and service, you may want to start sending out some emails. Identify companies that might be interested in your service or partners that might want to resell your services.
But don’t be tempted to spam your contact list. Reach out to the correct person with the ideal message. Also make sure you follow your local regulations.
12) PR
With my Café Vert TV project, one of the first things I needed to do was send a PR release. It wasn’t a lot of work to get a feature. A local crew, a new idea, and a bold statement:
“We’re launching a TV station!”.
We landed a front page in a local newspaper, we were featured in Readers Digest (!) and I went on live radio during prime time to speak about it. Not bad.
Not all projects are suited for this a PR campaign, but if you can, it’s probably a good idea to try it.
The goal? To get some brand traffic and signal to Google your site is legit. And hopefully, you’ll get some backlinks too (like a link from the news outlet back to your site), which will boost your traffic and Google rankings.
(the next step applies only if you are doing e-commerce)
13) Google Merchant center
If you are an e-commerce brand or sell products, you need to be on the Google Merchant center. Even though you may not get any clicks at all without advertising.
14) Start with the ads.
When you reach this step, you’ll probably need help. In theory, running a very simple Facebook or Google Ads campaign can be rather simple. In practice, every time I’ve seen a campaign created by someone who was not a pro, it seemed like most of the budget was wasted.
Google has these Google Express Ads. They make it super simple for you to advertise on Google. But the process is not at all transparent. And you won’t really know if the campaign was worth it.
Conclusion
Promoting your company online—especially if you’re starting from scratch with a limited budget—can be challenging, but it’s entirely feasible with the right approach. By following the steps outlined in this guide, you can build a strong online presence. Remember, consistency and patience are key.
Whether you’re a small business or a freelancer, these strategies will help you gain visibility, build credibility, and attract clients. For additional, more detailed resources, be sure to explore the links I’ve provided throughout this post.
And reach out if you need help.
That’s a wrap for today.